Program to help pay for cabling

The district received nearly $11.5 million in E-Rate assistance over eight years.
By HAROLD GWIN
Vindicator education writer
YOUNGSTOWN -- The Youngstown City Board of Education wants to include telecommunications cabling in the renovation of Kirkmere Elementary School, but the cost will be $99,820.
The good news is that the school district should only have to pay $11,987 for the work.
The district will apply to the federal government for an E-Rate discount to cover the remainder of the cost.
The board of education awarded the cabling contract Tuesday to Mid-West Telephone Service of Girard, the lowest of four bidders on the project.
The renovation of Kirkmere has a total $5.3 million cost.
The Universal Service Fund, commonly referred to as E-Rate, was created by the federal government to help underwrite the cost of telecommunication and Internet access services to schools and libraries.
It's funded by a universal service fee charged to companies that provide interstate or international telecommunications services.
It picks up between 20 percent and 90 percent of the cost of telecommunication services for eligible schools and libraries, with the amount of support determined by a district's or individual school building's service area poverty level.
Extensive use
Youngstown has made extensive use of the program, said Genie Natale, Youngstown's manager of educational technology.
The district received $11,443,657 in discounted services and reimbursements through the program from its implementation in 1998 through the 2005 fiscal year, which ended June 30.
The district's poverty level rating is high enough that most of its E-Rate funding comes in around the 90 percent level, she said.
Getting help with the cabling of Kirkmere is only one of the building improvement projects for which Youngstown is currently seeking E-Rate assistance.
The board approved a long list of E-Rate filings this week for the 2006-07 fiscal year which begins July 1, 2006.
Other projects
In addition to the Kirkmere cabling work, the district is seeking help with funding $573,458 in electronics improvements at the Kirkmere, Chaney, Bunn, Haddow and North buildings.
The application will ask E-Rate to pick up nearly $500,000 of that amount.
The requests don't stop there.
The program will pick up the tab for on-going telephone, Internet and other telecommunications costs, and the list of E-Rate projects approved by the board includes seeking just over $1 million in assistance in paying for $1.3 million in costs for data/voice mail maintenance, network maintenance, cellular phone service, local and long distance calling and other annual telecommunications costs.
The program has helped fund those expenses for Youngstown in the past. New funding applications must be filed each year, Natale said.
gwin@vindy.com