Vermont State Auditor Doug Hoffer is at odds with the state’s Department of Public Service over a plan to improve Vermont’s telecommunications infrastructure.
The Vermont Department of Public Service adopted a 10-year telecommunications plan in 2021, a lengthy blueprint to help the state “provide best-in-class connectivity for Vermonters for decades,” the plan reads.
But in letters sent Sept. 29 to June Tierney, commissioner of the Vermont Department of Public Service, and to a handful of legislative committees, the auditor identified what he said were “shortcomings” in the document.
The plan does not adequately take into account goals written into state law and does not set clear targets or deadlines, which make it “impossible to measure progress towards the state’s goals,” Hoffer wrote.
On Thursday, Tierney and the consultants who completed the report pushed back on those critiques.
In an Oct. 5 letter to Hoffer, Tierney said her department would review his concerns carefully. But she pointed to what she called “a profound disconnect between what is actually in the 2021 Telecom Plan and the critique distilled in the September 29 Memo.”
The actual plan, she said, “provides more than sufficient grounds” to conclude that it meets state law.
At the center of the back-and-forth is the 10-year telecommunications plan, a nearly 400-page document completed by consultants Rural Innovation Strategies and CTC Energy and Technology, that lays out how the state will connect Vermonters to high-speed internet and better cell coverage.
The plan lays out six overarching goals for improving Vermont’s connectivity, including hooking up thousands of homes to high-speed internet, improving cell coverage in small towns, and promoting competition among service providers.
The telecommunications industry evolves quickly, and, under statute, Vermont is required to produce a new 10-year plan every three years. The same consultants are working on a new 10-year plan, due next summer.
But Hoffer contended that the 2021 plan “does not clearly identify recommendations for achieving Vermont’s telecommunications goals and does not establish measures to evaluate progress towards those goals.”
The plan, he said, also leaves out a number of the priorities enumerated in Vermont law. For example: The plan would prioritize connecting homes without cable or fiber access, and could leave out homes that already have low-speed broadband service, he said, although Vermont statute aims to bring high-speed internet to all Vermonters. (The plan notes that “there is reason to project” that the evolving broadband market will improve service at those low-speed homes.)
And, he said, while the statute notes that Vermonters should have access to affordable service, the 10-year plan’s six overarching goals do not mention affordability. (The plan does say, “The benefits of expanded broadband should not be out of reach to Vermonters based on geography, income, race, or any other factor.”)
In an interview, Hoffer said that the letters were not meant as a criticism. The intent, he said, was only to point out inconsistencies between the state’s goals and the plan developed to implement them.
The message to state officials is, “Look, it appears to us that there’s some shortcomings here,” he said. “And because you’re in process, and you’ve hired this consultant, you have the ability right now to make changes if you choose to.”
Tierney and the consultants, however, disagreed. On the question of whether the state’s telecom goals are being met, Tierney noted that the department is subject to a high level of oversight: The body “regularly appears before several legislative committees, where the agency’s work is closely scrutinized, and legislators check in on the progress that the Department is making on matters such as objectives that are discussed in the State Telecom Plan,” she wrote.
The consultants, meanwhile, said they had not been informed of the auditor’s inquiry and sent a point-by-point rebuttal of Hoffer’s memo, saying it contained “significant misunderstandings.”
“We would have welcomed the opportunity to provide to the Auditor’s office information or address issues that the Auditor’s office has now identified as ‘deficiencies’ with the resulting Plan,” the consultants said in an Oct. 5 letter signed by Matt Dunne, executive director of Rural Innovation Strategies, and Joanna Hovis, president of CTC Technology & Energy.
Vermont’s Department of Public Service is currently developing the new 10-year plan, which is expected to be adopted by June 2024. Because the process is ongoing, Hoffer wrote, he decided not to conduct a formal audit, but the office will keep an eye on the plan.
Rural Innovation Strategies and CTC are working on the new plan as well, an assignment that Tierney said she supports based on the “excellent caliber” of their work on the 2021 plan.
Sen. Ann Cummings, D-Washington and chair of the Senate Finance Committee, said she “didn’t see anything particularly earth-shattering” in Hoffer’s letter, but said lawmakers would discuss it with officials.
“My committee, we have a very good relationship with the Public Service Department,” she said. “And we’ll sit down and talk and try and get these things aligned.”