================================================================= ALAWON Volume 7, Number 36 ISSN 1069-7799 April 3, 1998 American Library Association Washington Office Newsline In this issue: (140 lines) -EDLINC URGES FCC TO PRESERVE E-RATE DISCOUNT -CLARIFICATION ON LIBRARY DISCOUNT CALCULATIONS FOR UNIVERSAL SERVICE -RECENT RELEASES FROM THE SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES CORPORATION _________________________________________________________________ EDLINC URGES FCC TO PRESERVE E-RATE DISCOUNT The Education and Library Networks Coalition (EdLiNC), a group of more than three dozen education and library organizations including ALA, sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman William Kennard urging him to ensure that the E-rate program continues to move forward with the implementation of the E-rate. "A restructuring of [the E-rate] program midstream or an 11th hour lowering of the funding cap will do irreparable harm to communities all across the nation that have undertaken significant, long-term financial obligations in anticipation of this program," according to the letter. "Either outcome would not only upset the legitimate expectations of all applicants and leave them holding the bag,' but will work particular harm on the low-income rural and inner-city communities that the program was designed to benefit most." The E-rate continues to be the focus of congressional criticism. On March 31 at a hearing of the House Telecommunications Subcommittee, several members disparaged the E-rate program. (A report on this hearing will be in a pending ALAWON issue.) Despite these attacks the program continues to move forward, with a number of new documents released by the Schools and Libraries Corporation (SLC) in the past two weeks (see below). To date, the SLC has received more than 40,000 applications for discounts from libraries and schools. EdLiNC also criticized telecommunications carriers, stating that many carriers have imposed or are considering additional universal service charges on both business and residential customers. These charges run counter to promises made by the carriers over the last year. EdLiNC urged the FCC to examine these charges closely. EdLiNC's press release and letter are available online at http://www.edlinc.org/press/331protect.html. _________________________________________________________________ CLARIFICATION ON LIBRARY DISCOUNT CALCULATIONS FOR UNIVERSAL SERVICE The Schools and Libraries Corporation (SLC) has clarified the method through which libraries and library systems should calculate their discounts for the federal Universal Service program. On March 30 in a meeting between the SLC and ALA, SLC representatives stated that libraries are *required* to use the weighted discounts that are being used by their local school districts. The discount rates that many libraries may have used which were based on district-wide numbers (total students eligible for free & reduced price lunch in the district / total students enrolled in the district) are not acceptable to the SLC. The SLC posted a fact sheet on discount calculations, which is available at http://www.neca.org/funds/020998.pdf. This fact sheet runs through the methodology necessary to calculate the discount. The SLC recommends that library representatives should contact the appropriate school district office in order to get the correct discount calculation. If a library is unable to get the discount figures from the school district, the SLC recommends contacting the state department of education for that data (a list of the state departments of education, with links to homepages, is available at http://www.ccsso.org/seamenu.html). As a final option, libraries can call the SLC hotline (888/203.8100) and get discount information from their Client Service Bureau. Form 471 must be filed with the SLC by April 15. The SLC also indicated that in the next month it will publish a database with all of the discount figures for every school district in the nation, but recommended that libraries not wait for this database and file their 471s as soon as possible. Regardless of the source used to determine the discounts, the library should maintain a written record clearly indicating the source of the discount figure for audit purposes. For libraries that have already filed form 471s with incorrect discount figures, they must refile the form 471 and call the SLC hotline (888/203.8100) to cancel their previous filing. This clarification has not yet been documented by the Schools and Libraries Corporation. _________________________________________________________________ RECENT RELEASES FROM THE SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES CORPORATION The Schools and Libraries Corporation (SLC) has recently issued a number of documents that are of interest to libraries and schools who are applying for the universal service program. In the past few weeks, the SLC has released: * An advisory on tariffed services and a clarification of that advisory; * A revised list of eligible services; * A fact sheet on services to administrative facilities; * A fact sheet on service start dates; * A modification to the minimum processing standards; * A new Form 471 Pre-discount calculation grid. All of these documents are available from the SLC via their website at http://www.slcfund.org/announce.asp. _________________________________________________________________ ALAWON is a free, irregular publication of the American Library Association Washington Office. To subscribe, send the message: subscribe ala-wo [your_firstname] [your_lastname] to listproc @ala.org. To unsubscribe, send the message: unsubscribe ala-wo to listproc@ala.org. ALAWON archives at http://www.ala.org/ washoff/alawon. Visit our Web site at http://www.alawash.org. ALA Washington Office 202.628.8410 (V) 1301 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, #403 202.628.8419 (F) Washington, DC 20004-1701 800.941.8478 (V) Lynne E. Bradley, Editor Deirdre Herman, Managing Editor Contributors: Aleck Johnson All materials subject to copyright by the American Library Association may be reprinted or redistributed for noncommercial purposes with appropriate credits. =================================================================