Congress Exempts E-rate from Accounting Rules
Message Posted December 9, 2004
Good news! As the very last action of the 108th Congress late last night,
the bill exempting E-Rate from the Anti-Deficiency Act (ADA) passed and is
headed to the President's desk for his signature. He is expected to sign in
the next 10 days without any problems.
As you know, as a result of a recent ruling requiring Universal Service
Funds to be subject to the ADA, the SLD was forced to halt all new funding
commitments as of August 3 until they could collect more cash into the fund.
Last week they were able to issue the first wave in 4 months -- wave 10 --
which provided much-needed commitments to hundreds of applicants in PA.
With the passage of this bill, E-rate will return to its normal practices
and funding will flow again, likely the week of December 20. This is great
news for applicants with internal connections funding still pending at the
SLD, as the next wave is expected to be largely for IC, at least at the 90%
level, if not lower. We still don't know the level to which the SLD will
fund IC for Year 7, but we hope to learn this in the next month.
I'd like to add a special note of thanks to all of the national associations
that formed an unprecedented coalition in DC to get this bill passed.
Groups representing teachers, superintendents, librarians, IUs, state E-rate
coordinators, mayors, governors, secretaries of education, big phone
companies, little phone companies, and others worked incredibly long hours
and they deserve all of our thanks for making this happen.
-- Julie
Julie Tritt Schell
jtschell@comcast.net
(717) 730.7133 (voice)
(717) 730.9060 (fax)
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