The Congressional Governmental Operations Committee spent more than an hour discussing a broadband project before it finally voted unanimously to recommend that the whole Congress appropriate $40.68 million to build the fiber optic network.
The enormous expenditure is funded by a grant from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which is charged with bringing high-speed internet to underserved areas. Because of slow internet speeds, virtually all of Osage County is judged to be underserved.
The Nation and Osage Innovative Solutions LLC had initially anticipated that OIS would oversee the grant and construction of the broadband project, but that plan was changed for reasons that have been only vaguely articulated in public forums.
Jim Trumbly, the former director of OIS who recently moved over to the executive branch of the Nation to manage the broadband project, told Congress that the tight timeline dictated by the NTIA grant was one reason for the change of course. NTIA requires that the project, which involves laying hundreds of miles of fiber optic, be up and running in two years from the date of the grant award in August.
“To meet the timeline, we have to be very reactionary and very agile in our project management,” Trumbly told the committee on Sept. 14.
“We brought it in-house so we can have better control over it.
“We have 685 days to get this done. I’m not going to lie to you. It’s going to be a huge challenge.”
In response to an email from the Osage News, Secretary of Administration James Weigant elaborated.
“We are still working through this grant and modifying our approach as we learn, adapt and things change,” Weigant wrote. “There was some initial confusion that we could charge all administrative costs to the NTIA grant. That has since been cleared up and now we are using ARPA [American Rescue Plan Act] funds to administer the NTIA and other broadband grants that we have been awarded and may be awarded in the future.”
A $3.5 million bill approved last year to expand broadband coverage using ARPA money, he added, is morphing into a broadband administration account that will be used to pay temporary employees: “That is the ‘brought in-house’ we were talking about.”
“We had always envisioned the Osage Nation IT Department constructing the infrastructure with our grant and then OIS could operate the network once we built it,” he added. “In my opinion, what appears to have not been factored like it should have on the front end is the Osage Nation Competitive Bidding Act (CBA). We cannot waive the CBA and we will work through the bid process as outlined by Osage law. We encourage Osage, LLC to bid on the operations package that is coming up. They will receive priority points for an Osage business.”
In addition to the NTIA grant, the Nation received $13.9 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for broadband, and it has other grant applications pending that could expand the scope beyond supplying only Native Americans in Osage County with affordable, high-speed internet. For now, the NTIA grant is limited to hooking up 3,158 Native households to high-speed internet – at a cost of about $13,000 per home. A pending grant would allow the Nation to supply broadband to anyone.
Grants Management Director Christa Fulkerson said that the project should operate like a program initially but will spin off into a separate tribal business – much as the WahZhaZhe Health Clinic recently did – once the Nation and its people have the skill set to operate the system.
The suggestion that the Nation would be operating a business gave several members of the committee pause and some asked for a more comprehensive plan once the project moves forward.
“My question is, is this a program or is this a business?” asked Congresswoman Pam Shaw.
“They are wanting to have it as a program at first while building it, then hand it off,” Fulkerson replied. “This is a business we’re trying to babysit. We do this all the time. Before we hand off to the LLC, we babysit that or we might hand it off to the LLC and still babysit it because there’s reporting that goes on, programmatic and fiscal reporting, annual reports. These are things that, frankly, the LLC doesn’t follow up on or do unless we are knocking on that back door.
“If you do not meet programmatic or fiscal reporting requirements, they will take the money away and the money you’ve already spent can be taken back. And this is millions of dollars.
“This is mitigating risk …
“Handing it off to the LLC, yeah, that would be an easy thing for all of us to do but we do want it to succeed. And we want to do our due diligence. That’s what I’m here for. That’s what the team is here for. And I hope we have your support.”
They did have congressional support: The committee voted unanimously to recommend that the whole Congress approve the appropriation.
One lingering detail, however, remains up in the air. Information Technology Director Bill Fenton said that the Nation has issued a request for proposals for the operation of the broadband system – the behind-the-scenes maintenance, customer service and billing issues – to be performed in such a manner that Osages could learn and then run the system on their own eventually.
Congresswoman Jodie Revard asked why no one had asked for an appropriation for that purpose.
Fenton responded that it’s too early, that the broadband team would have to review the proposals after the RFP closes Sept. 30.
“We’re not at that point yet,” Fenton said. “We don’t have a number to bring to Congress. “As far as operations, we have a lot to work out.”
