{"id":32295,"date":"2020-03-11T01:03:49","date_gmt":"2020-03-11T01:03:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/e-ratepaorg.local\/?p=32295"},"modified":"2020-03-16T01:11:18","modified_gmt":"2020-03-16T01:11:18","slug":"how-to-allocate-c2-budgetscomplete-the-form-471-for-shared-equipment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/e-ratepa.org\/?p=32295","title":{"rendered":"How to Allocate C2 Budgets\/Complete the Form 471 for\u00a0Shared\u00a0Equipment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #222222;\">March 11, 2020<\/span><\/p>\n<p>~ What to do if a school doesn\u2019t have enough C2 funding remaining ~<br \/>\n~ Form 471 Example screenshots attached ~<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If a piece of Category 2 equipment is utilized by two or more schools\/libraries (called \u2018shared equipment\u2019), the cost of the equipment must be allocated from the C2 budgets of the entities sharing the equipment \u2013 regardless of where the equipment is physically located.\u00a0 Core switches, firewalls, and wireless controllers are good examples of shared equipment.\u00a0\u00a0After you enter the costs in the FRN Line Item and identify the schools utilizing the equipment, the 471 will ask\u00a0<em>&#8220;Are the costs shared equally among all of the entities?&#8221;.<\/em>\u00a0 \u00a0How you answer this question is important!<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If you answer \u201cYes,\u201d the system will split the costs of this line item\u00a0equally\u00a0among the recipients identified.\u00a0 For example, if the equipment costs $30,000 and there are 3 schools sharing the equipment, the system will take $10,000 from each school&#8217;s C2 budget.\u00a0\u00a0This is usually\u00a0<strong>not<\/strong>\u00a0the method that most applicants will want to choose, even though it&#8217;s very tempting to click &#8220;Yes&#8221; and let the system do the math for you.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>You may want to answer \u201cNo,\u201d and use a weighted allocation, performing the math offline.\u00a0 Note:\u00a0 A cost allocation methodology (where different costs are formulaically allocated to different schools\u2019 C2 budgets) can only be done for a piece of equipment that is shared by two or more entities.\u00a0 You can\u2019t do a weighted allocation if equipment is site-specific (just being used by a single school).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>This won\u2019t be an issue for FY 2021 when the C2 budgets become district-based.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Weighted Allocation Options<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You are free to develop your own cost allocation methodology but the formula must be defendable.\u00a0\u00a0This could be an allocation based on a % of enrollment, % of usage, % of total users (not just students), etc.\u00a0 Whichever method you choose, keep your calculations so you can easily show your math to USAC or an auditor.<\/p>\n<p>The most common method of weighted allocation is by % of users.\u00a0 Here are the steps and an example:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Take total users for all schools being served by the shared equipment.<\/li>\n<li>Divide # of users by total # of users to obtain % users for that school.<\/li>\n<li>Multiply school % users by total cost of equipment.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<table style=\"height: 160px;\" width=\"433\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"134\"><\/td>\n<td width=\"82\"><strong>Users<\/strong><\/td>\n<td width=\"87\"><strong>% Users<\/strong><\/td>\n<td width=\"175\"><strong>% Users x Cost of Shared Equipment<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"134\"><strong>Plainfield Elem<\/strong><\/td>\n<td width=\"82\">225<\/td>\n<td width=\"87\">0.21<\/td>\n<td width=\"175\">$6,300<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"134\"><strong>Boone MS<\/strong><\/td>\n<td width=\"82\">256<\/td>\n<td width=\"87\">0.24<\/td>\n<td width=\"175\">$7,200<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"134\"><strong>Franklin HS<\/strong><\/td>\n<td width=\"82\">581<\/td>\n<td width=\"87\">0.54<\/td>\n<td width=\"175\">$16,200<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"134\"><strong>Admin Building<\/strong><\/td>\n<td width=\"82\">10<\/td>\n<td width=\"87\">0.01<\/td>\n<td width=\"175\">$300<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"134\"><\/td>\n<td width=\"82\"><strong>1072<\/strong><\/td>\n<td width=\"87\"><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/td>\n<td width=\"175\"><strong>$30,000.00<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p><strong>How to Handle Schools with Too Little (or no) Remaining Category 2 Budgets<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As I\u2019ve said previously, never ever request more funding than is available in a school\u2019s C2 budget.\u00a0 If you find that a school with no remaining C2 budget will be sharing a piece of equipment, the best thing to do is list the total amount of the equipment, then list the amount that is over the C2 budget as ineligible.\u00a0 Then allocate the remaining eligible amount to the schools sharing the equipment, according to your cost allocation calculations (or an equal allocation). \u00a0Do\u00a0<strong>not<\/strong>\u00a0include schools with no C2 budget remaining as Recipients of Service.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-32299\" src=\"https:\/\/e-ratepa.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/cat2chart.jpg\" alt=\"cat2chart\" width=\"1300\" height=\"356\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In this example, if a district\u2019s discount is 50%, E-rate will pay $11,600 (50% of $23,200) and the District will be responsible for the other 50%, plus 100% of the ineligible amount ($11,600 + $6800 = $18,400).\u00a0 Only Boone and Franklin schools would be included as Recipients of Service because they have some C2 funding remaining.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Note<\/strong>:\u00a0 In the December 2019 Order, the FCC made it clear that a proportional share of the cost must be deducted to account for any NIF (Non-Instructional Facility) usage.\u00a0 The example above includes a NIF (the Admin Building) to illustrate the math.\u00a0 Obviously, this would not be possible if the formula is based on enrollment, so I used a \u201cuser-based\u201d weighted cost allocation instead.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>To help guide you through the Form 471 relative to cost allocations for shared equipment, attached are screenshots using the above example.<\/p>\n<p>If you have any questions about cost allocations for shared equipment, please let me know!<\/p>\n<p>&#8212; Julie<\/p>\n<p>Julie Tritt Schell<br \/>\nPennsylvania E-rate Coordinator<br \/>\n717-730-7133 &#8211; o<br \/>\n<a href=\"mailto:jtschell@comcast.net\">jtschell@comcast.net<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.e-ratepaorg.local\/\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=http:\/\/www.e-ratepaorg.local\/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1584405767923000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHfaSA2YTulR6M37tE-HTMFO2SUGg\">www.e-ratepa.org<\/a><\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=eratepenn\" class=\"twitter-share-button\" data-size=\"large\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>March 11, 2020<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-listserve_archive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/e-ratepa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/e-ratepa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/e-ratepa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e-ratepa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e-ratepa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/e-ratepa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32295\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/e-ratepa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e-ratepa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e-ratepa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}