[E10-erate] FW: USAC's Schools and Libraries News Brief for this week

Fri Dec 8 13:21:16 CST 2006

Here is the latest SLD News Briefs.  It has some great information on
the bidding process and how it should be handled.   Please read through
this as it will answer questions you have about the 470 process also.
Thanks,
Sue Rains

________________________________

From: SL News Brief [mailto:SLNewsBrief at lists.universalservice.org] 
Sent: Friday, December 08, 2006 10:12 AM
To: Sue Rains
Subject: USAC's Schools and Libraries News Brief for this week

header <http://www.universalservice.org> 	
Schools and Libraries News Brief 
December 8, 2006 

FY2007 WINDOW COUNTDOWN

Days to window close

61

Forms 470 filed to date

13,782

Forms 471 filed to date

602

TIP OF THE WEEK: If you plan to post a Form 470 for FY2007, you should
do so promptly. January 10, 2007 is the last day you can POST a Form 470
to the USAC website and still comply with the 28-day waiting period
under the competitive bidding requirement.

Commitments for Funding Year 2006 

USAC will release FY2006 Wave 34 Funding Commitment Decision Letters
(FCDLs) December 12. This wave will include commitments for approved
Internal Connections and Basic Maintenance funding requests at 88% and
above. As of December 8, FY2006 commitments total just over $1.55
billion.

USAC will continue to issue weekly funding commitment waves. After noon
on the date that the FCDLs are mailed, you can check to see if you have
a commitment by using USAC's Automated Search of Commitments
<http://www.usac.org/sl/tools/search-tools/search-commitments/>  tool.

Form 470 and the Competitive Bidding Process - Part II

Running an open and fair competitive bidding process was covered in the
December 1, 2006 News Brief
<http://www.usac.org/_res/documents/sl/html/sl-newsbrief-20061201.aspx>
. It also covered the 28-day waiting period that must occur between the
posting of the Form 470 to the USAC website or the issuance of a Request
for Proposals (RFP), if that occurs after the Form 470 is posted, and
the selection of a service provider. Part II of this topic covers the
bid evaluation and service provider selection process.

After the 28-day waiting period, applicants review the bids received and
choose the most cost-effective service provider from among those bids.
As we noted previously, service provider involvement in this process can
taint the process and lead to funding denials. 

*	Applicants that received one bid - or no bids - should
memorialize that fact with a memo to the file. Remember that if an
auditor visits two or three years from now, you may be in a different
job. Your successor will thank you for documenting what happened. One
easy way to do this is to send yourself an email, which is automatically
dated for you.   
*	Applicants who don't receive any bids can contact service
providers to solicit bids and can then review and evaluate any bids
received as a result. Applicants are not required to post for an
additional 28 days if this occurs but remember that you may have
additional requirements in this instance from your state and local
procurement rules. 

Remember that applicants must select the most cost-effective provider of
the desired products or services eligible for support, with the price of
the eligible products and services as the primary factor.

As you plan and construct your evaluation process, you should ask
yourself a number of questions, including:

*	Should I notify all potential bidders when the bidding period
closes? 
*	When will the bid evaluation take place?  
*	Who should perform the evaluation? 
*	How long will the evaluation process take? 
*	What evaluation criteria should I use? 
*	What kind of system will I use to weight those criteria? 
*	Are there any state or local procurement requirements, rules, or
regulations that I have to comply with? 

A very important component of your evaluation process is the list of
evaluation factors. Although the price of the eligible products and
services must be weighted most heavily, other factors can be considered
in the evaluation. As a result, the lowest bid may not necessarily be
the one you choose.

Here are two examples of bid evaluation criteria, together with
information on the weight of the individual factors:

Factor 

Weight 

Price of eligible products and services

30%

Prior experience

25%

Personnel qualifications

20%

Management capability

15%

Environmental objectives

10% 

Total 

100% 

Factor 

Weight 

Price of eligible products and services

30%

Other cost factors (including price of ineligible products and services,
price of changing service providers, cost of breaking contract, etc.)

20%

Local service provider

20%

Ability to provide maintenance on equipment purchased

15%

Extended warranty on equipment

15% 

Total 

100% 

In both examples, you can see that price of the eligible goods and
services is weighted most heavily, but other factors are considered and
evaluated as well.

