USAC’s Schools and Libraries Division hosts monthly service provider conference calls, providing information and guidance for vendors participating in the E-rate program. Highlights from July service provider call include:
June 2012 Commitments
Since the June call, USAC has approved the following funding commitments:
Applicant Training Update
Space is still available for the Minneapolis, Portland and Atlanta applicant training sessions.
Invoicing Update
Payments for the month of June totaled $187 million, against $245.7 million in requests. Invoices were submitted by 1,629 service providers, and 9 percent were processed within 30 days. Top reasons for invoice rejection include:
service was billed after the contract end date
the total commitment had already been paid
the invoice was billed to the applicant outside the funding year
service provider has not filed Form 473
Other Discussion Topics
Applicants should provide enough information on their Forms 470 for service providers to respond with an accurate bid and should ensure that all possible vendors are able to receive the same information. If it looks like the applicant is providing information that should have been in an RFP, USAC could apply additional scrutiny to the competitive bidding procedures.
The FCC released the FY 2013 draft Eligible Services List. Comments are due on August 6, 2012 and reply comments on August 20, 2012.
The FY 2013 Form 470 should be released the week of July 16. Applicants may use a FY 2012 Form 470 to procure contracted services for FY2013 requests, but FY 2012 Forms 470 may not be used for tariff or month-to-month funding requests for FY 2013. Applicants who filed FY 2012 Forms 470 for tariff or month-to-month FY 2013 funding requests will be required to re-file the Form 470 once the FY 2013 Form is released.
On July 10, 2012, USAC Chief Operating Officer Richard A. Belden filed a letter with the Federal Communications Commission stating that USAC has identified an additional $650 million that can be carried over for distribution in subsequent funding years. Combined with the previously identified $400 million, USAC states that they should be able to carry forward a total of $1.050 billion, a figure which they believe “would be sufficient to make commitments at the 90% discount level for Priority 2 requests for Funding Year 2012.” The FCC has still not approved the final rollover amount for FY 2012.
Note: The information above is not the official minutes from the call, but simply notes from Funds For Learning. The official minutes for this call, as well as call minutes from previous months, can be found here.
