Where Are Most Yr 10 Funding Commitments?
Message Posted June 25, 2007

~ FCDL to contain better reduction/denial explanations ~

In the last two weeks, I've received dozens of calls/e-mails asking why you haven't yet received your FY 2007 (Year 10) E-rate Funding Commitment.  For many, your application simply has yet to be reviewed.  If you are in this situation, don't worry, as these reviews typically continue for at least 5 more months and there will be at least another 35 funding waves to come.  But if your application has already gone through PIA review and you haven't been listed in any of the first eight waves, the likely reason is explained below. 

To date, the SLD has only been issuing funding commitment letters for FY 2007 applications that are approved exactly as submitted, which means that no funding requests have yet to be denied or reduced in funding (even if the reduction is due to an applicant-initiated reduction during PIA or through a RAL correction).  The reason is because the SLD is revising the funding commitment decision letters to include a much more comprehensive description of the reason the request is being modified, reduced or denied.  The previous denial or reduction explanations made it extremely difficult for applicants to discern why the funding request was modified or denied, thus making it hard for applicants to write a comprehensive appeal. 

The SLD expects the FCDLs that are being held pending these modifications to be released in the next 2-3 weeks. 

In order to include all the denial/modification/cancellation reasons in the Funding Commitment Report, the field for the “Funding Commitment Decision Explanation” will be expanded from 275 characters to 2,000 characters for funding commitments released for FY 2007.  If two or more denial reasons apply to the same FRN, they will be contained in one long text field and each reason will be separated by five sets of angle brackets (<>). In addition, if there are multiple comments, each comment will be numbered and further categorized by one of the following codes:
CR = cancel reason
DR = denial reason
MR = modify reason

The following is a sample of what could be contained in an FCDL comment field. Note that the first two comments include specific information added by the reviewer:

Funding Commitment Decision Explanation: MR1. The technology plan that supports this FRN only covers part of the funding year. Therefore, the recurring funds have been reduced to reflect the timeframe covered by the technology plan. <><><><><> MR2. The dollars requested were reduced to remove: the ineligible product(s)/service(s) Computer monitor $178. <><><><><> MR3. The site-specific discount was reduced to a level that could be validated based on third-party data.

If you have any questions about the changes to the FCDL, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Julie