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Long Island Newsday columnist Paul Vitello recently wrote: “There is something about the last-minute crowd in any category of human endeavor – last-minute tax filers, voters, converts, party-throwers, writers, side-trip takers, death penalty reprievers [sic] – that most people cannot help but admire.” But, you “don’t necessarily want them to keep the company books or to run the railroads.” Or, we would add, to file your E-rate applications.
The FY 2001 and FY 2002 application windows closed in mid-January. What with school holiday closings and end of the year chores and celebrations, many E-rate filers really didn’t begin to focus on their Form 471 applications until at least a few days into the New Year. Not surprisingly, many E-rate applications were not filed until just before the deadline with some filers rushing off to late closing post offices or battling to finish an application online to meet the 11:59 p.m. EST deadline. Every year, an unfortunately large number of applicants fail to make the deadline and are not funded.
The original filing deadline for FY 2003 was January 16, 2003. This would have been the earliest deadline in the program’s history. For schools that aren’t going to reopen until Monday, January 6, it would have given filers only eleven days to complete and submit their applications.
Fortunately, as a result of SLD problems in early November with a new online system platform, the FY 2003 filing deadline has been moved back three weeks to February 6. This gives applicants slightly more than a full month to complete their filings, a much more civilized timeframe.
As a show of gratitude – and as encouragement to the SLD to institutionalize a somewhat later filing deadline – we urge applicants not to wait until the evening of February 6 to submit their FY 2003 Form 471 applications. There is simply no excuse this year for a hastily prepared, last minute filing.
Two additional points on filing Form 471s well before the deadline should be noted:
(1) The sooner the SLD receives a Form 471, the sooner they can begin processing it, and the more likely applicants are to receive an early funding commitment. A team of PIA reviewers is already working on FY 2003 applications. We have heard reports of applicants being called on their applications within a day or two of filing their Form 471s online.
(2) Warning: If an associated Form 470 was not filed until December, it is possible to file a Form 471 too early. Please remember that contracts cannot be signed, and a Form 471 (even with just tariffed and month-to-month services) cannot be signed and/or submitted before the Allowable Vendor Selection/Contract Date.
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