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NEC Admits To Ripping Off Schools Through E-Rate Program

Posted by timothy on from the infinite-takers-for-finite-pie dept.

MAurelius writes "The New York Times (regist. req'd) is reporting that NEC now admits to ripping off multiple low-income school districts by connecting them to the internet with equipment more advanced and expensive than necessary. Several orders of magnitude more expensive. All paid for by telephone rate-payers. That would be you."

9 of 250 comments (clear)

  1. Reg Free by bendelo · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here's a registration free link thanks to Google.

  2. Re:US-centric by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    And how would this comment be Insightful?

    /. is US-centric, read the FAQ.

  3. Why E-rate sucks by zerofoo · · Score: 4, Informative

    I work for a private non-profit school (as a tech-coordinator and network admin). Most of our kids are public district funded, so we are eligible for e-rate funded programs.

    We have none, here's why:

    E-rate, like most government programs, is waist high in beaurocratic paperwork and red-tape. No one in the system looks for competing bids for two reasons:

    1. There is no financial incentive for schools to pick a low bidder - the money is free as far as they're concerned.

    2. It adds an enormous amount of paperwork to an already overburdened school staff. Is it worth hiring a full-time position to take care of this for e-rate programs that you aren't guaranteed to receive?

    Like any government system, it takes money from those who have it and tries to redistribute it to those that don't. It sounds nice - make the "haves" buy technology for the "havenots", but in reality only the "haves" have enough resources to pull it off.

    We get our technology the "old-fashioned" way. We either pay for it out of school tuition, or we seek private grants.

    -ted

  4. Re:Happens everywhere by AirLace · · Score: 2, Informative

    Looks like slashdot is stripping currency symbols. All values are in pound sterling (GBP).

  5. Vindicated by lone_marauder · · Score: 3, Informative

    I worked on an E-rate project years ago and saw this scam take place first hand. We were putting carrier class switches and high end file servers in schools connecting perhaps 20 computers.

    When I mentioned something about it at the time, it was decided by /. moderators that I was trolling.

    --
    who are those slashdot people? they swept over like Mongol-Tartars.
  6. Re:at least... by crem_d_genes · · Score: 3, Informative

    It has absolutely nothing to do with pride. It is sheer and simple pragmatism.

    On a federal count, to not plead guilty, and then be found guilty adds to the number of points the judge uses in setting the sentencing. When you know you're guilty in a federal case, it is very foolish to plead innocent when the evidence is amassed against you.

  7. Someone mentioned that no one is going to jail... by Vthornheart · · Score: 4, Informative
    But that should be corrected. Someone is going to jail, but it's no one at NEC (the people who actually COMMITTED the conspiracy to defraud). Nope, it's the head of janitorial services that they supposedly bribed:


    "That employee, Desmond McQuoid, was the custodial supervisor of the district. He pleaded guilty to mail fraud last year and was sentenced to 21 months in prison, according to Mr. Havian, the lawyer for the school district. Mr. Havian said the suit against Video Network Communications was still pending."


    Pretty brutal, eh? NEC gets away with a fine, while the person that they duped and intentionally threw money at gets sent to prison. And that, my friends, is what's wrong with our justice system. Not that he shouldn't have gone to jail, but I'd like to see some NEC people get sent up the river for this too... after all, the other guy was just duped by money. NEC and this other company they speak of actually planned the fraud and intentionally sought to take taxpayer money by the millions.


    I mean, I could see a scenario here where the fellow might not have even realized the scope of what was about to happen. They bribed him so that no other competitive bids would come in: a person who was easily duped might have just assumed that they wanted the business, not that they were planning on bending the school district over if you know what I mean.

    --
    -Vendal Thornheart
  8. Re:Sounds like a federal program by crem_d_genes · · Score: 2, Informative

    Well, see, we have an often ignored Constitution that says that powers not explicitly granted to the federal goverment (Education isn't mentioned in the constitution) are given to the state.

    Yes, that's correct.
    Yet, the federal government has imposed a very large number of unfunded mandates(read: *the law of the land*) on the States through the No Child Left Behind Act (and other laws), leaving the States to pick up the slack.
    In most States, the federal government picks up only a relatively small amount of funding.

  9. not offtopic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    this was modded as off topic.
    Since the wireless connection was put in through "project connect" which is funded through e-rate, this is very much on topic.
    http://www-1.ibm.com/services/alliances/ci sco/cisc o_nyc_boe_board.html