FCC Shifts $9 Billion Phone Aid Fund Out of Bank of America

The Federal Communications Commission began moving almost $9 billion collected to subsidize phone and broadband service from a Bank of America account to what auditors call safer ground at the US Treasury. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has begun shifting the Universal Service Fund money on advice from government auditors, who said keeping the money outside government coffers was risky, according to Mark Wigfield, an FCC spokesman. Auditors recommended moving the money “to better protect and manage this nearly $9 billion fund,” Wigfield said. He called the move part of Pai’s “overall push to protect and better manage the Universal Service Fund.” The fund, which spent $8.8 billion in 2017, is financed by charges on the monthly bills of telephone users and helps pay for communications service to poor people and remote areas. The change happened “in the dark of night last week,” said FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. She called it “a shame” that the agency is foregoing over $50 million in annual interest income that could be used to support rural broadband, remote medicine facilities and school connections.