Year 10 Priority 2 Funding Threshold Set at 81% Message Posted April 18, 2008
~ Affected PA applicants listed below ~
In December 2007, the SLD initially announced that they did not have sufficient funding to cover Year 10 (FY 2007) priority 2 funding requests down to the 80% discount level, and they were unsure whether there would be enough funds to cover 81-82% requests. The FCC rescinded this announcement at the request of the State E-rate Coordinators' Alliance because there was an outside possibility that funding would be available as other funding requests were denied and rollover funding became available from previous years.
After several months of deliberations, the FCC has decided that funding will be available to cover requests down to the 81% level, but no funding would be available at the 80% level (the PA applicants that are affected by the 81% cut-off are listed below). This is striking considering the additional $650 million in uncollected funds from previous years that was rolled over into FY 2007, thus making the 2007 funding cap almost $2.9 million. This is also an unfortunate sign that it may not be possible to fund P2 requests at the 80% level for FY 2008 and beyond unless the FCC changes its rules pertaining to P2 funding or provides a rollover amount sizably larger than $650 million.
For those of you who keep track, below is a history of how far priority 2 funding has reached for each funding year: