USAC Provides Additional Detail about $900 Million in Unused Funds

Last week Funds For Learning reported that at the Universal Service Administrative Company’s (USAC) Quarterly Board Meeting, administrator’s revealed that $900 million in unused funds are available for use to supplement current and future requests for E-rate discounts. In its quarterly report to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), USAC reported the complete breakdown of unused funds by Funding Year. The amount of unused funds increased $400 million over the last quarterly report issued in February 2010. Based on the FCC's Third Report and Order, the FCC can direct USAC to apply unused funds to increase the amount of available funding for a particular funding year. USAC reported the breakdown of unused funds by year as follows: • FY 2002 – $25 million • FY 2005 – $100 million • FY 2006 – $300 million • FY 2007 – $375 million • FY 2008 – $100 million The quarterly report also highlighted the number of potentially fundable applications they have left for each funding year as of March 31st, 2010. The breakdown is as follows: • FY 2001 – 2 potentially fundable applications • FY 2002 – 2 potentially fundable applications • FY 2003 – 5 potentially fundable applications • FY 2004 – 44 potentially fundable applications • FY 2005 – 49 potentially fundable applications • FY 2006 – 99 potentially fundable applications • FY 2007 – 186 potentially fundable applications • FY 2008 – 372 potentially fundable applications • FY 2009 – 1756 potentially fundable applications The Quarterly Report also highlights that the SLD will continue to expand their CIPA review process; however, the results from the last year indicate CIPA compliance remains “generally high”.