Less for More: Checking in on New York’s CPF Programs

New York has leveraged over $300 million in federal Capital Projects Fund and state funds to underwrite broadband deployment via the Municipal Infrastructure Program and the Affordable Housing Connectivity Program. The Advanced Communications Law and Policy Institute has been closely tracking these programs, both of which have funded projects that will result in significant overbuilding of existing broadband network infrastructure (see also our earlier Round 1 evaluation and Cortland County analyses). Over the last few months, the state has begun to alter the funding and scope of many MIP and AHCP projects. None of these changes were announced by the state broadband office, ConnectALL. Instead, the ACLP learned of these significant changes by digging through voluminous meeting packets prepared for the board of directors of Empire State Development, which oversees ConnectALL. Previous ACLP analyses of these programs used data received in response to Freedom of Information requests.