The Schools and Libraries Division Jan. 25 issued another $79.7 million worth of funding commitments for Year 4 of the E-rate program. That brings the total committed so far in Year 4 to about $1.93 billion, or 86 percent of the $2.25 billion that the SLD is authorized to disburse. However, SLD Chief George McDonald said last week that the SLD had been authorized to disburse up to $2.475 billion this year, because of applicants' history of failing to take full advantage of all of their approved requests.
There was no change in the threshold of approved internal connections requests, which remains for the time being at 88 percent.
McDonald said that by the end of January, the SLD wanted to "clear the decks" of most funding commitments tied to approved appeals dating from Years 2 and 3. The SLD has already begun distributing Receipt Acknowledgement Letters for applications filed and certified online in Year 5.
