Broadband contract at center of state dispute

In 2009, with more than a quarter of all Floridians without broadband access to the Internet at home, state officials lined up to get some of the $7 billion in federal stimulus money to finance state-based programs to increase access. Enter Connected Nation, a little-known but well-connected Washington-based company. It won the Florida contract to use $2.5 million to map the broadband gaps for use by policymakers and telecommunications companies. A year later, when the state won a second grant for $6.3 million to extend the broadband efforts, Connected Nation, a nonprofit company, believed it had signed up to be part of a public-private partnership with the state that entitled the firm to a no-bid shot at that money too. But the Department of Management Services, the state agency that housed the project, disagreed.

The DMS said the grant requires it to use some of the money to pay for three more years of broadband mapping and the rest to expand broadband access in libraries and schools. The DMS hired eight contract employees to handle administration and provide services, paying them between $72,000 and $140,000 a year until the grant ends in 2014, and defended it as an efficient use of state funds. That began a bitter feud between Connected Nation and the DMS, an agency with a lengthy history of distrust among state budget leaders. In an audacious display of lobbying clout, Connected Nation got the Legislature to force the DMS off the contract and steer the second grant to the firm.