Oklahoma Administrative Code › Title 165 - Corporation Commission › Chapter 59 - Oklahoma Universal Service and Oklahoma Lifeline › Subchapter 7 - Special Universal Services › Section 165:59-7-1 - Reimbursement from the OUSF for Special Universal Service

Current through Vol. 41, No. 20, July 1, 2024
(a) An OUSF Beneficiary may be eligible to
				receive funding from both the OUSF and other state or federal funds; however,
				in no instance will there be a double recovery. If the OUSF Beneficiary
				receives funding from another state or federal fund for an investment or
				expense already reimbursed by the OUSF, the OUSF Beneficiary shall notify the
				eligible provider, and thereafter the eligible provider shall reduce the amount
				of its credit to the OUSF Beneficiary and its prospective funding request from
				the OUSF by an equivalent amount. The OUSF Beneficiary shall make every
				reasonable effort to obtain funding from another state and/or federal fund
				designated to support special universal service. The OUSF Beneficiary shall
				provide the OUSF Administrator with information regarding the OUSF
				Beneficiary's request for funding from government sources designed to support
				the provisioning of the Special Universal Service, i.e. the federal schools and
				libraries program or federal rural health care program, or an explanation of
				why such funding is not available, or why the OUSF Beneficiary did not request
				such funding. Failure to provide such documentation may result in the OUSF
				Administrator denying the request for Special Universal Service funding from
				the OUSF. The OUSF Beneficiary shall provide evidence of any exemption it has
				to obtain funding from another state or federal fund designated to support
				Special Universal Services.
(b)
				Completing alternative funding requests in a manner that results in reduced
				alternative funding, for which the OUSF Beneficiary would have otherwise been
				eligible, may reduce OUSF funding.
(c) The OUSF Administrator will utilize the
				following procedures when evaluating a request for OUSF funding for Internet
				access to a public school or public library:
(1) A fair and open competitive bidding
				process shall be used to select the services and eligible provider for which
				OUSF funding will be sought, including costs for Internet access to schools and
				libraries for the balance not paid by E-rate.
(2) An affidavit will be required from the
				public school or public library that the bid information submitted to the OUSF
				Administrator for review contains all the bids received by the school or
				library. All evaluation tools utilized by the OUSF Beneficiary while reviewing
				the bids, including all received bids, must be provided to the OUSF
				Administrator at the Commission offices or in a manner approved by the OUSF
				Administrator.
(3) The OUSF will
				not reimburse charges for redundant service(s); however, if the eligible
				provider is unable to provision the eligible bandwidth using a single access
				line, the OUSF Beneficiary may choose to employ multiple access lines to
				provision the eligible bandwidth level established by the SETDA standard, as
				long as all lines are provisioned by the same eligible provider. The OUSF
				Administrator may waive this requirement for good cause shown.
(4) The OUSF shall not fund more than one
				eligible provider for the same service at the same location for the same time
				period, except during a transition period from one eligible provider to
				another. Such funding during a transition period shall not exceed thirty (30)
				calendar days.
(5) The OUSF will
				fund either the lowest cost reasonable qualifying bid, or a bid that is no more
				than 25% above the lowest cost reasonable qualifying bid, inclusive of all
				non-recurring eligible charges, for the eligible bandwidth range of the OUSF
				Beneficiary. If the selected bid is more than 25% above the lowest cost
				reasonable qualifying bid, the OUSF will fund the lowest cost reasonable
				qualifying bid plus the 25%.
(6)
				The OUSF Beneficiary's request for bids shall clearly identify the minimum and
				a maximum bandwidth at standard available levels as suggested in guidelines
				promulgated by the FCC or Commission rules.
(7) Once OUSF funding has been approved
				pursuant to the Oklahoma Telecommunications Act, the eligible provider should
				submit monthly payment reports to the OUSF Administrator or the contracted
				agent on a monthly basis. The initial payment will be as necessary to pay all
				amounts approved but not yet received by the eligible provider. After the
				initial monthly payment request is submitted, a monthly payment request should
				be submitted by the eligible provider to collect the amount of credit provided
				to the OUSF Beneficiary. The monthly payment requests shall be paid on the next
				regularly scheduled payment date. A new Request for OUSF Funding must be filed
				to recover any monthly payment amount that exceeds ninety (90) days of service,
				unless otherwise agreed to by the OUSF Administrator.
(8) Monthly payment reports must be received
				in the form and content prescribed by the OUSF Administrator.
(9) The OUSF Administrator will post to the
				Commission website a copy of the monthly payment report within five (5)
				business days of the payment report being approved by the OUSF Administrator.
(10) Monthly recurring amounts or
				other funding related changes (e.g. level of bandwidth, or changes in E-rate
				discount amount) will not be increased from the approved amount without
				supporting documentation being made available to the OUSF Administrator.
(11) Funding for eligible
				services, including federal funding, shall not exceed actual eligible
				expenses.