I agree with Shelly. In our case it recovers $30-35K/yr - that more than justifies the time and effort involved in filing. At the very least you should be able to recover 20% (up to 90%) of your communication services cost (phone service, cell service, Internet connectivity, web-hosting, etc). Here is a link to the discount calculation grid
http://www.sl.universalservice.org/reference/dmatrix.asp As for the second part of your question, this is a very sticky area that has gotten a lot of schools and providers in trouble. There are firms that you can contract to manage your program for a fee, but that generally can't be someone who is getting funding as a result. Most larger companies have people on staff who specialize in e-rate that can assist you with filling out the forms correctly, but they will not do it for you. For public schools the process really isn't that bad, but it is a bit more of a challenge for private schools because they generally have to use an alternative discount calculation method that is representative of their population. I believe this is to prevent an affluent private school that happens to be physically located in an impoverished district from getting the 90% discount when they have very few impoverished students. -TS Thomas C. Steele Technology Director Manteno CUSD #5 -----Original Message----- From: tech-geeks-boun...@tech-geeks.org [mailto:tech-geeks-boun...@tech-geeks.org] On Behalf Of Shelly Cramer Sent: Friday, September 24, 2010 8:41 AM To: 'Tech-Geeks Mailing List' Subject: Re: [tech-geeks] FCC Passes new E-rate rules! Depends on your free/reduced number and basically what your bills are like for local/long distance phone service and internet. For us we get a big enough amount that it is worth it. -----Original Message----- From: tech-geeks-boun...@tech-geeks.org [mailto:tech-geeks-boun...@tech-geeks.org] On Behalf Of Joel A. Brondos Sent: Friday, September 24, 2010 8:32 AM To: Tech-Geeks Mailing List Subject: Re: [tech-geeks] FCC Passes new E-rate rules! I've never made it through all the eRate process. Is it too late to start? Is it worth the paperwork? Can I get a company to do the paperwork who will benefit from the account? Is it less likely to benefit a small suburban parochial school than an urban or rural school corporation? Joel Brondos Brookfield, IL | Subscription info at http://www.tech-geeks.org | | Subscription info at http://www.tech-geeks.org | | Subscription info at http://www.tech-geeks.org |
