Kings County joins four-county MOU to pursue $1.8B in state broadband funding
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Summary
Board heard a presentation on a regional approach to two California broadband grants, and authorized the county administrative officer to sign a memorandum of understanding with Tulare, Fresno, Madera and Merced counties to pursue BEAD and digital equity grants, contingent on counsel review.
Kings County supervisors on April 1 authorized county staff to sign a regional memorandum of understanding with Tulare, Fresno, Madera and Merced counties to pursue two state broadband funding streams: the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program and a related digital equity capacity grant.
Deputy County Administrative Officer Matthew Boyette told the Board the MOU would let the five counties present a unified application to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and improve the region’s chances in a highly competitive process that allocates roughly $1.8 billion in BEAD funding to California. Boyette said the regional approach can increase efficiency for internet service providers, reduce required local matches and help streamline permitting across jurisdictions.
"Without regionalization, without board involvement, we're essentially at the mercy of the ISPs as to where they see broadband best fitting within their business model," Boyette said, arguing the MOU would secure the counties "a seat at the table" as projects are selected.
Julie Tone, CEO of Tone Consulting Group, which is advising the regional effort, told supervisors the San Joaquin Valley will compete with metropolitan areas such as the Bay Area and Los Angeles. Tone said the five-county application will be more competitive and that her firm has submitted BEAD mapping challenges and solicited projects from local ISPs through an RFP that closed April 7.
Tone said BEAD applicants typically propose fiber to specific locations — households, community anchor institutions or businesses — and that the grants are awarded based on a scoring rubric favoring fiber and projects that can demonstrate need and readiness.
Supervisors asked how any award would be divided among counties. Tone and Boyette said the RFP responses will identify project areas, serviceable locations and proposal costs per location; any award to the regional application would be distributed to the five counties to pay ISPs for build-out in the locations the ISPs propose.
Boyette urged the Board to pre-authorize the county administrative officer to sign the MOU so staff could meet tight CPUC timelines; the preauthorization was conditioned on county counsel review and approval of the final MOU. Two counties had already approved the regional agreement and a fourth was scheduled to consider it later in April, Boyette said.
The Board voted unanimously to authorize the county administrative officer to sign the MOU, contingent on counsel review.
The county’s consultants and staff said next steps include finalizing ISP proposals from the RFP, completing CPUC prequalification and submitting the BEAD and digital-equity applications on CPUC timelines.
The discussion also flagged ongoing outreach to additional neighboring counties (Kern was mentioned) and the possibility of seeking future state earmarks if needed.
