Grants to pay for faster and more reliable broadband service will go to 49 businesses, nonprofits and governments in 70 Georgia counties were announced Feb. 1.
Gov. Brian Kemp said the American Rescue Plan Act grants, totaling $408 million in preliminary awards, are part of a more than $738 million investment in the state when matching funds are added.
“Georgia is once again leading the nation in developing collaborative, innovative and fiscally conservative ways to leverage government funding to positively impact and serve as many Georgians as possible,” said Kemp. “The projects targeted with these awards could serve more than 183,000 locations, representing both homes and businesses with faster and more reliable broadband. 132,050 of these locations are currently underserved based on state data.”
Kemp announced the Georgia Jobs and Infrastructure Committees in June 2021 to make recommendations on ARPA funds Georgia received. The Broadband Infrastructure Committee was tasked with making investment recommendations to improve service in unserved or underserved areas.
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The governor said the current broadband availability map shows more than 482,000 locations were underserved as of July 2021.
State Sen. Blake Tillery (R-District 19), Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the grants are not gifts, that the applicants worked hard to be selected.
“The applicants that won these awards today put in painstaking time to make sure they were not overlapping other areas,” he said. “That was extremely important as you tried to follow these federal guidelines. So please don’t leave here thinking that these were gifts or giveaways. These applicants earned these awards.”
The Tuesday announcement is the initial step in the rollout and it now enters the due diligence phase with the state working with grant recipients to maximize how many Georgians can be served.
Most recipients are local governments, including public-private partnerships, along with nonprofit organization and service providers such as electric memberships cooperatives and telecommunications companies.
Three grantees from the CSRA are on the list. Jenkins County was awarded just under $12 million; McDuffie County will receive $3.8 million and the Washington EMC in Sandersville will get $13.2 million.
Dana Lynn McIntyre is a general assignment reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach her at dana@theaugustapress.com