Note that the value or price competitiveness of services or products
that are ineligible for support cannot be factored into the evaluation
of the most cost-effective supplier of eligible services.

	For example, Service Provider A offers a price for eligible
services of $1,000.
	Service Provider B offers a price for the same services for
$1,200, but this price includes $900 of eligible services and $300 of
ineligible services to be provided at no additional cost to the
applicant.

	The value of the "free" software or hardware offered by Service
Provider B cannot be factored into the evaluation of the most
cost-effective supplier of eligible services. All other things being
equal, Service Provider A is offering the most cost-effective bid for
services eligible for support.

Once you have completed your evaluation process, you can select the most
cost effective bid.

*	Services provided under tariff or under a month-to-month
arrangement do not require a contract. However, you must file a Form 470
for these services every year, and, as always, retain documentation
about how and when you selected your provider. 
*	If you indicated on your Form 470 that you were interested in a
multi-year contract or a contract that included voluntary extensions and
you then signed such a contract, you do not need to post a new Form 470
for the life of the contract. Each year, you would cite that original or
"establishing" Form 470 on your Form 471. 
*	In general, USAC expects a contract to be in place for products
and services other than tariffed or month-to-month services. 

Remember to save all documents associated with this evaluation process,
such as:

*	Winning bids 
*	Losing bids 
*	RFPs 
*	Evaluation plan and description of evaluation process 
*	Evaluation criteria 
*	Correspondence between the applicant and potential bidders 
*	Memoranda, letters, and/or notes regarding the bid process 

Tips for Filing Billed Entity Applicant Reimbursement (BEAR) Forms

Now that the online BEAR Form is available for applicants and service
providers, USAC would like to offer the following tips on its use.

If you have a PIN, file online. The online system alerts you to most of
the common errors that lead to nonpayment before you submit your BEAR
Form. Because you have the opportunity to correct those errors, your
form enters the review process more quickly and more accurately. USAC
assigns and mails new PINs to applicants every week based on newly
submitted paper certifications. Watch your mail for your PIN if you
don't have one. 

Re-file. Don't appeal. If you filed a BEAR Form for FY2006 and you don't
understand why your reimbursement was reduced or not paid at all, call
the Client Service Bureau (CSB) at 1-888-203-8100. CSB has access to
information on denial reasons for individual invoices and can help you
uncover what led to the reduction or denial of your invoice. Once you
know what to fix, you still have time to refile your invoice - online,
if possible, to minimize errors.

If you have trouble logging in to the system, enter your email address
in all caps. Many email addresses supplied on paper forms were entered
into our system using uppercase letters when they were processed.
Because the system is currently case-sensitive, that may be why it
doesn't recognize your email address.

If you are not receiving emails from USAC about your BEAR Forms, check
with your information technology staff. Filters may stop some messages
before they reach you and a change in your system settings or your safe
senders list may resolve this.

Make sure your service provider has access to the online BEAR system and
knows how to use it. Some service providers have not updated the contact
information - especially the email addresses - they originally provided
on Forms 498, so the email notifications USAC sends may not reach them
or the right person at their company. Also, service providers may not
check the boxes next to individual line items on a BEAR Form and only
click the "Certify" box at the bottom of the form. Because they did not
check which line items they were approving, USAC will presume that they
are not approving the BEAR Form. You can tell your service providers to
call USAC at 1-888-641-8722 if they have questions about updating a Form
498 or certifying a BEAR Form online.

If you need to review your previous invoices (paper and online), use the
Bulk Download feature on the online BEAR. You can specify a date range,
a dollar range, a SPIN, an invoice number, a reimbursement form number,
or a form status. The system will return all invoices since 1998 that
fit the criteria you specified.

You may download and print copies of Schools and Libraries News Briefs
<http://www.universalservice.org/sl/tools/news-brief/news-briefs.aspx?WT
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<http://www.universalservice.org/sl/?WT.mc_id=sl-newsbrief-20061208>  of
the USAC website, submit a question
<http://www.slforms.universalservice.org/EMailResponse/EMail_Intro.aspx?
WT.mc_id=sl-newsbrief-20061208> , or call us toll-free at
1-888-203-8100. Feel free to forward this news brief to any interested
parties.

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