Authorize the purchase of Aruba wireless access points from MXN Corporation and the purchase of Eaton UPS units from A3 Communications, paid for out of federal e-rate funds and state Connections for Classroom grant funds (see financial breakdown below).

Barrow County Schools is eligible to apply this year for federal e-rate funds for specific technology purchases, which e-rate will fund at 80% of the cost of said purchases.

In addition, the state has a Connections for Classrooms grant Barrow has already been awarded that will fund the remaining 20% of the cost of said purchases.

In April of 2017, we posted RFPs in compliance with e-rate guidelines for Aruba wireless access points (to increase wireless capacity across the district) and Eaton UPS units (to power the data closets running these access points).

We subsequently filed for e-rate funding in May of 2017. We received notification of our funding award in the latter part of the week of September 25th, 2017.

E-rate authorized the bulk of our request as eligible for funding, but disqualified a small portion as ineligible for federal funds. 

	Requested	Eligible	80% funded amount (Paid for by e-rate)	Remaining amount (Paid for by state)	Notes
Aruba	$430,356.30	$401,518.95	$321,215.16	$80,303.79	Extended warranties, management licenses, and a data cable were deemed ineligible for funding
Eaton	$46,381.68	$45,505.36	$36,404.29	$9,101.07	E-rate reduced the quantity of UPS units approved for funding by one unit
Totals	$476,737.98	$447,024.31	$357,619.45	$89,404.86

Of the total $447,024.31 that the e-rate program determined was eligible, $357,619.45 will be paid for by the e-rate program, and the remaining $89,404.86 will be paid for by the state Connection for Classroom grant. The e-rate portion will be given to us as a discount on the cost of purchase up front. The state funded portion we will have to pay for out of district funds, and we will then file paperwork with the state to be reimbursed the full $89,404.86. The net sum is a total cost of $0 to the district for the eligible equipment.

We will revisit the ineligible portion of our original request as follows:

- The ineligible portion for the wireless access points will be submitted as an ITS budget request for next year. 

- The additional single UPS unit that was not funded will be purchased out of the current ITS budget.

We will also be bringing an RFP to the board next month for data cabling required to install the wireless access points.

Up front expense to the district to be subsequently reimbursed: $89,404.86

Net financial impact to the district after state reimbursement: $0.