The Schools and Libraries Division announced that on December 30 it will issue another 110 funding commitment letters, totaling $50.7 million worth of commitments for the 2003 funding year. There was no change in the approved threshold for internal connections requests.
The wave marked the 19th of the 2003 funding year. SLD officials indicated that the next wave would not occur until the week of Jan. 19, 2004.
Last week, the Federal Communications Commission authorized the SLD to carry over $425 million worth of undisbursed discounts from previous funding years to support applications for the 2003 funding year. That means that the SLD will be authorized to disburse up to $2.7 billion worth of discounts for 2003, and potentially commit an even larger amount. Although the SLD has received authorization from its policy-making board to begin denying requests from applicants at a discount rate of 79 percent or lower, it has not yet begun to do so.
