Interview transcript:

Sam Helmick The E-Rate Hotspot Lending Program is built on about three decades of the FCC’s E-Rate program, which has enabled libraries and schools to have discounts for broadband connectivity as we continue to develop 21st-century readers, learners and skills. And so traditionally that E-Rate funding could only be used for connections within libraries and school buildings. But then in 2024, the then-FCC chairwoman really launched this beautiful program called Learn Without Limits. And that expanded eligibility for the Wi-Fi hotspot devices that libraries could retain to be circulated much like books, particularly to households without reliable or affordable broadband. And the American Libraries Association deeply supported this. And it was executed in more than 800 libraries across the nation; schools and public have utilized this service. It’s about $34 million dollars’ worth of hotspot funding in the year of 2025 to make meaningful connectivity change for Americans.

Eric White Okay, got it. So the FCC voted to virtually end the program back on September 30th. What happened there? What was their reasoning for giving that and does that truly mean the end of the program, or are there other avenues that the program could take to stay alive?

Sam Helmick You’re absolutely right. On September 30th of this year, the FCC voted 2-1 to rescind the hotspot lending program and the school bus Wi-Fi initiative. The majority argued that the E-rate statute didn’t authorize funding for services used beyond library and school property. But the American Library Association, along with many of our partner organizations, disagree with that interpretation and have really urged the FCC to reconsider and maintain the program. This decision reverses rules adopted in 2024 that have just begun to take effect and we’re already sort of seeing the 2025 E-Rate cycle being denied. And we understand that a reader denied is literacy denied, and connectivity divide is almost like participation in civic and educational life denied.

Eric White Yeah, particularly in those rural areas where you may not have a steady connection. You can still obviously access the internet in the library, but you know, when you’re in a teaching scenario and you don’t want to take up the computer for too long because then you start to feel guilty, right? So what other options do folks have who are out in those rural areas that relied on this program?

Sam Helmick If the federal government isn’t prepared to create a robust infrastructure for broadband for our national security, entrepreneurial and economic development, and pursuit of educational wellness and happiness, then I think that we have to think about those students that are on bus rides for up to like three hours a day, back and forth, trying to accomplish their homework. Or folks who are applying for jobs on Sundays because it’s the only day they have off, but the library isn’t supported or resourced enough to be open to them for their public access computers. Also, folks who are trying to attend telehealth appointments, access government services, or even connect with loved ones. Often I think folks forget that libraries are spaces where during both triumph and trials in a community, this is where folks need to go to access internet to tell the broader world and their loved ones that they’re safe and they’re fine. And so we’re really thinking about the broad spectrum of American life and how the lack of connectivity infrastructurally has been devastating. And this was an effort to mitigate that devastation. Now to lose this really leaves a lot of Americans in the lurch.

Eric White We’re speaking with Sam Helmick, president of the American Libraries Association. Let’s talk about federal support for public libraries in general. I’ve spoken to your organization in the past. There were some concerns about dwindling support and obviously cuts have come across the board for a lot of federal programs and I’m sure that libraries are not immune to that. Do I have that correct? And you know, where do things currently stand?

Sam Helmick Oh, you’re absolutely right. In 2024, the Institute of Museum and Library Services awarded $266.7 million dollars through grant-making research and policy development that particularly supported not only our state libraries across the nation, but then our small and rural that rely on those matching state dollar funds to make sure that our tax dollars are working twice and three times over. So with the executive order seeking to dismantle that institute, as well as the lack of robust or comprehensive release of the congressionally mandated funds that fund that institute that support libraries around the country and therefore communities around the country, libraries are experiencing resource scarcity at the federal and then the state and then at the local level. Because despite the fact that those federal dollars have been paid by the taxpayers, they’re not getting returned back. And then if you have contracts through those state consortiums or state libraries, those contracts didn’t end just because the congressionally mandated dollars were not provided to the states. And so this is creating an undue burden on state taxes and taxpayers, and then that trickles down to hurting rural communities that are the least-resourced, but probably the most in need, when it comes to their community anchor institutions, which are a public or a school or an academic library.

