Last Day to Submit Year 4 Form 470
Message Posted December 18, 2000
Only 1 Day Remains to Submit Year 4 Form 470 for E-rate
If your school or library has not yet submitted the Form 470 for E-rate, you
should do so by tomorrow at the latest. The Form 470 lists services or
items that a school or library would like to competitively bid, and thus
have them be eligible for E-rate discounts. If posted online by Tuesday,
December 19, applicants will have 2 days after the mandatory 28 day posting
(waiting) period to evaluate proposals, sign contracts and complete and mail
the second form, the Form 471 by January 18, 2001.
Important reminders:
1) All 470's must now be posted online, as it is basically too late to file
the Form 470 manually (submitting the actual form via the mail) because the
SLD usually takes several days to data-enter the information, and thus the
28 day clock would not begin until the SLD completes the data entry phase,
pushing you outside the Jan. 18 window.
2) Although the 470 posting deadline is tomorrow, the signature and
certification pages which must be submitted manually, are only required to
be postmarked by January 18, 2001.
3) Unless you have a signed, existing contract, tariffed services must be
competitively bid each year on the E-rate web site (all telecom services,
including local and long distance). The SLD does not recognize multi-year
tariffed arrangements.
4) There is no harm in submitting too many 470s. If you determine that the
bids are too high and decide not to sign contracts, the 470 simply dies.
5) After you post your Form 470, go back to the SLD website and "search
posted" 470's to be sure it was submitted and to determine your Allowable
Contract Date (29th day after 470 posting). This date will be shown at the
top of your posted 470.
6) Don't forget that you cannot receive E-rate discounts on a service or
contract unless a Form 470 has been posted requesting bids on that service.
Even if you have no competition in your area, all services must be posted to
the SLD's E-rate web site using a 470.
7) You may submit one 470 and one 471, listing all of the services or items
on one application, or you may submit several of each form. There is no
one-to-one ratio for applications submitted. Also, if you already have
submitted a 470 and now realize that there are additional items that you
wanted to list, simply post a new 470 for those services.
If you have any questions, please e-mail or call me.
-- Julie
Julie L. Tritt
Executive Policy Specialist
Pennsylvania Department of Education
333 Market Street, 10th Floor
Harrisburg, PA 17126
(717) 705-4486
(717) 787-7222 - fax
jtritt@state.pa.us
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