News of the Week

Funding Status

Wave 16 for FY 2012 will be released on Tuesday, October 23, 2012, for $25.0 million.  Priority 2 funding is being provided at 90%, and is being denied at 89% and below.  Cumulative funding for FY 2012 is $1.40 billion.

Wave 66 for FY 2011 will be released on Wednesday, October 24, 2012, for $4.9 million.  Priority 2 requests are being funded at 88% and above, and denied at 87% and below.  Cumulative funding for FY 2011 is $2.42 billion.

No funding wave for FY 2010 is scheduled this week.

SLD Fall Training – Program Compliance

The SLD's presentation on Program Compliance during its fall training focused on a number of topics including:

• Appropriate roles for applicants, service providers, and consultants
• Technology plans
• Fair and open competition
• Lowest corresponding price ("LCP")
• Contracts
• Pre-commitment issues
• Gifts and donations
• Document retention

The following points should be noted and/or clarified:

1. The slides indicate that technology plans, required now only for Priority 2 services, "must be approved prior to the start of service or filing of FCC Form 486, whichever is earlier."  In the past, when technology plans were also required for most recurring Priority 1 services, the service start date — and therefore the critical plan approval deadline — was typically July 1st.  Priority 2 equipment installations, however, often don't begin until well after the start of the funding year.  While we believe that applicants needing technology plans should, as a best practice, seek to have their plans approved by July 1st, the real deadline is the start of service.  Moreover, if a Form 486 is filed prior to the actual start of service, then the technology plan must be approved by that filing date (since the Form 486 contains a certification that a required plan has been approved).
2. The list of activities that an applicant (and, by extension, an applicant's consultant) must, can, and cannot do to ensure fair and open competition includes some gray areas.  For example, an applicant cannot have a relationship with a service provider that would "unfairly influence" the competition, but an applicant can have pre-bidding discussions with a service provider to discuss product offerings, learn about new technologies, or attend product demonstrations.
3. One slide (#13) stated two Form 470 and RFP "rules" that we had not seen before, namely:
   1. "If you break a contract to switch to a new provider, that new vendor cannot pay the applicant's termination charges or fees.  The cost of the charges or fees must be paid by the applicant, and cannot be required or requested on the FCC Form 470 and/or RFP."
   2. "If a procurement is cancelled, you cannot reuse the original FCC Form 470 if you wish to seek new bids for the services sought."
4. The SLD reminded applicants using state Form 470s and master contracts that, if the state awarded contracts to multiple vendors, that they must conduct mini-bids before selecting particular vendors.  What the SLD slide (#14) did not indicate, but was clarified during Q&A, is that E-rate rules require that bids must be sought from all vendors covered by a multi-award contract.  State rules, to the contrary, often require a more limited number of mini-bids.
5. Important:  A new requirement for FY 2013 Form 470s and RFPs is that such a service request must not include a particular manufacturer's name, brand, product, or service unless the words "or equivalent" is used in the description.  On a related note, however, applicants may impose restrictions that certain services or products be "compatible" with those of a specific supplier.
6. The SLD devoted a dozen slides to the discussion of the recently-stressed requirement for service providers to charge no more than their Lowest Corresponding Price ("LCP").  For a discussion of LCP from an applicant's perspective, see our newsletter of October 1, 2012.
7. Both applicants and service providers should recognize that the SLD devoted 27 slides  — more than any other topic and a strong indication of the SLD's program compliance focus — to gift and donation issues.  This was also an important topic in last year's SLD fall training which was covered in our newsletter of October 10, 2011.  We strongly recommend a detailed review of this year's slides (#s 8 and 41-66).

E-Rate Updates and Reminders

October Deadlines:

The invoicing deadline for recurring FY 2011 services is Monday, October 29, 2012.  Associated SPIN changes, if required, should also be made by this date.  Invoice deadline extension requests, if required, will generally be granted if filed within the next few months.  Additional information is provided in the SLD News Brief for September 28, 2012.

Normally, the Form 486 deadline for early funding waves would also have been on October 29th.  However, since the first two waves for FY 2012 were not issued until July 10th (Wave 1) and July 11th (Wave 2) this year, those Form 486 deadlines will be November 7th and November 8th, respectively.

FCC Appeal Decisions Watch:

"Consistent with precedent," the FCC released an appeal order (DA 12-1666) granting relief for 14 applicants whose funding had been denied or reduced as the result of late-filed Form 486s.

USAC Board Nominations:

Nominations, as requested by the FCC (DA 12-1469), to fill nine of the eighteen outside director positions on the USAC Board were due last Monday, October 15th.  Two of those slots were designated as "school" positions.  Brian Talbott, previously the Executive Director of the Association of Educational Service Agencies ("AESA"), is currently on the Board (and a member of the Board's Schools & Libraries Committee) and has been nominated for another term.  The two nominations which have been received for the other school position (previously held by Anne Campbell, who is not seeking another term) are Russell Selken, the California State E-Rate Coordinator and the Director of Information Technology Services for the Butte County Office of Education, and Daniel Domenech, the Executive Director of the American Association of School Administrators ("AASA").

Schools and Libraries News Brief Dated October 19 – Entity Numbers

The SLD News Brief for October 19, 2012 discusses entity numbers — the unique identification numbers assigned by USAC to each entity that is eligible to receive E-rate discounts and/or files E-rate forms.  The News Brief discusses the two basic types of entity numbers (site entity numbers and billed entity numbers), and how to locate, request, or correct them.

One entity number problem not discussed in the News Brief, but one that we often see arise, is incorrect (typically spelling errors) or inconsistent names in the SLD's Entity Number database.  To avoid PIA issues with entity validation, it is important that SLD entity names match, as closely as possible, school and library names in the applicants' state databases.  Non-instructional facilities, which may not have formal state names, should be assigned more descriptive names than, for example, "Administration Building" — perhaps by simply prefacing that description with the school, district, or library name.