October 28th is the last day to invoice the SLD for FY 2003 recurring service discounts. Applicants, who have been paying in full for monthly telecom, Internet, or other eligible services, must submit BEAR (Form 472) forms by this deadline or lose all retroactive funding. Please remember that BEAR forms must be acknowledged and signed by the associated service providers before they can be submitted, so applicants shouldn't wait until the last minute to seek vendor signoff. Vendors, who have been discounting bills for their customers, must file Form 474 Service Provider Invoice ("SPI") forms by the same date.

October 29th is the deadline for filing Form 486 funding confirmations for FY 2004 awards that were issued in Waves 1-7. As discussed in the past, a failure to meet a Form 486 deadline results in reduced funding which becomes progressively worse as the Form 486 remains un-filed. Applicants funded in the two subsequent FY 2004 waves (Wave 8 on July 20th and Wave 9 on August 8th) have slightly later Form 486 deadlines (November 17th and December 1st, respectively).

• Walker Feaster - Inspector General, Federal Communications Commission ("FCC")
• Frank Gumper - Chairman, Universal Service Administrative Company ("USAC")
• Winston Himsworth - Executive Director, E-Rate Central ("ERC")
• George McDonald - Vice President, Schools & Libraries Division ("SLD") of USAC