Letters

To the Editor:

A recent article reported that as much as $1.5 billion to $2.4 billion in annual funding goes unclaimed by school districts that fail to collect Medicaid reimbursements they would otherwise deserve ( "Medicaid Money Goes Untapped by Many Schools," May 8, 2002).

Sadly, a similar situation exists in the federal E-rate program. Although the Universal Service Administrative Co. approved $5.942 billion worth of discounts to help schools and libraries purchase telecommunications services, Internet access, and networking equipment in the program's first three years, applicants failed to use $1.39 billion of that amount. Furthermore, this "disbursement gap" has grown larger since the program's start, widening from 18.1 percent of approved funding in the program's first year to 26.1 percent in the third year (2000-01), according to...