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DocumentDQ6.docx1. Program (LITAP) was established by the General Assembly to provide telephone service to low-income individuals. The General Assembly tasked two state agencies with administering LITAP. The Public Utilities Commission provides oversight and the Department of Human Services determines individuals’ eligibility for the program. As of December 2009, about 21,000 individuals were receiving the LITAP subsidy (Salley, 2010).
Key Findings Monitoring the Effectiveness of LITAP:
Program effectiveness - Only an estimated 5 percent of low-income households in Colorado participate in LITAP; however, according to FCC data, 96 percent of Colorado’s low-income households have access to a telephone. These data indicate that LITAP may not be effective. However, the Commission lacks adequate data, goals, and performance measures for evaluating program effectiveness (Salley, 2010).
Subsidy amount - Each year Colorado telephone customers pay about $856,000 more in fees than is necessary for each LITAP participant to receive the full federal Lifeline subsidy. In fact, in 2009 the total state and federal subsidy of $16.50 more than covered the average cost of basic local telephone service in Colorado (Salley, 2010).
Program outreach - The outreach conducted by the Commission and telephone carriers does not adequately publicize the availability of LITAP to potentially eligible individuals contributing to the low program participation rate (Salley, 2010).
Eligibility determination -The Department does not adequately mitigate the risk of fraud because it does not ensure that the LITAP applicant is the same individual whose name is associated with the telephone account, as required by statute (Salley, 2010).
Eligibility recertification - Approximately 11,800 of about 24,000 total Qwest LITAP accounts reviewed were ineligible for subsidies. The State has been paying $920,000 per year in public funds to ineligible individuals and may have to repay $1.4 million to the federal government for the Lifeline subsidies paid to ineligible individuals (Salley, 2010).
Verification of fee collections and subsidies - The Commission does not ensure that telephone carriers accurately collect and record fees collected from customers, provide the full LITAP subsidy to all eligible participants, and remit all excess collections to the State (Salley, 2010).
Access line fee - The Commission has not monitored the access line fee charged to Colorado telephone subscribers and the LITAP Fund has exceeded the statutory limit on uncommitted reserves in two of the last five years (Salley, 2010).
Future of the Program - LITAP has become increasingly obsolete due to federal regulations and the State’s lack of jurisdiction over cellular telephones. Eliminating the program would save telephone customers about $1.9 million per year (Salley, 2010).
These findings should be used to determine where or not to continue with the seemingly obsolete program in Colorado. Should the program continue, the findings should be used to make the program more effective, adjust the subsidy amount, provide more outreach, change eligibility requirements and recertification practices, and verify collection of fees.
Reference:
Salley, S., et. Al. (2010, May). Colorado Low-Income Telephone Assistance Program Public Utilities Commission Department of Human Services. Retrieved December 15, 2018, from http://hermes.cde.state.co.us/drupal/islandora/object/co:13953/datastream/OBJ/view
2. I you post There were a number of recommendations that were made and accordingly, various decisions were made as to accept or reject the recommendations. One of the recommendations that were agreed to called for establishing program goals and performance measures and; developing mechanism to collect sufficient and reliable data to monitor program effectiveness. What do you think of this recommendation?
3.
Following is one of the recommendations made "3 29 Improve LITAP outreach efforts by (a) developing a formal outreach plan, (b) working with the Department of Human Services and telephone carriers to define each entity’s role with respect to outreach, and (c) monitoring the implementation of the outreach plan and assessing the effectiveness of outreach efforts.
Public Utilities Commission -Department of Human Services
(Part b)
