Introduction
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. To learn more about our services, please contact us by phone (516) 801-7804 or by e-mail. Additional E-rate information is located on the E-Rate Central Web site.
Type-in Version of New Form 486 Available from E-Rate Central
| Many applicants attempting to file Form 486s have been frustrated by the temporary unavailability of the SLD’s online version. The SLD has announced that the new online version will not be available until the end of September. Filling out a Form 486 manually, which has been the only option and which requires hand printing in the little OCR scanning boxes, is a tedious process.
As a stopgap measure, we have designed an online version that a user can type into directly. It cannot be filed online, but data entry is a lot easier than by hand. The final printed version, which must be mailed to the SLD, also looks much neater.
E-Rate Central’s type-in version of the Form 486 (August 2003) is now available. It can be used two ways.
(1) In browser mode, you can type directly into the form. Click on any field and type the data. If it’s an OCR field, the characters you enter will automatically be placed within the boxes as soon as you move or tab to the next field. Special buttons are available on page one of the form to print the entire form or reset all fields. To use this Form 486 in browser mode, you must have version 5.0 (or preferably version 6.0) of Adobe Reader installed (a free download of version 6.0 is available at Adobe.com).
(2) From the browser mode, you can save a PDF copy of the Form 486 locally and work with it in a similar manner interactively on your own computer. This may be particularly useful if you need to file more than one Form 486. In order to enter or change data on a local copy of the Form 486, you must have version 5.0 (or preferably version 6.0) of the full version of Adobe Acrobat installed (as opposed to the Adobe Reader that is a free download).
Please note that this online Form 486 is not linked to the SLD’s databases, so no fields get pre-populated and there are no logical tests of data consistency. It is designed simply for easier data entry — easier, that is, than hand printing.
|
|
|
| Several school applicants have reported receiving calls from SLD data entry staff this week requesting that they resubmit Form 486s, originally submitted in late July or early August, using the new, August 2003, version. The resubmission requests were based on the recently posted SLD guidance that stated:
“If your paper Form 486 or paper Form 486 certification page was completed and submitted but not successfully data entered in the SLD system on or before August 18, 2003, the SLD will reach out to you with a procedure for submitting the revised form. Applicants are encouraged to submit the August 2003 version of the form…”
The SLD has since clarified that Form 486s submitted by schools (and presumably for libraries filing Form 486s containing only Telecommunications Services FRNs) need not be resubmitted if the original Form 486s were submitted (i.e., postmarked) before the effective date of the new version, August 14th. Accepting earlier Form 486s, based on the effective date of the new version, rather than on a date tied to the SLD’s own internal data entry operation, is logically consistent with other SLD deadline procedures. We commend the SLD for its quick clarification.
|
|
|
| Wave 30B for FY 2002 was released on Friday, September 5. Funding in this wave was a little over $9 million. |