Minutes for March 9, 2005 Service Provider Call

A.	FUNDING COMMITMENTS FY2003 FY2003 – Letters in Wave 38 were issued on February 23, 2005; commitments on this Wave totaled $26.6 million. FY2004 Letters in Wave 14 were issued on March 1, 2005; commitments on this Wave totaled $30.9 million.


B.	FORM 471 PROCESSING SLD has received just under 1,600 paper Forms 471 and just under 26,000 paper Form 471 certifications for Funding Year 2005. We are working through data entry of these forms and form certifications. Please note that most of the paper forms that pass Minimum Processing Standards and are determined to have been filed within the Form 471 application filing window must still go through Problem Resolution before data entry can be completed.

C.	FORM 471 RECEIPT ACKNOWLEDGMENT LETTERS A copy of the Funding Year 2005 Form 471 Receipt Acknowledgment Letter (RAL) has been posted to the Reference Area. This letter contains useful information about next steps in the application process, including a complete list of allowable corrections that can be made using the RAL correction process. RALs for Funding Year 2005 applications will be issued in daily batches (5,000 applicant letters and 5,000 service provider letters) beginning March 7, 2005 until RALs have been issued for all certified applications. Thereafter, RALs will continue to be issued daily as the data entry of in-window paper Forms 471 and Form 471 certification pages continues.

D.	ONLINE ITEM 21 ATTACHMENT APPLICANT FEEDBACK SESSION On Wednesday, March 9, 2005 from 3:00 to 4:30 PM EST, SLD hosted an open WebEx session on the Eligible Product Database Item 21 Attachment. Participants will hear tips on using the online Item 21 Attachment, and have an opportunity to comment on the pilot project.

FORMS 472/473/474 UPDATE

On March 1, 2005, the Wireline Competition Bureau of the FCC issued a Public Notice DA 05-513, Docket No. 02-6, seeking comment on proposed revisions to FCC Forms 472 (BEAR), 473 (SPAC), and 474 (SPI). Comments are due on March 22, 2005 and reply comments are due on April 5, 2005.

Form 472 proposed revisions include the requirement of additional contact information for the Billed Entity and information on the employer of the individual who signs the form, reference to the FCC Registration Number and additional certifications.

Form 473 proposed revisions include requiring service providers to (1) provide a FCC Registration Number and, in the case of telecommunications carriers, a FCC Form 499 filer identification number; (2) certify that the SPIN operates as a telecommunications carrier; (3) identify the employer of the individual who signs the form; (4) affirm certifications against waste, fraud, and abuse. The revised Form would also only allow one SPIN per form, which is a change to the current Form 473 that allows for the listing of multiple SPINs.

Form 474 proposed revisions include reference to the FCC Registration Number.

INVOICING UPDATE

SLD has continued its efforts to reduce the time needed to review invoices. USAC management and senior management of our review team hold regular weekly status meetings to ensure that the review process improves and we reduce the volume of invoices waiting to be reviewed. We have put in several changes that should be seen by the user community. Additional staff has been deployed to these efforts. We anticipate addressing the older invoices first and have also made adjustments in our process to streamline the review.

One caller noted the change in the service certification form. The form now includes an item to record the check date and the check number for the applicant portion. The program allows for submitting SLD invoices at the same time as sending the applicant a customer bill. Thus an applicant may indicate the date the check for the undiscounted portion is planned to be sent in place of the actual. This is a field which must be filled in, but, at this time does not prevent payment processing. The information is used to support audit activities.

OTHER

Clarifying Guidance on Basic Maintenance

In the Third Order, the FCC ruled that anything beyond basic maintenance in a contract would make the entire contract ineligible. This remains unchanged. However, for contracts that contain only basic maintenance, but include eligible as well as ineligible equipment, the applicant is allowed to cost allocate out the ineligible equipment.

Suspension and Disbarment

Persons who have been convicted of criminal violations or held civilly liable for certain acts arising from their participation in the Schools and Libraries Support Mechanism are subject to suspension and debarment from the program.

FCC rules provide that there are two stages to this process. First, when the FCC becomes aware that a person has been convicted of a crime or judged civilly liable for certain acts arising out of that person’s participation in the program, the FCC suspends that person from activities related to the program. The FCC issues a public Notice of Suspension and of Proposed Debarment. The notice of suspension informs the suspended person or other interested party that that they have 30 days to oppose the proposed debarment. The second stage of this process is the actual debarment. The FCC will, absent extraordinary circumstances, provide notice of a decision to debar within 90 days of receiving any information from the person proposed for debarment. The SLD maintain a list of persons who have been suspended and debarred, along with a link to the notice on the FCC’s website. click here to view

GENERAL QUESTIONS RECEIVED BY E-MAIL—

Q.	Has the Service Provider Training for 2005 schedule been released? Christopher Lacuesta, Applied Global
R.	Service Provider training for 2005 has not been scheduled. I would welcome comments and suggestions. Please submit your comments on line by choosing E-rate Training Suggestion under Topic Inquiry.

Q.	Is there anywhere on the website where I can find a breakdown of how a payment is made? For example, once an invoice is sent to final review, the timeframe it is there, then once it is sent to disbursements, how long that is... etc.. Leanne Pesce, Unicom
R.	This issue was raised and answered on last week’s Invoice WebEx session. On the SLD website under the service provider tab one may find the Service Provider Manual. The section on Invoicing contains the invoice process and shows the flow of the payment process. The manual does not describe the timeframe for payment authorization. The line items reviewed and processed are collected two times a week. On Monday and Thursday these are transmitted to the Billing, Collections, and Disbursements (BCD) group for payment. There is a service level agreement that these will be processed in one business day, thus Monday’s approvals are processed by Tuesday and Thursday’s approvals are processed by Monday. If a service provider has submitted their remittance information including bank routing numbers the payment will be sent at the most one day after the payment processing. If the routing information is not included in the Form 498 information, a check is created and mailed allowing for delivery of payment within 10 days.

REMINDER: PLEASE E-MAIL YOUR QUESTIONS FOR THE SERVICE PROVIDER CALL TO THE CUSTOMER SERVICE BUREAU BY COB ON FRIDAY, APRIL 8, 2005. PLEASE REMEMBER TO WRITE, “QUESTION FOR SERVICE PROVIDER CALL” IN THE SUBJECT LINE SO THAT YOUR QUESTION IS ROUTED CORRECTLY. ALSO, PLEASE WATCH THE SLD WEBSITE FOR ANY PROGRAM UPDATES.

IF YOUR QUESTION IS RELATED TO INVOICING, PLEASE HIGHLIGHT THAT SUBQUESTION SO THAT IT IS ROUTED DIRECTLY TO OUR INVOICING TEAM. ALSO, PLEASE WATCH THE SLD WEBSITE FOR ANY PROGRAM UPDATES.

Content Last Modified: April 8, 2005