·
FY 2008 and FY 2009 Funding Status
·
SLD Fall E-Rate Training: Part
1
·
E-Rate Updates and Reminders
·
Schools and Libraries News Brief dated September
25th
The E-Rate Central News for
the Week is prepared by E-Rate Central. E-Rate Central specializes in
providing consulting, compliance, and forms processing services to E-rate
applicants. Additional E-rate information is located on the E‑Rate Central Web site (http://www.e‑ratecentral.com). To learn more about our services, please
contact us by phone (516-801-7804) or through our Contact Us Web form
(http://www.e-ratecentral.com/contactUs/contactForm.asp).
FY 2008 and
FY 2009 Funding Status
As a result of continued
work on the SLD’s recent IT upgrade, no regular funding waves for either FY 2008
or FY 2009 will be released this week.
We expect regular funding waves to resume next
week.
SLD chief Mel Blackwell
made a presentation on the “State of the E-rate” at the first training session
last week, projecting that the Priority 2 funding threshold for FY 2009 would
reach down below 80%.
SLD Fall
E-Rate Training: Part 1
The SLD’s first two 2009
applicant training sessions were held in Washington, DC, and
Newark, NJ, last week. This is the first in a series of
articles covering many of the training topics. Copies of the agenda and more detailed
presentation slides are available online (see E-Rate Updates and
Reminders).
This year’s training is
organized into three “tracks” — beginners, special topics, and advanced. Although there is a common lunch-time
presentation on program compliance and two identical presentations on discount
rate calculations and audits, the parallel presentations make coverage difficult
for individual applicants. The good
news is that participants are not constrained to a specific track, but can pick
and choose topics from any one. The
following topics are covered:
·
Beginners
o
Beginners overview
o
Eligible services
o
SLD Web site resource
o
Discount calculations
o
Basic PIA review
·
Special Topics
o
Audit response
o
CIPA
o
Pre-commitment corrections
o
Invoicing
·
Advanced
o
Advanced PIA review
o
Competitive bidding
o
Advanced eligible services
o
Contracts
o
Discount calculations
·
Common Presentations
o
State of the E-rate program
o
Program compliance
The afternoon concludes
with group discussions for beginners, on the outreach/HATS program, and further
Q&A on eligible services and competitive
bidding.
Subsequent articles in this
series will discuss the more important details of the common presentations and
the special topics and advanced tracks.
The two most important points to be noted
are:
1.
The projection that the
Priority 2 discount rate threshold for FY 2009 will likely be 80% or less (see
above); and
2.
The next round of audits will
not begin until after the FY 2010 application window closes in February — and
will be less burdensome than the excruciating attestation audits used
recently.
E-Rate
Updates and Reminders
Fall E-Rate
Training:
The third and fourth of the
eight SLD training sessions will be held this week in Atlanta on Wednesday and in Chicago on Friday. Schedules and registration information
for the remaining four one-day SLD workshops are available on the SLD’s Web
site. Copies of the 2009 Training
Slides are also available (see http://usac.org/sl/about/training-presentations/training-presentations-archive/training-2009/fall/materials.aspx).
New USAC
Board Members:
FCC Chairman Genachowski
appointed the following individuals to fill vacancies on the USAC Board of
Directors:
- Representative for
Commercial Mobile Radio Service
Providers: Scott K. Bergmann,
Assistant Vice President, Regulatory Affairs, CTIA – The Wireless
Association® .
·
Representative for Low-Income Consumers: Ellis Jacobs, Senior Attorney, Advocates
for Basic Legal Equality, Inc.
Schools and
Libraries News Brief dated September
25th
http://www.universalservice.org/sl/tools/news-briefs/preview.aspx?id=258
The SLD News Brief for
September 25, 2009, discusses the following steps that service providers (and,
by extension, applicants) should take in preparation for the opening of the FY
2010 application window later this fall:
·
Service providers should confirm that they have filed
Forms 473 (Service Provider Annual Certification forms — “SPACs”) for FY 2008
and FY 2009. Since USAC will not
pay SPI or BEAR invoices for any funding year for which the associated service
providers have not filed SPACs, applicants may also want to check the
SPAC-status of their specific service providers. This information is shown in the
right-hand column of the service provider data in the SLD’s online SPIN Contact
Search database (http://www.universalservice.org/sl/tools/search-tools/spin-contact.aspx).
·
Service providers should verify that USAC has their
current contact information on Form 498 (including the appropriate contact used
by applicants that also appears in the SPIN Contact Search
database).
·
Both service providers and applicants should finish
filing/approving/ acknowledging BEAR forms for FY 2008 recurring
services.
·
Both service providers and applicants should verify that
Form 486s have been filed for funding already awarded for FY
2009.
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Disclaimer:
This newsletter may contain unofficial information on prospective E-rate
developments and/or may reflect E-Rate Central’s own interpretations of E-rate
practices and regulations. Such information is provided for planning and
guidance purposes only. It is not meant, in any way, to supplant official
announcements and instructions provided by either the SLD or the
FCC.
