Where every telecom dollar actually goes.
This is the question a decades-long observer of the county's broadband put to us directly: if you look at the money in and the money out of the telecom fund, is it just flat? So we rebuilt it — from the District's own budget workbooks, line by line, reconciled to the dollar. The answer is yes, it's flat on top — and that's exactly what hides the real story underneath.
Flat on top. Hollowed out underneath.
Across five years the telecom business took in a steady ~$3.25 million a year and spent a steady ~$3.0 million. Nothing about the totals looks alarming. But watch what happens inside that flat envelope: the investment slice shrinks while the overhead slice grows — and a surplus is set aside every single year.
How each year's revenue was used
Bars scaled to the highest year's revenue (~$3.5M); each segment is labelled in $thousands. Source: the District's Wholesale Telecom Proposed Budget workbooks (FOI/PRA). Each year's segments sum exactly to that year's Revenue Estimate. These are budgeted figures — see the caveats below.
Every dollar in, every dollar out — one picture.
Two of the FOI documents, drawn as one flow. The left half is who actually paid the District — its own monthly billing reports, actuals to the dollar. The right half is where the District's own 2025 budget sent the money. Follow the rust band: rural wireless carried $1.14 million in — and the budget sent $84,000 back.
The same flow, year by year: of every $1 the wireless line brought in, its budget put back…
Wireless revenue: billed actuals from the monthly billing reports (2026 annualized from Jan–May). Wireless capital: the budgets' categorized wireless lines — the same figures as the ledger below.
What's certain: the left half is billed actuals from the District's monthly billing reports — cross-checked across three report cuts, to the dollar (pass-through taxes excluded). The right half reconciles exactly to the 2025 budget workbook's own total.
What's honest: the two halves come from two documents on two bases — $3.36M billed vs. a $3.25M budget estimate, about 3% apart — so each half is drawn to its own scale. The split of budgeted dollars is the District's own line items, not our allocation.
Where tracing ends: past the surplus, dollars enter the District's single combined electric-and-telecom fund. We don't claim to follow them further — no one can; that's how the District reports. What's knowable ends exactly where this picture does.
Network investment was cut in half — and the wireless part nearly to zero.
Here's only the capital slice from above, broken into what it was actually spent on. The total shrinks year over year — and the wireless lines (the radios and systems serving the rural majority) fall fastest, from $330K to $84K while fiber and core IT held up.
Bars scaled to 2021 capital (~$1.37M), so the shrinking total is visible. The wireless/fiber/core split is a line-item classification of the budget descriptions (campaign reading; account totals are exact). The dedicated wireless lines fall $330K → $84K (2021–2025) and to $25.6K in the 2026 budget — a ~92% cut.
The same cut, as a fairness ratio: share of the money in vs. share of the investment back
Every year, wireless brought in about a third of the telecom revenue — steady as a metronome. Watch what happened to its share of the capital budget:
Revenue share: wireless billing ÷ telecom operating revenue (ex tax), from the District's own monthly billing reports — actuals (2026 = Jan–May). Capital share: the categorized wireless lines ÷ the telco-funded capital budget. 2026's denominator excludes the $10.3M in grant-funded fiber builds to be fair — include them and wireless's share of 2026 capital is 0.2%.
Starved, then switched off — the whole sequence on one page
The bars are the District's own budgets. The numbered diamonds are dated events from its own minutes and resolutions. Revenue held near $1.1M every single year while this happened.
Bars: the categorized wireless capital lines in the District's Wholesale Telecom Proposed Budget workbooks (FOI/PRA) — the same series as the charts above. Events: Res 1768 (Feb 2022) Exhibit B; Res 1845 (Oct 27, 2025 minutes); May 4 and May 18, 2026 minutes; Public Surplus auction #4029679 (closed Jul 7, 2026). The surplus resolutions are one-sentence entries — the minutes never itemize what was surplused; the auction's contents are documented by the listing itself.
Every capital line, straight from the budget.
