Minutes for June 8, 2005 Service Provider Call

A.

MESSAGE FROM GEORGE MCDONALD, V.P., SLD

George McDonald has submitted his resignation as Vice President of the Schools and Libraries Division of USAC effective June 30, 2005. “After seven and a half years of working with USAC, I believe it is a good time for the program to have fresh leadership with new ideas,” said George McDonald to the USAC staff.

Commencing July 1, 2005, Mel Blackwell will be Acting Vice President for the Schools and Libraries Division, as well as continuing his responsibilities with USAC’s Rural Health Care Division.

George noted, “I have enjoyed my time at USAC and I look forward to seeing all the programs that USAC administers succeed.”

For questions, please contact Tanya Sullivan, Senior Director Education and Communications, USAC via E-Mail, 202-776-0200

B.

FUNDING COMMITMENTS

FY 2004
Wave 19, 5-24-05: $126.370 million
Wave 20, 6-07-05: $ 44.236 million

FY2003
Wave 40, 6-01-05: $ 59.056 million
Wave 40A, 6-08-05: $ .521 million

Please note that, in most cases, we have issued letters notifying service providers and applicants of the status of the Form 471 applications that have not yet received an FCDL for FY 2003 and was not included in the Wave 40.

FY2002
Wave 30Q, 5-24-05: $ 3.090 million

C.

UPDATE TO FORM 471 STATUS TOOL

In order to provide more information to applicants and service providers on the status of the review process for specific Forms 471, the SLD has expanded the list of statuses available on the Form 471 Application Status Tool and added a new feature. The basic functionality of the tool will remain the same.

Please note that the status of each Form 471 will be available in real time. This means that an application may move into and out of more than one status during a given day, and may also move to an earlier status during the course of a review. This movement is a part of the normal review process, and this movement — including the temporary return to an earlier status —should not be cause for concern.

Applications that are on hold because PIA could not reach the contact person during the summer will show the status “Held for Contact Person.” If the contact person returns, he or she can click on this linked status and request a PIA contact to continue the application review process. For more information on deadlines for providing information during the summer and at other times, please refer to the document Deadline for Information Requests posted in the Reference Area of this web site.

For more information on the application status tool or to view the status of a Form 471, please go to the Form 471 Application Status Tool.

MISCELLANEOUS UPDATES

An archive of Eligible Services Lists from previous years is available through a link from the current Eligible Services List web page. These lists are marked with an “Archive” watermark, and should not be used for current eligibility issues.

A summary of the site visit report given by BearingPoint to the USAC Schools and Libraries Committee in April 2005 is available from a link on all of the pages in the Site Visits area of the web site.

A new document titled “Understanding Beneficiary Audits” is available in the Reference Area of the web site. You can also access it by choosing either of the “Audits” links under the gold menu bars for Applicants and Service Providers in the left-hand column on the web site.

FORMS 472/473/474 UPDATE

This group of forms is still with the FCC and has not been sent to the OMB for final approval. SLD is working internally on system changes that may be required so as not to delay the posting of the revised forms once OMB approval is obtained.

INVOICING UPDATE

SLD processed almost 32,000 invoice line items. This represents payments to service providers in the amount of $157,115,404. The payments for 88% of these were within 30 days. 85% were made within 7 days. A total of 2,465 items were over 120 days in process thus substantially reducing the backlog of invoices to be reviewed.

The reviews are effective as it has been noted that 24% of the dollars requested were denied for those items processed within 7 days, 42% were denied for those items processed within 30 days and 21% were denied for items processed taking over 120 days. We will continue to identify the reasons for denial to assist in education efforts.

As of May 31 the dollars to be reviewed were down to $266M of which only $88M were over 90 days in process. This compares to the $404M in January of which $168M were over 90 days. It continues to be noted that the contribution to the queue has stopped and the queue is being reduced. Changes to the process and efficiencies gained had reduced the queue and allowed us to sustain the incoming invoices.

OTHER

Tanya Sullivan has recently joined USAC as Senior Director of Education and Communications. SLD will be working with her to coordinate a training schedule for service providers and applicants for this upcoming funding year.

H.

GENERAL QUESTIONS RECEIVED BY E-MAIL

There were no questions available through e-mail. The following answers were provided for questions asked during the call.