Firm to audit West Virginia broadband stimulus spending

A consulting firm has been tapped to review how West Virginia state officials are spending more than $126 million in federal economic stimulus funds to expand high-speed Internet in West Virginia, state Commerce Secretary Keith Burdette said.

"At the end of the day, I suspect we've made some mistakes," Burdette said. "I'm reading stuff in [Charleston Gazette] stories and learning stuff in the process." The Gazette reported that the state of West Virginia is using $24 million in stimulus money to put more than 1,000 high-powered Internet routers in small libraries, elementary schools and health clinics, even though the equipment is designed to serve major research universities, medical centers and large corporations. The routers cost $22,600 each. "If those routers are bigger than we need, then we need to figure out what do we do about it," Burdette said. "Where do we go from here? Let's figure out how we can use them."