February 28, 2020

Funding Year (FY) 2020 Category Two Budget Tool Released

USAC has posted a new tool – the FY2020 C2 budget tool – to assist applicants in determining their available Category Two (C2) budgets for FY2020. You can find a link to this new tool under the Category Two Budgets page of our website under Category Two Budget Tools. The FY2020 C2 tool, like the prior tool for previous funding years, provides information about the expected C2 budget for an entity and should be used for informational purposes only. Applicants should contact their Program Integrity Assurance (PIA) reviewer(s) for the most accurate information on the amounts remaining in their C2 budgets for FY2020.

The C2 budget numbers displayed in the new tool are based on student counts from the current entity profiles in the E-rate Productivity Center (EPC), which may have been updated by applicants before the administrative window closed. Keep in mind that these student counts may be adjusted during PIA review. In addition, like the prior tool, the new tool does not capture all data points that may be relevant for determining an applicant's actual available C2 budget for FY2020 (such as pending FCC Form 500 requests, pending appeals, or pending funding requests). Finally, the tool is updated each night to reflect the current committed amounts for all entities. You will need to download the tool each day to get the most recent commitment data. Please be sure to check the date of the download you are working with to ensure you are viewing the most recent data. This date can be found to the right of the title "FY2020 C2 CALCULATIONS" at the top of the new tool.

If you wish to view information about your C2 budget for FY2015 through FY2019, you may use the prior C2 budget tool. Please note, however, that this prior tool does not include information about your C2 budget for FY2020. You will have to use the new tool to obtain information about your FY2020 C2 budget.

Using the FY2020 C2 Budget Tool

To start, enter or paste one or more entity numbers in the Entity Number column. You can enter or paste up to 100 entity numbers at a time.

NOTE: To paste a column of entity numbers from another document, you must first remove any formatting. Here are two options: 

• Copy the column in your document and then use the "Paste Values" function to paste the column into the Entity Number column in the tool.
• Copy the column of numbers in your document, paste the column into Notepad or a similar text tool, then copy the column from Notepad and paste it directly into the Entity Number column in the tool.

For each entity number, you will see the entity name, the details of the calculation for the FY2020 multiplier, the C2 budget, the total approved pre-discount amount from commitments for FY2015 through FY2019, and the remaining C2 budget for FY2020. The calculations use the student count or square footage from the current entity profile in EPC.

Users can also provide an entry in the Projected Student Count or Square Footage column to see a projected FY2020 C2 budget and a projected FY2020 C2 remaining budget in the last two columns of the spreadsheet. This will be helpful information for applicants who did not update their entity profile before the administrative window closed.

Please note:

• If you enter an entity number for a school district, library system, non-instructional facility (NIF), or consortium, you will receive an error message. These entities do not have C2 budgets. You will receive the same message if the entity number does not exist in our database or a C2 budget cannot be calculated for that entity.
• For an entity whose C2 budget was reset, the total approved pre-discount amount will not include amounts from the funding years before the reset.
• There is also a reference column for the total pending pre-discount amount. This number currently totals pending requests for FY2015 through FY2019, and will be updated with pending FY2020 requests as applicants certify their FCC Forms 471.
• After USAC begins issuing FY2020 funding commitments, the amounts in the Total Approved Pre-discount column will be updated as well.

Important Note about the FY2020 C2 Budget Tool

As noted above, this tool is designed to assist applicants in determining the dollars remaining in an entity's C2 budget for FY2020. Please note that it does not capture all data points that may be relevant for determining an applicant’s actual available C2 budget for FY2020, such as pending appeals, pending FCC Forms 500, or pending funding requests. Applicants should contact their PIA reviewer(s) for the most accurate information on the amounts remaining in their C2 budgets for FY2020.

Additional Information

As a reminder, there are three FY2020 multipliers and a C2 budget floor.

• The multiplier for schools is $195.63 per student.
• The multiplier for libraries with an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) locale code of 11, 12, or 21 is $6.52 per square foot.
• The multiplier for libraries with other IMLS locale codes is $3.00 per square foot.

There is also a funding floor of $11,998.43. The funding floor becomes the C2 budget for entities who perform the calculation using the appropriate multiplier and the result is less than the funding floor.

The columns labeled FY2019 Multiplier, FY2020 Inflation Factor (the 2.1 percent inflation adjustment for FY2020), and FY2020 Bridge Factor (the 20 percent pro-rated portion of C2 funding available for all applicants in FY2020) simply provide the detail of the calculation for the three multipliers above that appear in the FY2020 C2 Multiplier column. The FY2020 C2 budget column will also show the funding floor if the C2 budget calculation results in a number less than the funding floor.

For questions about FY2020 C2 budgets, you can open a customer service case in EPC or call the Client Service Bureau (CSB) at (888) 203-8100.