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35-40 PA Districts Have NOT Filed 470's For Year 5
Message Posted December 20, 2001
TODAY IS ABSOLUTE FINAL DAY TO POST
We have done a cross check of all 470's posted and there are 35-40 Pennsylvania districts who have not filed a 470 for Year 5 E-rate. If you are one of these institutions.. you must file your 470 online, by 11:59 p.m. EST today (Thursday, December 20).
We are finding that several districts assume their IU has filed for all services on their behalf. In reality, if the IU files a 470 on your behalf,it's likely for Internet or broadband, and not for your local and long distance phone service. It could be the case that your district has signed multi-year contracts for all E-rate eligible services, and you don't need to do a 470 this year if it's been done before. These cases are rare because most districts don't have multi-year contracts for ALL E-rate eligible services.
Please make sure that your district does not lose out on Year 5 E-rate funding. All PA districts receive a minimum of 40% discounts, and many future grants will be contingent upon applying and receiving E-rate funds. So please ask yourself, "Am I positive that my district has filed a 470 for
Year 5 E-rate?"
Key Points:
1) All 470's must now be posted online, as it is too late to file the Form 470 manually (submitting the actual form via the mail).
2) Unless you are have already obtained a PIN and plan to certify your form online, the 470 signature and certification pages must be submitted manually, but only
required to be postmarked by January 17, 2002.
3) Unless you have a signed, existing contract, tariffed services must be competitively bid each year on the E-rate web site (all telecom services, including local and long distance). The SLD does not recognize multi-year tariffed arrangements.
4) Don't forget that if there is a chance you will want to upgrade your service during the next funding year, always describe the services you want as, "56K or faster" or "T-1 or faster", etc.
5) There is no harm in submitting too many 470s. If you determine that the bids are too high and decide not to sign contracts, the 470 simply dies.
6) After you post your Form 470, go back to the SLD website and "search posted" 470's to be sure it was submitted and to determine your Allowable Contract Date (29th day after 470 posting). This date will be shown at the top of your posted 470. How? Go to: http://www.sl.universalservice.org/ and click on "view forms" at the right. Then click on "search posted."
7) Don't forget that you cannot receive E-rate discounts on a service or contract unless a Form 470 has been posted requesting bids on that service. Even if you have no competition in your area, all services must be posted to the SLD's E-rate web site using a 470.
8) You may submit one 470 and one 471, listing all of the services or items on one application, or you may submit several of each form. There is no one-to-one ratio for applications submitted. Also, if you already have submitted a 470 and now realize that there are additional items that you
wanted to list, simply post a new 470 for those services.
If you have any questions, please e-mail me.
-- Julie
Julie Tritt Schell
Director, Office of Educational Technology
Pennsylvania Department of Education
(717) 705-4486
(717) 787-7222 - fax
www.L2L.org
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