No paraphrasing. These are the literal capital line items in the District's budget workbooks, by year, with the wireless lines shaded. Open a year and read exactly what the District planned to build — and what it stopped building.
2025 capital total $667,350
| wirelessWireless Subscriber Units | $83,750 |
| EOLCapitalizable Network Upgrades & Capitalizable Replacement of EOL Network Hardware | $42,500 |
| fiberFiber Build - Conconully Hwy to Berney | $30,000 |
| fiberFiber Build - Brewster to Pateros Aerial | $30,000 |
| fiberFiber Distribution Builds | $200,000 |
| fiberCapitalizableOptics | $7,200 |
| coreBroadband Node Rework | $50,000 |
| coreBroadband Tools | $33,400 |
| core3 ESX Hosts for VMWare Environment | $45,000 |
| coreNet Elastic and associated network hardware | $42,500 |
| coreDelta/Eltek/Valere DC Power system | $37,500 |
| coreReplacement HVAC units for Broadband Nodes | $25,500 |
| coreNetwork Expansion | $40,000 |
| Capital total, 2025 | $667,350 |
2024 capital total $756,200
| wirelessWireless/Wifi System Augmentation | $15,000 |
| wirelessWireless Subscriber Units | $167,500 |
| EOLCapitalizable Network Upgrades & Capitalizable Replacement of EOL Network Hardware | $25,000 |
| fiberFiber Build - Berney to Sit-N-Bull | $135,000 |
| fiberFiber Build - Brewster to Pateros Aerial | $30,000 |
| fiberFiber Distribution Builds | $200,000 |
| fiberCapitalizableOptics | $2,200 |
| coreBroadband Node Rework | $50,000 |
| coreBroadband Tools | $1,300 |
| coreNetApp Replacement | $56,700 |
| coreReplacement HVAC units for Broadband Nodes | $25,500 |
| coreNetwork Expansion | $45,000 |
| coreBroadband Test Equipment | $3,000 |
| Capital total, 2024 | $756,200 |
2023 capital total $1,064,950
| wirelessWireless/Wifi System Augmentation | $55,000 |
| wirelessWireless Subscriber Units | $162,500 |
| EOLCapitalizable Network Upgrades & Capitalizable Replacement of EOL Network Hardware | $227,250 |
| fiberFiber Build - Berney to Sit-N-Bull | $125,000 |
| fiberFiber Distribution Builds | $200,000 |
| fiberCapitalizableOptics | $122,600 |
| coreBroadband Node Rework | $50,000 |
| coreBroadband Tools | $1,400 |
| coreBroadband Test Equipment | $2,400 |
| coreCisco Nexus 3542 Switches for VM environment | $28,000 |
| coreNetAppDR in Oroville | $21,000 |
| coreReplacement HVAC units for Broadband Nodes | $21,000 |
| coreNetwork Expansion | $45,000 |
| coreBroadband Test Equipment | $3,800 |
| Capital total, 2023 | $1,064,950 |
2022 capital total $1,080,650
| wirelessWireless/Wifi System Augmentation | $55,000 |
| wirelessWireless Subscriber Units | $260,000 |
| EOLCapitalizable Network Upgrades & Capitalizable Replacement of EOL Network Hardware | $204,000 |
| fiberFiber Build - Berney to Sit-N-Bull | $50,000 |
| fiberFiber Distribution Builds | $300,000 |
| coreBroadband Node Rework | $100,000 |
| coreVEEAM Server | $8,000 |
| coreReplacement HVAC units for Broadband Nodes | $20,400 |
| coreNetwork Expansion | $45,000 |
| coreBroadband Tools | $23,850 |
| coreBroadband Test Equipment | $14,400 |
| Capital total, 2022 | $1,080,650 |
2021 capital total $1,369,100
| wirelessWireless/Wifi System Augmentation | $150,000 |
| wirelessWireless Subscriber Units | $180,000 |
| EOLNetwork Upgrades & Replacement of EOL Network Hardware | $190,500 |
| fiberNetwork Expansion - Mini-OTN | $20,000 |
| fiberNetwork Expansion - OTN | $45,000 |
| fiber100G WDM Upgrade | $180,000 |
| fiberFiber Build - Berney to Sit-N-Bull | $50,000 |
| fiberOptics | $46,550 |
| fiberFiber Distribution Builds | $300,000 |
| coreBroadband Node Rework | $100,000 |
| coreNetwork Expansion - Pole Mount Mini Node | $30,000 |
| coreASA Firewall/VPN concentrator replacement | $12,000 |
| coreRectifier Upgrades | $25,000 |
| coreReplacement HVAC units for Broadband Nodes | $20,000 |
| coreBroadband Tools | $5,000 |
| coreBroadband Test Equipment | $15,000 |
| Capital total, 2021 | $1,369,100 |
Amounts are the budgeted (extended) figure for each line. Lines summing to each year's capital subtotal, which in turn ties to the workbook's stated total. Reproducible: sources/analysis/sources_and_uses.py.