Eric White Yeah, I was going to say I’m in no way living in a rural area, but going to any of the libraries in my vicinity, they’re as crowded as ever. So it seems as if the need for resources is almost at an all-time high at a time when they may not have all the support they need.

Sam Helmick Increasingly you and I understand that having digital connection is going to allow us to not only thrive civically but economically, educationally, and then just socially. And so to bar that access to any American, particularly in a country that is so well-resourced and rich, feels counterintuitive to ensuring that we continue to be a nation that thrives 250 years into our story.

Eric White All right, so the situation is what it is. What steps are organizations like yourselves taking, and are there other options on the table, you know, nonprofits, things of that nature? Or is it really just going to come down to more states and more local governments are going to have to step in if they want to save these libraries?

Sam Helmick I think it’s holding anybody, regardless of where they sit on the aisle, accountable to understanding that more Americans visit libraries than they do baseball games, which is our national pastime. And that 70% of us are not interested in abridging or censoring information for any reason — not for economic reasons, not for ideological reasons. That’s a large spectrum of American life, through third-party surveys, that show us how much we value access to information. So how do we support those values? Well, first we recognize that we’re about to be 250 years old as a nation, and that this unique form of government had an essential mechanism called libraries, which is why a lot of our founders invested in them, because they wanted a robust constituency and society that was educated so that it could progress and have informed decisions when it came to civic life. And if we’re going to continue to value that, that means we need to use our libraries. We need to dust off our library cards and make sure that they’re active. Increasingly and regularly, as folks who want to get into the advocacy piece, it’s visiting ALA.org/advocacy to learn how you can write an email, invite your Congress member to come visit their local libraries in their areas of representation, join a city council, join a library board of trustees, join a school board so that your voice and fingerprints are part of the conversation. It’s writing to your legislators and reminding them that you wanted to robustly support your libraries, and so you’re asking them to write policy and create funding that will make that manifest. And then lastly, you can also visit ILoveLibraries.org, so that if you’re wanting to support the American Library Association and library practitioners that are doing this work, you can donate your store, you can donate funds to support moving this national value 250 years into the future.

Eric White You bring up the 250 years portion and that provides me a nice segue. Your organization is a 150 years old, almost. From a historical standpoint, have the nation’s libraries ever really gone through anything like this before? I’m just curious if you have any historical perspective on if we’ve been here before, you know, through tumultuous times  throughout American history.

Sam Helmick Great opportunity to tell a story. I love telling stories, Eric. In 1938, Des Moines Public Library director Forrest Spaulding wrote the Library of Bill of Rights. And I think he did it for a few reasons. We had just gone through a Great Depression and recognized how instrumental our libraries were to supporting their communities during economic strife, but also lifting them up to build entrepreneurial and economic development. But then it was also going through between the world wars and recognizing that we were a melting pot. And sometimes the ideas and values of a very vibrant culture, they blend and harmonize, but sometimes they also brush and create friction. And so creating a set of values where it talks about the right to use reading rooms, the right to find books that both counter and support your own ideology, the right to assemble, the right to speak and to read were essential. And in 1939, the American Library Association adopted that to become an international of free people reading freely. And so when I think about our history, I think libraries have been very good at growing at the pace of their societies, turning inwardly to think about how they can do the work better, and then relying on their communities to do the work best. And so while I would argue that we probably are seeing a difficult time, probably something that even counters McCarthyism in the United States, we have always turned in and relied on our communities and our values to push through. And so using your library, visiting ALA.org/advocacy, using your voice to speak to those that you’ve elected into power — this has always been the recipe. And if we all stay in character, I think we can continue to thrive.

The post When the hotspots go dark, who connects the unconnected? first appeared on Federal News Network.

Now that the shutdown has dragged into a record length of more than 35 days, it’s gained a sort of lurid grandeur. Earlier shutdowns — and I’ve been covering the government through shutdowns dating to the Clinton administration — were always the talk of the town. But this time, a certain alarm has seeped in, and not only for people immediately connected to the government, like employees and contractors.

