Missouri

Missourians receiving federal food assistance for low-income women and children will face fewer administrative hurdles to get benefits after the state modernized its system. The Women, Infants and Children Program, known as WIC, for years required participants to physically visit an office to have their benefits loaded onto their cards—a requirement that sometimes hindered eligible Missourians from getting the food benefits at all.

Missouri’s Office of Broadband Development reported that scoring and initial determinations for Round 1 of the state’s Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program process could result in preliminary awards for 150,712 eligible locations. The state is not announcing who the winners are, however. Missouri is set to receive $1.736 billion in BEAD funding. The OBD is part of the state’s Department of Economic Development.

SEMO Electric Cooperative, through its subsidiary GoSEMO Fiber, provides high-speed internet service to over 10,000 subscribers in rural Missouri. In this open letter, SEMO urges members of the Missouri congressional delegation to support the state’s approach to expanding fiber through the the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program. Fiber, SEMO says, is essential infrastructure for Missouri to recover from tornadoes, storms, and other disasters.

The first of four new digital learning labs helping Saint Louisans to learn computer skills opened on March 31. Now, the Tandy Recreation Center is equipped to provide residents with computer access, internet connectivity, digital literacy training, and one-on-one help from digital navigators.

Missouri was the first state to ask the Federal Communications Commission to return Rural Digital Opportunity Fund broadband funding awarded to providers in the state who later defaulted on their awards.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R-MO), in partnership with Missouri Farm Bureau President Garrett Hawkins, directed a letter to the Federal Communications Commission, urging it to rightfully return defaulted funding through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund to Missouri to expand broadband and rural internet access. The letter follows the recent reveal that the RDOF will not connect 85,000 Missouri service locations, and Missouri will lose approximately $177 million in federal investment. Attorney General Bailey urges “that action be taken by the FCC to rightfully return previously

Conexon Connect, the internet service provider formed by rural fiber broadband leader Conexon, continues to extend access to high-speed internet across rural America.

The Missouri Office of Broadband Development announced that the year’s first round of Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment funding is closed. During this initial round, OBD received a total of 519 applications, which would bring broadband to more than 192,000 of the state’s residents and businesses. OBD said this represents 90 percent of the locations eligible for the funding. Nearly $4 million in funding was requested. The next step will be for OBD to review those applications.