City of Fort Collins Taxpayers Left With $45 Million Bill for Failed Internet Project

In November of 2021, Congress passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure bill, which spends $42 billion to create government owned networks – government ownership of the new internet. Government is now competing against Comcast, AT&T, and others to own the access points to the internet. Critics say it’s simply Soviet.

On the local level, municipalities are failing spectacularly in their quest to own the internet and costing taxpayers big bucks along the way. For example, Sarah Hunt, a resident of Fort Collins, Colorado, investigated the mismanagement of their local taxpayer funded government broadband experiment. In total, Fort Collins residents were left footing a $45 million bill.

Hunt describes how local leaders pushed for a broadband project called Connexion, while completely missing the mark on cost estimates and revenue figures. Coleman Keene and Darin Atteberry both earned six figure salaries while planning the project. Atteberry left his position just before the failings of the Connexion project were made public.

Hunt concluded, “Connexion missed targeted revenues by nearly $10 million, and is over budget on build-out and installation by a massive $35 million.”

Fort Collins missed their target by such a large margin due to poor estimates and assumptions. The city overestimated the existing amount of conduit, underestimated the cost of installation, overestimated the amount of apartment and multi family unit consumers, and overestimated the number of business and commercial subscribers.

Every good business knows to err on the side of overestimating costs and underestimating revenues. Of course, municipal governments don’t care. It isn't their money, it’s yours!

The #WasteOfTheDay is presented by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.