Take the win, you fool

Hey, here's a little good news buried in USAC's Federal Universal Service Support Mechanisms Fund Size Projections for Second Quarter 2026. Tucked into page 6, there's a table showing the percentage of improper payments in the USF programs.  For E-Rate, it 1.27%. Huzzah! Why the celebration? Well, in general, it shows how little waste, fraud and abuse there is in the program, which helps the program's prospects for the future.

But it's also good news for applicants this year. Why? Because if that percentage is above 2.5%, that triggers an expansion of auditing in the program. Back in 2008, when I first looked into this number, it was 12.9%. Look at us with a 10-fold decrease! The only other data point I think I've blogged about this was in 2019, when we were at 2.59%. So we've been improving for a while.

I felt like we were getting fewer audits lately; I guess that's real.

I probably shouldn't bring this up (again), but I've pointed out a way they could get that percentage up. See, improper payments should include underpayments. So instead of looking only at payments that were made looking for ones that should have been denied, auditors should also look at payments that were denied, to see if any of the denials were incorrect.  Applicant error is, according to the auditors, a major cause of improper payments. Imagine if they included in their improper payment total every denied funding request or invoice where, if not for applicant error, the applicant would have gotten funded.

Short term, that's a disaster, triggering more audits. But long term, it would provide a strong incentive to make the application process more fool-proof, so we fools wouldn't lose funding that we should get. Imagine if the FCC and USAC got dinged every time an applicant made a mistake that cost them funding. Eventually, the application process would get simpler and simpler. Of course, it's a bit self-destructive for an E-Rate consultant to wish for a simpler process, because no one would need me, but what can I say, I long for a more just world.