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Good morning, This is a reminder that the deadline for submitting FCC Form 471 for Funding Year 2021 (fiscal year 2021-2022) is Thursday, March 25th. This is the form where you have chosen your service providers and know the cost of your service. What do I need? 1. Service provider name 2. SPIN of the service provider 3. Cost of your service What about the school district lunch numbers? The great thing about the portal is that the system automatically pulls the free and reduced lunch statistics from the school district that you have indicated in your portal and calculates your discount percentage to input into your form. So, no need for you to do anything else there. How hard is this form? It is the more extensive form in E-Rate, but you can do it! This is because of all the specific data you must input. *Please remember that if you uploaded your bid documentation because you are going into a contract for any service you're requesting, you will also need to upload your contract as part of your Form 471 submission. You upload your contract into your EPC portal by following these steps: 1. From your Applicant Landing Page, click on your library's entity name where it says, "Welcome, (your library's name)." 2. This will bring you to all the options in your 'records' tab. From here, click on "contracts." You'll see a list of your submitted contracts. If you haven't uploaded any yet, you won't have any in the list. 3. To upload a new contract, click on the 'manage contracts' button at the top (right-side). 4. From here, you can manage any of the already submitted contracts you have (should you need) OR click on the blue "ADD A NEW CONTRACT" button to upload your new contract. 5. From this point on, just follow the question prompts and answer the questions regarding the contract you're uploading. Remember to be sure to keep all your bid documentation (even if there were bids submitted which didn't meet the requirements outlined in your bid documentation), just in case you're asked about your process by the Program Integrity Assurance (PIA) folks. You also want to have create a bid evaluation matrix to show how you evaluated your bids. You can find help with that here<https://www.usac.org/e-rate/applicant-process/selecting-service-providers/how-to-construct-an-evaluation/>. Will they allow an extension of the deadline? According to the Schools and Libraries Division (SLD), the FCC (who is the parent organization over E-rate), there is no indication of any additional extensions currently. And just in case you need it - here is the EPC Portal link: https://portal.usac.org/suite/ If you need help with filing and want to review some helpful information/videos from USAC, you can find filing assistance with the 471 here<https://www.usac.org/e-rate/applicant-process/applying-for-discounts/fcc-form-471-filing/>. Happy filing! Liz Liz Thigpen Schreck, Director Ocoee River Regional Library State E-rate Coordinator for Public Libraries Office of Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett 718 George St., NW, Athens, TN 37303 Phone (423) 745-5194 - office; (423) 649-1583 - direct Regional Toll Free - (855) 692-8186 Fax (423) 649-1501 [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> This electronic mail may be subject to the Tennessee Public Records Act, Tenn. Code Ann. §10-7-503 et seq. Any reply to this email may also be subject to this act. The mission of the Office of the Secretary of State is to exceed the expectations of our customers, the taxpayers, by operating at the highest levels of accuracy, cost-effectiveness, and accountability in a customer-centered environment. Secretary of State Social Media Links: www.facebook.com/TennesseeSecretaryofState<http://www.facebook.com/TennesseeSecretaryofState> www.facebook.com/TNStateLibraryArchives/timeline<http://www.facebook.com/TNStateLibraryArchives/timeline>