Contractors worry not only about business continuity, a highly practical concern, but also about continuity of the relationships they work so hard to maintain. Regulated and process-oriented as it is, federal contracting still has a strong element common to any sales effort: namely, building rapport and understanding with the people you deal with.

I asked the CEO of one contractor services company about this a couple of days ago. He said not only do companies wonder how to reach contracting officers, but whether the particular COs they deal with will even be there when the government reopens The pattern of layoffs, RIFs, firings and resignations seems less like a “pattern” than a totally random mess. Uncertainty has seeped into the merger and acquisition field, which in some sense weakens the industrial base.

Federal employees I’ve spoken with are generally beyond the shock-and-awe trauma and into an attitude of bemused resignation. Many of them feel like a trout whose fresh stream has turned to saltwater. The more senior people feel confident financially but they fret over the lower-paid colleagues who are in real hardship. A neighbor at a Halloween party, a senior person furloughed from Health and Human Services, said as much to me.

My friends at the Federal Employee Education and Assistance Fund (FEEA) report having to suspend their grants program after being overwhelmed by 7,000 applications.

Over at the Thrift Savings Plan, they’re seeing a definite uptick in loans and queries. Loan requests last month were up 35% versus last year, for a total of 49,700. Withdrawals rose 15% to 121,000. The board of the TSP reported incoming calls rose 23% to 183,000. (They note that 60% of inbound calls got picked up within 20 seconds.)

I’ll make an exception to my policy of not giving financial advice: Whatever you do, keep your TSP balances as an absolute last resort piggy bank. This too shall end, but your eventual retirement will last as long as you do.

Universally, people are, let’s say, puzzled that the ostensible shutdown sticking point in Congress is subsidies — billions and billions of subsidies — for health care plans that were supposed to be affordable in the first place. What’s that got to do with level funding for operating agencies, they’re asking. After all, the fight is not even over the 2026 budget but rather over a continuing resolution of 2025 spending levels.

I was married before my first shutdown. My wife has maintained a polite interest in the arcana of what I’ve covered all these years. Procurement reform or the advent of cloud computing don’t exactly ignite marital passion. So shutdowns to her, as to most of the public, have generally been curiosities more than something to personally worry about. Now she joins the millions concerned about things like air traffic safety and public order. She’s supposed to take to-and-from flights for a short trip soon. How deeply, millions of travelers now wonder, will the Federal Aviation Administration cut into flight schedules to compensate for low tower staffing?

This shutdown feels weirder than earlier ones, for a number of other reasons that form the equally weird background generally of life in the U.S. First among the reasons is the political climate. Until recently, I rejected the idea that politics now are nowhere near as bitter and polarized as they were before the Civil War. Now I’m not so sure.

Second lies the way in which the Trump administration has gone about government reform. I’ve spoken to many federal employees who agree there’s plenty of room for reform, for trimming programs, for updating approaches. But the chaotic activities of DOGE, or Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Department of Health and Human Services, feel more like breakage than lasting reform. My theory is that this approach is a byproduct of the political environment. No one compromises, no one talks things out with the other side, no one tries meaningfully to understand the other. One result: Agencies are treated as if they’re all worm and no apple, to borrow Elon Musk’s graphic phrase.

So we’ve got government by neck-grabbing. Biden makes 160 executive orders, Trump makes 260. This after a long history of EOs dating back to the early 20th century. Theodore Roosevelt exploded the process with more than a thousand of them. It seems the imperial presidency has only continued to metastasize. Arthur M. Schlesinger coined that “imperial” term more than 50 years ago for a landmark book title. It came out shortly before Richard M. Nixon’s departure from the White House. The EO tallies fluctuate, but the latter day result is government that seems less like a dignified, serious business and more like a capricious thing.

The post Record shutdown has gotten positively alarming first appeared on Federal News Network.