Back in September, when Mel Blackwell predicted that the Priority Two denial threshold would get down to 70%, I doubted him. Now that USAC has announced they'll be funding down to 80%, my doubt is gone.
How was I so wrong? Something is making the FCC and USAC confident that the percentage of FRNs approved will be lower than in the recent past. Could it be there were a huge number of requests from 2008-2009 at 87%, and applicants filed contingent FRNs for 2009-2010, and now that 08-09 is approved at 87%, all those contingent requests go away?
Whatever the reason, now that the funding is over the 80% hump, we could see funding run the table, since there is only about $100 million in requests below 80%. Applicants below 80% gave up on applying for Priority Two funding years ago. Or in some cases, districts dropped some schools from their request in order to get the discount above 80%.
Why did I ever doubt Mel?
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