District seeks E-Rate funds for telecommunications

Youngstown has secured
$15 million in funding since the program began.

By HAROLD GWIN

VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — The city school district is asking the federal Universal Service Fund to pick up nearly $1.7 million in telecommunications services.

The fund, more commonly know as E-Rate, was created by the federal government to help underwrite the cost of telecommunication and Internet access services to schools and libraries.

The program, run through the Federal Communications Commission, gets its money from 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 such services for eligible schools and libraries, with the actual percentage determined by a district’s or individual school building’s service-area poverty level.

Youngstown’s poverty-level rating is high enough that most of its E-Rate funding comes in around 90 percent of the actual total cost.

The district has been successful in securing extensive support from the program, receiving just over $15 million in discounted services and reimbursements since E-Rate was launched in 1998.

The program has been particularly beneficial over the last couple of years as Youngstown has embarked on a $182 million school rebuilding program. The district has been getting help from the E-Rate program to provide cabling and other services for new buildings.

That process is continuing as the school board recently filed for E-Rate funding for cabling costs totaling $443,000 at the new Paul C. Bunn and Martin Luther King Jr. elementary schools and the new Volney Rogers and Woodrow Wilson middle schools.

If approved, E-Rate will pick up all but $54,000 of that expense, which will be the district’s out-of-pocket cost.

New building cabling isn’t the only thing E-Rate will cover.

The district is also asking for support for its ongoing e-mail, Internet, Web hosting, district data/voice maintenance, cellular and long-distance phone service, district network support and more.

The total costs are just under $1.9 million, with E-Rate expected to pick up nearly $1.7 million of that amount.

gwin@vindy.com