ACLP Releases Updated ARPA SLFRF Summary Workbook
The ACLP has released an updated workbook encompassing state and local broadband spending as part of the American Rescue Plan Act’s (ARPA) State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund (SLFRF). As of this version of the notebook, approximately $12B in SLFRF remained unallocated. Based on the ACLP’s analysis, total funding budgeted for broadband now totals $8.6B, representing about 2.6% of total SLFRF spending.
SLFRF’s Use in Fueling Non-Traditional Broadband Projects
ARPA SLFRF funding has fueled many non-traditional ISP projects, including municipal networks and cooperatives. The ACLP analyzed Treasury data and was able to categorize some, but not all, spending. Funding going to non-traditional providers includes:
- $446M is going to 115 municipal broadband projects.
- $92M has been allocated for 143 “internal” projects, such as fiber networks to connect municipal buildings.
- $43M has been awarded to consultants for 76 broadband studies and planning projects
- $218M is set to go towards 110 broadband projects led by telephone and electric cooperatives.
Alongside these, the ACLP identified $779M going to 381 private ISP projects.
SLFRF reporting remains suboptimal. Many project descriptions lack sufficient detail to indicate the funding recipient, which meant the ACLP was only able to categorize around $3.2B of the $8.6B total funds allocated. Examples of vague project descriptions include: “Broadband Fiber Network,” or “Increase broadband availability.” Without clear identification of what a project actually is, many were left uncategorized. As a result, the figures presented above are likely conservative estimates, with the actual totals being significantly higher.
Taken together, these data indicate that, in the coming years, a slew of new networks built by inexperienced firms will attempt to come online. The ACLP will track as many of these projects as it can to determine whether these funds have been invested wisely.
Methodology & User Guide
ACLP’s Dataset
To simplify use of the public reporting data, the ACLP has created an Excel workbook which includes an additional funding summary containing information on broadband-related expenditures.
Unlike in prior versions of our workbook, where the ACLP aggregated two separate data vintages, Treasury now handles this process. Included in Treasury’s workbook are:
- “Tier 1” and “Tier 2” recipients, reflecting data as of September 30, 2024. In those tiers are recipients with a population over 250,000 or exceeding certain funding award thresholds (depending on the type of recipient).
- “Tier 5” recipients (those smaller/below the Tier 1 and 2 thresholds) as of March 30, 2024. This data is reported annually instead of quarterly (Tiers 3 and 4 encompass Tribal Governments and are not covered in either dataset).
Since the data are current as of either March or September, they do not include any ARPA allocations and expenditures that may have occurred since then.
Dataset Guide
The first sheet of the Excel workbook Funding Summary provides a summary of key metrics for all recipients. On this page, there are four columns of interest:
Allocation indicating how much SLFRF funds the recipient has received.
- Budgeted/Obligated indicating the amount of SLFRF funds the recipient has already committed (but not necessarily spent) on projects.
- Budgeted/Obligated to Broadband indicating what amount of SLFRF funds the recipient has already committed, but not necessarily spent, to broadband projects (this is a part of the total in “Budget/Obligated,” and is not a separate amount).
- Remaining Funds which shows how much SLFRF funding remains unallocated (and could thus be allocated to a project, including but not limited to broadband).
To further narrow down the scope of interest, such as specific states or localities, the Excel sheet can easily be filtered using the drop-down menus at the top.
The four additional sheets (gray tabs) contain the data from which the figures in “Funding Summary” are computed. These are as follows:
Recipients (Hybrid) which contains full information for all recipients, as provided by Treasury.
Projects (Hybrid) which contains full information for all recipient projects, as provided by Treasury.
A Definition sheet, which contains Treasury’s explanation of the columns in the Recipients and Projects sheets.
The Recipients and Projects sheets include an additional column beyond those provided by Treasury: Source, which indicates from which vintage of Treasury’s data a given row is from. The Funding Summary tab also contains this column, though it is hidden, along with several others, to conserve screen space (these can be unhidden as desired).