Youngstown schools eye telecommunications-services deal

By Harold Gwin

YOUNGSTOWN — The city school district is hoping to get more than $1.7 million worth of telecommunications services next fiscal year for just $342,000.

That’s the rough estimate that Genie Natale, the district’s director of educational technology, gave the school board’s finance committee Wednesday.

The bulk of the funding would come from the federal Universal Service Fund, more commonly known as E-Rate. The district would have to come up with the $342,000.

The fund was created by the federal government to help underwrite the cost of telecommunication and Internet access services to schools and libraries. It’s run by the Federal Communications Commission and 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 services for eligible schools and libraries, with the actual percentage determined by a school district’s or individual school building’s service-area poverty level.

In Youngstown, that’s at the 90-percent mark.

Natale told the committee that Youngstown’s list of projects, covering things such as building cabling, the cellular-telephone system, the district Internet network, wireless-electronic updates in all buildings and more, all must be approved by the Universal Service Fund before E-Rate money will be paid.

She said she should have a final version of the project list ready to present to the committee in December.

Youngstown has been successful in securing E-Rate funding, particularly in providing state-of-the-art technology for the new schools it has been building in a $190 million program now winding down. The district has been able to secure more than $16 million from the fund since E-Rate began in 1998.

Lock P. Beachum Sr., finance committee chairman, said the board wants time to review the E-Rate plan before it comes up for a vote.

“We don’t want to have any surprises,” he added.

gwin@vindy.com