The state committee in charge of allocating federal funding from the American Rescue Plan approved $150 million to go towards broadband efforts, with an additional $150 million to possibly be approved in a later meeting.
The Arkansas American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 Steering Committee met for the second time on Wednesday and spent over an hour discussing the $300 million request from the state’s Department of Commerce to go towards broadband expansion.
In speaking on the request, Secretary of Commerce Mike Preston recalled the millions of federal dollars previously spent on broadband as a part of the CARES Act.
"$120 million is what was utilized from the CARES funding. Those funds were deployed in less than a year’s time and that brought access to 130,000 Arkansans who did not have broadband before," Preston said. "So, 130,000 people in our state who previously did not have access now have access to broadband because of the work that the CARES Steering Committee did and through the Office of Broadband and the Department of Commerce were able to do that."
In this file photo, the Arkansas American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 Steering Committee meets for the first time.
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