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Monday, January 25, 2016

Freedom is the open window

In case you hadn't heard, the filing window for FY 2016-2017 has been set: February 3rd to April 29th.

Here's my annual spreadsheet of window history:
FY ESL release Window announced Days to announce Window open 60 days? Window close Window days
2005 10/14/2004 11/5/2004 22 12/14/2004 61 2/17/2005 65
2006 11/22/2005 11/23/2005 1 12/6/2005 14 2/16/2006 72
2007 10/19/2006 10/20/2006 1 11/14/2006 26 2/7/2007 85
2008 10/19/2007 10/28/2007 9 11/7/2007 19 2/7/2008 92
2009 11/21/2008 11/24/2008 3 12/2/2008 11 2/12/2009 72
2010 12/2/2009 12/3/2009 1 12/3/2009 1 2/11/2010 70
2011 12/6/2010 12/10/2010 4 1/11/2011 36 3/24/2011 72
2012 9/28/2011 11/22/2011 55 1/9/2012 103 3/20/2012 71
2013 9/27/2012 11/13/2012 47 12/12/2012 76 3/14/2013 92
2014 10/22/2013 11/20/2013 29 1/9/2014 79 3/26/2014 76
2015 10/28/2014 12/19/2014 52 1/14/2015 78 3/26/2015 71
2016 9/11/2015 1/25/2016 136 2/3/2016 145 4/29/2016 86

It's a whole new ballgame!  Other than the date the ESL was released and the length of the window, everything is unprecedented.

My dream of a compressed PIA review period is coming true.

Just like last year, you can complete and pay for Category 2 purchases before you file the Form 471 for those purchases, since the filing window closes after the April 1 start date for C2 installation.

Wednesday, January 06, 2016

Eligible vs. fundable

Here's the sort of thing I think about in the shower:

So let's say you're a district with a 40% discount looking for a VoIP/Internet bundle for FY 2016-2017.  Well, next year 40% schools will have stepped down to 0% for voice, so you're only getting funding for the Internet portion.  When you create your evaluation, only the price of the Internet should be considered in the most-heavily-weighted Price criterion, right?

Not so fast.  The rule says that "you must include the price of the eligible products and services as a factor and that factor must be weighted more heavily than any other single factor."  Well, voice is an eligible service.  Yes, your discount for that service is 0%, but that doesn't make it ineligible.  "Not funded" is not the same as "not eligible."

So even though you won't get funding for the voice, don't you have to include the cost of voice in the price of eligible services?

That's good news for applicants, since it lets you choose the overall cheapest option.  And if you get 2 bids, both for $1,000, but one of them says it's $500 Internet+$500 voice and the other says $800 Internet+$200 voice, you can choose the latter, which gets you an extra $120/month in funding.