A.

Funding Commitments for FY2006 and FY2005
 
FY2006

Priority 1 requests only

FY2005

Wave 57, which will be issued next week, will include Priority 2 commitments at 81% and above.

USAC also issues funding waves for prior funding years when funding decisions can be made. Because a number of these funding waves have been issued since the last service provider call, we are including information on those waves here:

FY2004

FY2003

FY2002

30U      9/5/06      $378 thousand

FY2001

15Z      9/11/06      $1.18 million

B.

Update on Ministerial and Clerical Errors

USAC has completed procedures for ministerial and clerical error review. This review will occur for FY2006 applications that were not approved as submitted and applications and appeals that were in-house as of May 19, 2006, the date the order was issued. Going forward, all applications will be reviewed for ministerial and clerical errors.

C.

Training Update

The regional training sessions for Washington, D.C. and Boston have been completed. If there is a registration option or a waiting list option still showing on the website for training sessions that have not yet occurred, you should register if you would like to attend. Please understand, though, that if the deadline has passed for getting the conference room rate, that rate may no longer be available. There is contact information on the registration site if you have questions.

The negotiated rates are still available for the Houston and San Diego sessions, and registration for Houston is still open.

D.

Summer Contact Procedures Ended September 12

Both Problem Resolution and Program Integrity Assurance (PIA) give applicants 15 days to submit requested information in order for USAC to complete the data entry of a form or a review of an application. During the summer and winter holidays, we must make a successful two-way contact before we can start the 15-day clock. As of September 12, the regular procedure is back in effect. For more information, please refer to Deadlines for Information Requests on this website.

E.

A prototype of the Two-in-Five tool is being demonstrated in the seven regional training sessions. This tool will allow applicants and service providers to view Two-in-Five status by entity. You will be able to request entities by FRN, Form 471 application number, Billed Entity Number, or Service Provider Identification Number. The status will be colored red (for "stop") if the entity is not eligible to receive funding, yellow (for "caution") if the entity may be eligible for funding - for example, if a funding request from another funding year is still pending, or green (for "go") if the entity is eligible. Entities directly affected by Katrina who asked for and received a waiver will be colored blue for that funding year if the waiver was granted.

We expect the tool to be available in October.

Invoicing Update

Payments for the month of August totaled $53,429,401.58 against requests for $207.4M. In total, 11,453 invoices were processed for 1,719 service providers. This represented 34,143 lines in August with 99% being completed within 30 days and under 40 lines over 30 days.

There are currently under 40 in-process lines over 30 days old out of 701 lines in process.

Service Extension and Form 500 Update Reminder: Invoices have begun to arrive for Funding Year 2006. Applicants and service providers should verify that the contract end date is correct for FRNs featuring Internal Connections. If the contract end date is not correct, the applicant can file a Form 500 to correct it. Note that changing the contract expiration date does NOT change the last date to receive services.

In general, September 30th is the last date to receive Internal Connections services for the funding year that ended June 30th. If the applicant meets the conditions for requesting a deadline extension, a Service Delivery Extension Request must be submitted on or before the last date to receive services in order to extend the deadline.

Development of the Online BEAR Form continues. We are providing a demonstration of the Online BEAR Form at the regional training sessions. You can also download or view the Online BEAR presentation from this website.

Service providers will need an active E-Cert status to review and certify online BEAR Forms when the online system becomes available. Please refer to the E-file User Guide or call USAC's Customer Support Center at 1-888-641-8722 if you have questions.

Currently only 25% of the service providers who approve BEAR Forms have email addresses recorded on their Form 498. Because all notifications to the applicant and the service provider are sent by email, you should verify that your Form 498 email address is correct. Again, call USAC'’s Customer Support Center if you have questions.

A new PIN will be issued to applicants who have filed a BEAR in the last two years. This PIN can only be used to file BEAR Forms. Applicants with PINs issued due to the filing of a Form 470, 471, or 486 can file BEARs using their existing PINs.

Other

We have had some problems with the Form 470 Download Reports tool. This is not the tool that allows you to view Forms 470 individually, but the tool that allows you to download information in bulk from Forms 470 and manipulate it in a spreadsheet format. As of last week, we are updating these files manually each night so that the data are available the following day. We will continue to do this until the problem has been fixed and we are again able to automate the process.

1. If a service provider received funding but inadvertently failed to cash the check before it became stale and the school is not willing to redo the BEAR Form, what other action(s) can a service provider take to have payment reissued? Does a school have an obligation to assist the service provider in this instance?

USAC notifies the service provider if a check has not been cashed after 60 days. If no action is taken, USAC then notifies the service provider that the check will be considered stale. In general, if the service provider contacts USAC within 10 days, USAC can issue a new check.

However, once the funds have been restored to the FRN, the applicant must submit a new BEAR Form in order for USAC to issue a new check. It would be in the applicant’s interest to re-file the BEAR Form, because the service provider is required to remit the reimbursement to the applicant within 20 days of RECEIVING the funds.

Again you can call USAC’s Customer Support Center to get more information on the status of a particular check. You may also use the Data Retrieval Tool to see if the funds have been restored to the FRN.

2. The release of FY 2006 FCDLs decreased very noticeably in August in many states. Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Vermont have received an average of 76% less funding in August for FY 2006 as compared to August of last year for FY 2005. In fact, South Carolina and Montana didn't receive ANY funding for a majority of the waves this August ($0.00 in waves 17, 18 and 19), and as a result received over 90% less funding this August as compared to last August. On the other hand, August 2006 funding in Texas, Arizona and Maine has actually outpaced their funding in August 2005 by as much as 8%.

Additionally, there are a number of FY 2006 applications in some of the affected states that have been classified as "Available for Quality Assurance" for over 2 months without any changes whatsoever. Without any other explanation, it would appear that the Bishop Perry order has caused a dramatic shift in human resources. When can we expect SLD to compensate for this imbalance and resume the processing of funding decisions to "pre Bishop Perry order" levels in all states?

We are performing additional review work to make sure that FY2006 applicants have an opportunity to correct ministerial and clerical errors. (See “B. Update on Ministerial and Clerical Errors” above for details.) This review work is progressing, and the flow of commitments should be returning to normal shortly.