Starting June 23, the Schools and Libraries Division will no longer accept the Form 486 that has been used since the start of the E-rate program. Instead, the division will expect applicants to being using the newly revised Form 486, which carries a date of April 2000.
Even those applicants who are still seeking funding for the second year of the E-rate program should use the new version of the form. If they don't, the SLD announced June 19, the form will be returned to them and they will be expected to resubmit it using the new form. The new form is being mailed out with funding commitment letters or is available on the SLD Web site.
The revised form is designed to simplify the Form 486 process. Now it will simply signal that services have been started. The form will also continue to ask applicants to detail who approved their technology plan. A new form, the Form 500, will be used in cases when an applicant needs to modify a service start date or wants to notify the SLD that a funding commitment should be reduced or cancelled.
