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Year 7 (2004-2005) 471 Application Window Opens
Message Posted November 11, 2003
The Year 7 (2004-2005) E-rate application window has opened and applicants who already have posted their 470s and waited 29 days or applicants that have multi-year contracts for which a 470 was posted at the beginning of the contracts, may now submit the Form 471 to the SLD.
Below are some reminders for Year 7:
* As you know, you were not required to wait until the window opened to submit the Form 470, but for those entities that haven't yet posted theirs, you will want to do so in the next few weeks. My advice is to have your 470 posted in November, wait your mandatory 28 days, evaluate proposals, then submit your 471 in the month of January.
* Be sure to separate your priority 1 and priority 2 requests. The SLD mails funding letters based on 471s, and if you have a priority 2 request included on the same 471 as your priority 1 requests, the SLD cannot commit any funding until they know whether they can fund ALL of the requests on the 471.
* If you will be signing a multi-year contract, or know of a possibility of signing a multi-year contract, you need to list either the length of the contract or the possibility of a multi-year contract in Item 13 on 470.
* You must keep all winning and losing proposals for 5 years.
* You also must keep track of the evaluation process you used to select the winning proposal. Don't forget... you may have as many criteria as you like, but price (alone) must be the heaviest weighted factor. For example, if you have 4 criteria that you are using to judge proposals, price must be at least 26% of the weight, will all others being 25% or less.
* Beginning with Year 7, applicants may choose to have discounted bills or to seek reimbursement from the fund. You'll want to indicate your preference to your service provider(s) during the vendor selection process.
* Wherever possible, use the interview format for the 470 and 471. The .pdf version of the 470, especially, has been posing many technical difficulties for applicants.
* Be specific on your 470. Don't forget that firewall services, web hosting, and voice mail all are now eligible services, and should be listed on your 470 if you would like discounts on these services.
* If you want cellular service with the walkie talkie feature, be sure to list "cell service with direct connect feature" -- don't list "walkie talkie."
* Don't forget that all district or library employees' cellular service is eligible for discounts for Year 7. Therefore if your 470 for last year only contained the number of eligible lines, you'll want to make sure that you include the total number of current and future cellular lines on your 470 Description of Services.
* Instead of using the print preview feature, after you've submitted your 470, go back to the "apply online" page and choose the "search posted" option. Then type in your 470 number and print off a complete, clean copy of your application. The same advice applies to the 471. After you've hit submit, go back to the "apply online" page. Then under the 471 column, choose "display" and type in your 471 application number.
If you have any questions, please send me an e-mail.
Julie Tritt Schell
jtschell@comcast.net
(717) 730.7133 (voice)
(717) 730.9060 (fax)
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