His team found a number of major violations and ultimately recommended
that the FCC make UTA return over $900,000. But in the end, the school paid nothing. In the years that have followed, it and the numerous
institutions within its sprawling system of boys and girls’ schools in
Brooklyn and Rockland County, each of which now files separately for
E-rate, have been awarded tens of millions of E-rate dollars. In 2012,
one of UTA’s service providers billed the program $81,600, just on
Internet access for the Williamsburg boys’ divisions. That is despite the fact that UTA students are not allowed access to the Internet.
The Jewish Week reports:
Nine years ago, Thomas Cline traveled from Washington, D.C., to Brooklyn to tour seven buildings occupied by the United Talmudical Academy.
As the assistant inspector general for audit at the Federal Communications Commission’s Office of Inspector General, Cline — whose Southern drawl must have stood out amid the Yiddish accents of Williamsburg — was there to look at the large Satmar school system’s more than $1 million in technology purchases, in 1999, subsidized by the FCC’s E-rate program.
His team found a number of major violations and ultimately recommended that the FCC make UTA return over $900,000. But in the end, the school — which did not return calls from The Jewish Week seeking an interview — paid nothing. In the years that have followed, it and the numerous institutions within its sprawling system of boys and girls’ schools in Brooklyn and Rockland County, each of which now files separately for E-rate, have been awarded tens of millions of E-rate dollars. In 2012, one of UTA’s service providers billed the program $81,600, just on Internet access for the Williamsburg boys’ divisions.
That is despite the fact that UTA students are not allowed access to the Internet.…
Asked if it is currently investigating any potential improprieties in E-rate use among haredi institutions, Cline, the FCC auditor involved in the 2004 visit to UTA, declined to share specifics but said, “It’s come to our attention, and we are looking into it.”
In response to a follow-up e-mail from The Jewish Week, sent after the first two installments of an investigative series were published and seeking comment on some of the institutions the articles addressed, Cline said, via e-mail: “I can’t confirm, deny or discuss any investigative activity currently in progress by our staff.”
However, he added, his staff has “found the articles very interesting.”…
Keep reading Part 3 of The Jewish Week's 4-month investigation into what appears to be massive E-rate fraud by haredi schools here.