$5.3 billion was fixed before the formula
The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program distributes $42.45 billion. The statute provided $100 million each to 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, plus $25 million each to four other territories.
Those base amounts total $5.3 billion, or 12.49% of the program. The remaining $37.15 billion—87.51%—was allocated through the formula.
| Component | Amount | Share |
|---|---|---|
| 52 base awards at $100 million | $5.20 billion | 12.25% |
| 4 territorial awards at $25 million | $0.10 billion | 0.24% |
| Formula allocation | $37.15 billion | 87.51% |
| Total | $42.45 billion | 100% |
Auditors found the allocations proper
The Commerce Department inspector general concluded that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration properly calculated initial BEAD allocations. This is not a finding that states were shortchanged or that money was misallocated.
The accountability problem is reproducibility. Auditors could replicate the high-cost allocation only by making assumptions because original average-revenue-per-user and high-cost-location source data were no longer available.
Decision records arrived ten months after request
The audit says key employees had departed and decision memoranda took about ten months to provide. A live data feed used during allocation was no longer available in its original form.
That weakens institutional memory even when the final calculation is correct. NTIA agreed with the audit’s single recommendation to preserve supporting documentation for future allocations and reviews.
Method and limits
What’s the Scoop With Broach independently calculated the statutory base total and its share of the $42.45 billion, then separated the audit’s favorable allocation finding from its records-management criticism.
This analysis does not recalculate every state award and does not claim fraud. The unavailable original data prevent a fully independent reconstruction of one component without assumptions—the same limitation identified by the inspector general.
Sources and further reading
Commerce OIG report OIG-27-002-A, October 27, 2026 ↗
USDA rural fiber installation photograph and public-domain record ↗