E-Rate Central News for the Week
August 17, 2009
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 through our Contact Us Web form. Additional E-rate information is located on the E-Rate Central Web site.
FY 2008 – FY 2009 Funding Status
Wave 17 for FY 2009 is scheduled to be released on Tuesday, August 18th, for $22 million. Total FY 2009 funding is currently $718 million. Although USAC is ready to begin Priority 2 funding at 90%, it has apparently not yet received FCC approval. Wave 17 is for Priority 1 services only.
Wave 65 for FY 2008 is scheduled to be released on Wednesday, August 19th, for $106 thousand. Total funding for FY 2008 is $2.34 billion. A decision has still not been made on the funding of Priority 2 services at 87%.
SLD Computer System Upgrade, cont.
As discussed in last week's newsletter, the computer systems that support SLD operations are about to be moved from New Jersey to Virginia. While the move is in process, most online form filing systems and databases currently accessible via the SLD Web site will be unavailable to applicants, service providers, and even the SLD itself.
The SLD released a Special Edition News Brief last week on the USAC IT Upgrade providing more detailed information. The following new information was provided:
- Although the exact dates have yet to be finalized, the shutdown of the interactive portion of the SLD Web site is currently projected to take place during the week before Labor Day and the week of Labor Day. Assuming work will also take place on the weekend at either end, the shutdown period may be August 22 - September 6, 2009.
- Form 470s cannot be filed online while the system is down, but may be submitted on paper via mail or private carrier for processing. Once a paper Form 470 is data-entered by the SLD, a PDF copy will be posted on the static portion of the SLD Web site. Several points should be noted:
- To ensure that all Form 470s are posted for the required 28 days, the SLD will also make PDF copies available for all Form 470s filed on or after July 21st.
- The 28-day posting requirement for an individual Form 470 is expected to begin when the form is data entered, not when the form is postmarked. It is particularly important that any applicant needing to coordinate a Form 470 posting with RFP release and closing dates take this time lag into consideration.
- It is not yet clear how easy it will be to search the PDF copies of the Form 470s. USAC has indicated it will provide a cumulative data file of all FY 2010 Form 470s filed before system shutdown to facilitate review of such postings.
- The SLD confirmed that the following actions or online capabilities will not be available during the system shutdown:
- Funding Commitment Decision Letters (i.e., no funding waves) or Revised FCDLs.
- Appeal decisions.
- Online filings of Forms 472 (BEARs), 473, 474 (SPIs), 486, or 500. Forms may be submitted on paper, but will not be processed until after the system upgrade.
- Similarly, service substitutions, SPIN changes, etc. can be mailed or faxed, but will be held during the transition.
- Online BEAR acknowledgments by service providers.
- BEAR or SPI invoice payments.
- Most SLD Web site tools, including Submit a Question and the Tech Plan Approver locator tool. (To the extent that certain search pages may be available, they will probably not be updated.)
- Although PIA will not be reviewing applications per se, documents already requested by PIA must be submitted within the allowed timeframe. Extensions will not be granted automatically, but may be requested in the normal manner.
E-Rate Updates and Reminders
Service Provider Subcontractor Liability:
The FCC issued an appeal decision last week denying funding to several subcontractors of a service provider found guilty of E-rate fraud (see Lazo Technologies, Inc. et al). The three service providers had served as subcontractors to Micro Systems Enterprises ("MSE"), whose co-owner and president had been convicted in a bribery and money laundering scheme involving a FY 2003 E-rate contract for Dallas ISD.
The subcontractors argued that they should be paid for the cabling work they had done for Dallas under the MSE contract because: "1) they completed the cabling project pursuant to their contract with DISD; 2) they were never involved in any fraudulent activity; 3) other suppliers and contractors that were part of the MSE Consortium were paid in full; and 4) they were never notified by USAC or DISD to cease work."
Not surprisingly, the FCC denied the appeal noting that, whether or not the subcontractors had done anything wrong, the underlying MSE contract with Dallas "...was awarded outside of a fair and open competitive bidding process in violation of the Commission's rules and requirements, and the parties to that contract are therefore not entitled to any E-rate funding." As to the validity of the last two arguments made by the subcontractors, the FCC noted that: 1) "...to the extent that any MSE Consortium members were paid under the E-rate contract at issue, the Commission's rules [will] require USAC to recover those funds;" and 2) "USAC does not notify parties that an application may be on hold, in order to avoid jeopardizing non-public investigations... in this case, based on publicly available information regarding the investigation, Petitioners had reason to know that USAC was likely to hold or deny funding for the [Dallas] ISD applications at issue."
Fall E-Rate Training:
Final training schedules and registration information for seven of the eight one-day SLD workshops planned for this fall are available on the SLD Web site. Registration is currently open for Newark, Orlando, and Portland. Registration for Houston is expected to become available later this week.
The SLD News Brief of August 14, 2009, includes an announcement on an FCC meeting to be held this Thursday as a part of the FCC's work to develop a National Broadband Plan. Key parts of the FCC announcement are provided below.
[The FCC's broadband and education workshop] will cover topics ranging from E-rate reform to stimulating innovation in educational research. The workshop will be held on August 20 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern [at the FCC's headquarters in Washington, DC].
The FCC hopes to learn about ways in which broadband can affect education at the early childhood, elementary, secondary, and post-secondary levels in a cost-effective manner. The workshop will look at current programs, such as E-rate, and evaluate how such programs can be improved, for example, to take advantage of new and developing technologies. The workshop will also look at what applications and devices might be used to improve educational performance.
Please visit the FCC's National Broadband webpage to register to attend the workshop in person, learn about how to visit the workshop via webinar, or make specific recommendations to the FCC about the workshop. The event will be broadcast live via WebEx, Second Life, and web-based video feed, and interested participants will be able to submit questions to the panelists via WebEx, Second Life, and Twitter.
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