After a monthslong investigation, Colorado officials have rescinded more than $100 million in Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) funding that was tentatively awarded to an internet service provider following whistleblower complaints alleging “financial mismanagement and misuse of grant funds.”
The Colorado Broadband Office said it received two complaints in May about the misuse of state and federal broadband grant dollars by Maverix Broadband, Inc., an ISP that provides internet services to rural and suburban Colorado. CBO said it immediately froze payments through six open BEAD grants, opened an inquiry, and initiated enhanced monitoring oversight of Maverix, which found payments for services and materials that were not received and unpaid vendors.
CBO said it sought to recover $3.2 million in grant funding — $2.5 million in federal Capital Projects Fund dollars and $700,000 in state funding — from the company. But before it could do so, Maverix filed for bankruptcy earlier this month, according to reporting from BusinessDen, and was placed into receivership. CBO said it hopes to get the funds back through Maverix’s bankruptcy proceedings, and the agency referred the findings of financial mismanagement to the U.S. Treasury’s inspector general and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
The office is also rescinding the more than $100 million in provisional BEAD awards it awarded to Maverix, which covered roughly 10,000 locations. CBO clarified that no BEAD...
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