It’s early February, which means “E-Rate Form 471 filing” to the K-12 CIO community. I’ve had several districts ask me or speculate aloud regarding whether to apply for Internal Connections (Priority 2 funding) for their schools. It’s a difficult question and I’m never in a position to say “don’t apply”, but we can certainly look at the data to speculate on the situation.
E-Rate Central does a great job of this in a recent newsletter. In it, there’s an interesting graphic that details the past three funding years, the amount of rollover funds and the Priority 2 funding threshold. Their chart states:
Funding Year 2007, $650M rolled over, P2 threshold 81%
Funding Year 2008, $600M rolled over, P2 threshold 87%
Funding Year 2009, $900M rolled over, P2 threshold will likely be 70-78%
I thought I’d look at some of the cumulative USAC data a different way – all data approximated and keep in mind FY 2009 is still being funded:
Funding Year 2007, $1.4B total P1, $482M P2 90%, $463M P2 80-89%
Funding Year 2008, $1.6B total P1, $641M P2 90%, $208M P2 80-89%
Funding Year 2009, $1.4B total P1, $432M P2 90%, $399M P2 80-89%
That same E-Rate Central note above points out that there’s only about $500M available to be rolled into FY 2010 at this time. I suppose that could grow slightly, but there are other factors at play. With the economy as it is, discount levels have risen for many districts. There are more 80% and 90% schools, which is going to mean more school districts at a cumulative 81% and above.
My theory (and it’s only one person’s opinion) is this: School districts see that the FY2009 P2 threshold is going to go below 80%. They also see that they may have a higher discount level for the first time (or first time in years). Those factors will likely combine to produce great demand in the higher discount levels. Add that to the amount of available rollover funds (which will be similar or less than FY2007/FY2008 levels) and we could see an FY2010 P2 threshold above 80%.
This certainly doesn’t mean “don’t apply”, but the historical numbers presented don’t support another year of sub-80% P2 funding. We shall see.
I like your line of thinking here. Even though the Obama camp seems to be adding funding to education and they are big tech fans… increased applicants will probably eat up increased funds with an end result of not much change in the funding level.
Funny side note. to add a comment here you have a word verification that you have to enter. Mine for this post is… chump.
Valid point, John. There are those that are convinced that the administration will do something to increase funding. With the coming deadline of a presentation of a National Broadband Plan, it could mean anything from increased funding to diversion of funds away from this program.
I tried to stay away from all of that and focus only on the data available, which seems to suggest that at least $1.8B will be taken in P1 and P2-90% services and that could go up if there are more 90% applicants.