Legislative Session number- 82

Bill Name: SF3346

"Minnesota Broadband Access Availability Act"; establishing the broadband access
availability account in the special revenue fund and appropriating money in the
account to the commissioner of administration for distribution to school
districts and libraries to fund technologies, equipment infrastructure and
components capable of providing broadband telecommunications and to expand,
enhance or replace integrated systems with advanced telecommunications with
broadband capability; imposing a surcharge to be collected by communications
providers on customer access lines for voice, data or video service, requiring
remittance to the commissioner of revenue for deposit in the account; providing
for an end user voluntarily checkoff on bills for deposit into the account,
requiring payment to the commissioner of revenue for deposit purposes; requiring
deposit of certain costs and fines assessed against communications providers by
the public utilities commission (PUC) into the account; requiring distribution
of proceeds of the mandatory surcharge to the commissioner of children, families
and learning for installation, upgrade and ongoing costs of broadband
infrastructure for K-12 public school districts and libraries, requiring
distribution according to criteria to be established jointly by the
commissioners of children, families and learning and administration, specifying
certain criteria content requirements; appropriating a certain percentage of the
money remaining in the account to the commissioner of trade and economic
development (DTED) for matching grants to community telecommunications
development projects and statewide industry marketing partnerships and requiring
appropriation of the money remaining in the account to the commissioner for
grants to communication providers for broadband service in unserved or
underserved areas of the state, specifying certain grant eligibility and
preference requirements and requiring award of the grants through a competitive
award process; sunsetting the program(je)