Frontier won't return $4.7M in broadband funds to West Virginia

Frontier Communications won’t give back any of the $4.7 million in stimulus funds that the federal government says West Virginia overpaid the company as part of a statewide project to expand high-speed internet, Frontier told state government officials this week.

A federal agency recently ordered the state to return the misspent funds paid to Frontier. The U.S. Commerce Department’s payment demand followed an inspector general’s report that found Frontier padded hundreds of invoices with extra charges and the state improperly reimbursed Frontier for those “unreasonable and unallowable” fees. Federal grant rules barred the state from using stimulus funds to pay such project costs.

In a letter to West Virginia Chief Technology Officer John Dunlap this week, Frontier asserted that any funds the state might return to the federal government “are, of course, not recoverable from Frontier.”

Frontier cited a “memorandum of understanding,” signed by the company and state officials, in which West Virginia agreed to use federal funds to pay Frontier for overhead costs — the same expenses the feds now say were prohibited under the grant rules. Frontier said it only signed on to the broadband project after state officials agreed to reimburse the company for all costs — “both indirect and direct,” the letter stated.

Read more: https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/politics/frontier-won-t-return-m-in-broadband-funds-to-wv/article_6584f423-09e5-5226-bb24-3cab536544f9.html