As investment fell, the cost of running the operation rose.
The same flat envelope spent $588,000 more on operating costs in 2025 than in 2021. Most of it is people: wages and benefits together account for about 60% of the increase. These are legitimate costs — but they are the opposite of investing in the network.
| Operating account | 2021 | 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wages | $578,900 | $812,439 | +$233,539 |
| Benefits | $251,200 | $373,700 | +$122,500 |
| Materials & Supplies | $84,200 | $157,200 | +$73,000 |
| Maintenance Contracts | $101,100 | $167,000 | +$65,900 |
| Transportation | $18,000 | $72,826 | +$54,826 |
| Misc. Contractual | $159,200 | $212,000 | +$52,800 |
| Travel | $12,000 | $24,000 | +$12,000 |
| All operating accounts | $1,426,400 | $2,014,701 | +$588,301 |
Top movers shown. Wages and benefits are allocated to the telecom budget; the crews are shared with the wider broadband operation.
Same six budgets, opposite directions
Index both lines to 2021 and the choice draws itself: the money didn't run out — it moved.
Budgeted wages + benefits vs. the categorized wireless capital lines, from the same Wholesale Telecom Proposed Budget workbooks, indexed to 2021 = 100. Staffing a network is legitimate — the telecom roster grew as fiber expanded — and that's the point: the capacity to spend was there every year. Where it went was a choice.
So did expenses eat it all? No — the $1.2M is right here.
If overhead went up and revenue stayed flat, you'd think there'd be nothing left to invest. But the books say the opposite: the rising overhead was paid for by cutting investment — not by running dry. After covering every operating cost, every other capital project, and its debt, the segment still set money aside every single year. Here is where the upgrade money is.
So “we can't afford it” isn't what the books show. The money came in, a surplus was set aside, and capital kept flowing — just to fiber and overhead, not the wireless. The $1.2M isn't missing. It's the money the District chose not to point at the network the rural majority depends on. See how this fits the full case →
What this is — and what it isn't.
Budgeted, not actual
These are the District's proposed budgets — what it planned to spend. Segment-level actuals live in the audited statements (and corroborate the picture: a profitable segment whose net worth doubled). Line-item actuals aren't separately audited.
2026 is set aside
We show 2021–2025 as the “telco-funded” years. The 2026 budget's capital jumps to ~$10.9M, but that's the grant- and loan-funded fiber build — not money netted from telecom — so it would distort the comparison.
One combined fund
Telecom is a segment inside the District's single enterprise fund, not a separate bank account. This maps the segment's budgeted sources and uses; it is not a trace of literal cash, which the District's accounting commingles.
The split is a reading
The Operating / Capital / Debt totals are exact and reconcile to the dollar. The wireless / fiber / core split within capital is our classification of the line descriptions — a careful, conservative reading you can check against the ledger above.
Method & reproducibility: sources/analysis/sources_and_uses.py parses the six budget workbooks and verifies that every year's accounts sum to the workbook's stated total. Underlying files are listed on Sources & Documents.
Now you can ask the questions.
This is what transparency looks like: the District's own numbers, reconciled, in the open.