Recently-passed FY '02 appropriations present a mixed picture for federal community technology funding.

The Department of Education's Community Technology Centers program, funded at $65 million in FY '01, will receive $32.5 million under the Labor/HHS/Education appropriations bill passed by Congress in late December and awaiting President Bush's signature. The Technology Opportunities Program, housed under the Department of Commerce's National Technology Infrastructure Administration, receives $12.4 million under the FY '02 Commerce-Justice-State appropriations signed into law last November, down from $45 million in FY '01. But the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Neighborhood Networks program, an initiative which has received no funding since its inception in 1995, will receive a total of $20 million in VA-HUD spending under the Public Housing Capital Fund and HOPE VI funds to revitalize severely distressed public housing.

The Bush Administration's first budget request emphasized a consolidation, if not elimination, of individual technology access and education technology programs-- especially those thought to be duplicating efforts and perceived as inaccessible to small, local community efforts. The Administration's request, however, called for both higher funding for CTCs, and a shift in program administration to the HUD Neighborhood Networks program, at a funding level of $80 million. While this would have represented in increase in the amount spent for community technology overall, in keeping with his campaign pledge, it also raised concerns among supporters and current recipients of the Education Department grants. Among them were fears that support for existing projects, funded by three-year matching grants, might be at risk, as well as the America Connects Consortium, the only federally-sponsored CTC coordination, improvement, and outreach network.

More fundamental was the worry that community technology will continue to be viewed as a range of disparate, if not competing, interests among schools, libraries, nonprofit organizations, businesses, and other community institutions, contributing to the confusion around what each accomplishes. The Education CTC program provides matching grants to develop access points for computers, information and telecommunications technology in the context of educational services and skills training for those lacking such access at home, work or school. TOP supports public-private-nonprofit efforts to help develop the national advanced telecommunications and information technology infrastructure to help deliver social services -- including education, health, employment, and public safety -- to underserved rural and urban areas across the country. Neighborhood Networks works through private/public partnerships to establish multi-service central points utilizing information technology in areas of low- and moderate-income multi-family housing. In addition, there are technology access and training initiatives administered by a number of other federal agencies, yet with little to no coordination among them.

Last May, Senators Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) were successful in getting the first-ever authorizing language for the federal CTC program added to the Senate version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) bill, which included $100 million for the creation and expansion of more than 1,000 CTCs. Sen. Mikulski, who became chair of the Senate VA-HUD Appropriations subcommittee last spring, however, also pushed for full funding of the President's CTC request under HUD, signaling that support of both programs might be possible. By mid-November, however, the reauthorized ESEA bill signed into law lacked the proposed $100 million program funding level, elimination of TOP, long threatened throughout most of the year, seemed likely, and funding for community technology centers was in jeopardy, barring approval of a last-minute Senate request for current level funding of CTCs under the Education Department's Fund for Improving Education, and reduced funding for HUD Neighborhood Networks.

The existing federal programs emphasize collaboration among important community- based and community-focused actors and institutions, as well as innovation, dissemination of promising practices, and evaluation and replication of successful models. Though popular among grant recipients and vital to program beneficiaries, the supporter base has not been effective in sustaining widespread support and visibility on the Hill around broader community technology policy goals and objectives. This has resulted in a shift away from rallying cries attacking the digital divide, and towards the daunting question of “access to what, by whom, towards what end?”

More troubling have been growing criticism from smaller community-based organizations and initiatives that federal funding is difficult to access, administer, or sustain, due to burdensome application and reporting procedures, and competition from groups with more resources, experience, and expertise in garnering support. In response to these concerns, the Education Department posted its final rules regarding competitive funding on November 30, 2001, allowing the secretary of education latitude in holding separate competitive rounds for, or assigning competitive preference to, novice applicants in discretionary grant programs.

Given the current economic uncertainty around sustainable funding for new and existing programs, there is heightened urgency upon the broader community of technology access interests to articulate their needs for coordinated federal investments to help spur innovative and effective approaches to technology access, knowledge and skills, and utilization for individual and community development and participation in civic, social, and economic life.