Year 7 Form 471 Filing Window Closes February 4
~ Reminders Listed Below ~
Message Posted January 28, 2004
This is your first reminder that the Year 7 Form 471 Filing Window closes on
February 4 -- that's only 6 business days, including today. No, there is no
way to request an extension. Please don't wait until February to file your
application, as traffic is usually extremely heavy and there may be server
crashes.
Below are my Top 13 E-rate Closing Reminders and Answers to Your Most
Frequently Asked Questions.
1) What Must Be Done by Feb. 4
The following materials associated with Funding Year 7 Form 471s must be
postmarked or submitted online by 11:59 p.m. EST on February 4, 2004 in
order for the request to receive consideration as inside the window. These
materials are:
* The Form 471 itself (whether electronic or paper)
* The Block 6 certification of the Form 471 with the signature of the
authorized person (whether electronic or paper)
* The Block 5 certification of any Form 470 cited in a Funding Year 7 Form
471 with the signature of the authorized person (whether electronic or
paper). Forms 470 with completed certifications submitted in a previous
year meet this requirement, as do those filed for Year 7 and submitted to
the SLD with a postmark date on or before February 4, 2004.
Note: Although an authorized signature is still required, an ORIGINAL
signature is not. The SLD will now accept stamped signatures, photocopies,
black ink, etc. But please make sure not to leave this item and the date
blank... some type of signature is required to be there.
2) Item 21 Attachments -- Labeling/Faxing/E-mailing
Item 21 attachments are allowed to be postmarked OUTSIDE the 471 window and
may be submitted via e-mail or fax, in addition to the mail. The SLD,
however, cannot review your application until they are received, so it is in
your best interest to submit them ASAP. Examples of what the SLD requires
in terms of Item 21 attachments can be found at:
http://www.sl.universalservice.org/reference/Form471item21Attachments.asp
Instead of mailing your attachments to the SLD along with your certification
page, simply fax or e-mail them directly to PIA. It likely will shave 2-3
weeks off their review time waiting for them to be scanned in at the
Lawrence Kansas facility.
Send submissions by e-mail to attachments@sl.universalservice.org. (Do not
send submissions other than Form 471 Item 21 Attachments to this e-mail
address.) Documents may be sent in most commercially available word
processing or spreadsheet formats. Scanned documents may also be sent. (TIF
file format is preferred.) Total file size of the e-mail message must be
limited to less than 10 Megabytes. If you have more than one Form 471
application, do not combine Item 21 Attachments from multiple Form 471
applications in the same e-mail message.
-- OR --
Send fax submissions to (973) 599-6511. (Do not send submissions other than
Form 471 Item 21 Attachments to this fax number.)
3) Proof of Postmark
If you mail your application and/or certification pages, be certain to
retain a copy of proof of postmark. IMPORTANT: IF YOU SHIP VIA AN EXPRESS
COURIER, THE COURIER'S ACTUAL PICK-UP TIME IS CONSIDERED THE POSTMARK. Each
year, there are dozens of applicants that drop their applications off in the
nearest express courier box expecting that it will be picked up at the
scheduled time -- and it is not. Scheduled time doesn't count and has lost
on appeal to the FCC.
My advice is that if you're going to use an express courier, make sure you
actually hand it to them and watch them scan it. Don't use a drop off box.
4) If you're requesting discounts in the Telecommunications Services
category, your provider MUST be an eligible telecom provider. How do you
know if they are? Go to the SLD's BEAR/SPIN search at:
http://www.sl.universalservice.org/Forms/SPIN_Contact_Search.asp and enter
the provider's SPIN number. If the last column has a Y in it, they're
eligible. If there is no Y, then you can't include the request in the
telecom category.
5) Requesting Only What You Can Substantiate
Last year the SLD slipped in a new rule called the "30% unsubstantiated
rule" which basically said that your Item 21 attachments have to
substantiate your Block 5 request. In essence, this means that if your
representative phone bill states that you spend $1000/month, you can't
request $1100/month. The SLD will only fund what you can substantiate. If
you request more than 30% of what you can substantiate, the entire funding
request will be denied. If it's less than 30%, it will be reduced.
Keep in mind that if you can only substantiate $1000/month, but you know you
will be adding 30 new phone lines next year (due to a building project, for
example), then you should include a copy of your current bill, and a service
provider quote for the extra 30 lines. That way you are substantiating all
of your request.
6) Contracts
Except for services to be delivered under non-contracted tariff or
month-to-month arrangements, applicants must sign a contract with their
service providers before they sign and submit the completed Form 471. If
applicants will be purchasing services under PEPPM, that Contract fulfills
the requirement to have a signed contract. For applicants that listed
equipment on their own 470, and are NOT purchasing from PEPPM, you must have
a signed contract before the 471 is submitted. Listing a service provider
on the Form 471 does NOT create a contract. Keep in mind that the contract
should list that the equipment cannot be delivered until after July 1, 2004
and list whether it's contingent upon approval of Year 7 E-rate funding and
your district's 2004-2005 budget. In Pennsylvania, Purchase Orders are OK.
7) Competitive Bidding
The SLD has been asking more and more applicants to provide all of the bid
responses received as a result of your Form 470 competitive bid, as well as
your bid evaluation criteria and scores in order to prove that you selected
the lowest responsible bidder. Keep in mind that price has to be the most
heavily weighted factor, which means that if you have 3 criteria that you
judged the proposals on, price has to be at least 34% of the total weight.
If you received several proposals from vendors for a particular service,
please be prepared to show to the SLD your bid evaluation worksheet.
8) If you are switching providers on July 1, you are permitted to use your
current provider's bills as justification for your request and Item 21
attachment. Just include a cover memo explaining what you're doing.
9) If you're a consortia leader don't forget that before you hit the submit
button, you must have signed Letters of Agency from each of your consortia
members stating that you are permitted to file an application on which they
are listed as a recipient of service. If you had entities sign a
multi-year LOA, that's fine as long as it covered specific funding years and
wasn't open-ended.
10) Be certain that everything you list on your 471 was included on your
originating 470.
11) If you waited until the last possible day to post a Form 470 for Year
7, remember not to sign or file the associated Form 471 too early. A Form
470 filed on January 7th has an Allowable Vendor Selection/Contract date of
February 4th. Vendor selection and contracts can not be made, nor can a
Form 471 be signed or submitted, before this date. You can, and should,
however, start your Form 471 now, and then just fill in the missing
information on the last day of the window.
12) If you're unable to complete a Block 5 funding request because your
service provider is still in the process of obtaining a SPIN, you can use a
"dummy SPIN" of 143666666.
13) And finally, don't forget to file separate 471's for your priority 1 and
priority 2 requests. And if you're submitting both 80 and 90% priority 2
requests, you should submit them on separate 471 applications as well.
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to e-mail me!
Happy Filing!
Julie Tritt Schell
jtschell@comcast.net
(717) 730.7133 (voice)
(717) 730.9060 (fax)
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