Chairman Pai’s Response to Sens Markey and Sullivan Regarding the FCC’s E-Rate Program

On March 7, Sens Ed Markey (D-MA) and Dan Sullivan (R-AK) wrote to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai to express concern about the transition by the Universal Service Administrative Co. (USAC) to a new vendor for reviewing E-Rate applications. On March 28, Chairman Pai responded by saying "USAC recently migrated to a new Business Process Outsourcing vendor to perform certain administrative functions for the E-Rate program. To minimize disruption to schools and libraries and help ensure a smooth transition, the FCC's Wireline Competition Bureau and Office of the Managing Director staff have exercised close oversight of USAC' s transition activities, including regular meetings with USAC staff to discuss and monitor the steps taken on operations, information technology, staffing, and stakeholder outreach. FCC staff continues to closely monitor progress as USAC begins to process Funding Year 2019 applications. And I have directed staff and USAC to exceed [2018]'s 95% target for processing E-Rate applications by September 1 of [2019]."