Your Provisions Recovered.
Provision Scout is an E-Rate consulting firm focused on expense recovery for non-profit schools and libraries who are unknowingly overpaying for internet services and equipment expenses.
A Ten Minute Call Is Worth Thousands For Your School.
What Is E-Rate?
E-Rate is a self-funded, non-governmental program whose sole focus is to help non-profit public and private primary and secondary schools offset their existing costs for both internet services and equipment through the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) mandated by the FCC in 2014. In 2023 there was $4.768 billion in collected funds set aside specifically for non-profit schools and libraries.
Everyone who pays for internet service, pays a “USAC Fee” on their bill each month. This fee goes into a pool of funds that is specifically set up to reduce the internet connectivity expenses for all non-profit schools and libraries in the nation. However if a school or library does not partake in the E-Rate program, they pay into the funding without reaping the benefits from its intended use.
It’s our job to retrieve the funds. It’s your job to deploy them.
Hugh Harris | Founder & Headmaster
“Our school has benefited greatly, as Provision Scout has helped to reduce our schools capital expenditures. As our E-rate consultants, they have diligently worked to obtain the greatest refund of our internet and technology budget while requiring less than an hour of our time per year. I only wish I knew about the E-rate program sooner.”
FAQs
Have more questions? Visit our full FAQ page or reach out anytime.
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While most public schools participate in this program via their school district, most independent schools are unfortunately unaware that this program exists. Furthermore, since independent schools do not have an E-Rate expert through their school district, the responsibility of taking on E-Rate falls on a school representative. (CFO, I/T Manager, Director Of Finance, etc) Learning and navigating the complexities of E-Rate within time-critical filing windows is often more than most school officials, who have other primary responsibilities, have the capacity to undertake. This is why Provision Scout exists, to be your school’s E-Rate expert.
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This program is NOT funded at all by the government. Government Funds come from tax dollars collected and administered through a government agency. E-Rate, established by an FCC mandate, is required to be self-funded (non-tax dollars) by “Universal Service Fees” that we all pay on our internet bill and managed by the non-profit Universal Service Administrative Company. USAC’s website states “USAC is not a federal government agency or department or a government controlled corporation…”.
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This will not open any school up to Title IX due to the fact that this is not a government funded Program. To ensure this, we have a legal letter from the founder of First Liberty Institute law firm In Plano Texas, Kelly Shakelford, stating that the funds received through E-Rate are NOT considered Federal Funds and will not expose schools to things like Title IX mandatory compliance, which they will stand by. We will gladly provide this letter to your school or board upon request.
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Many of our clients have switched to us from other consultants purely out of frustration with either the complicated process or difficulties with their current E-Rate consultants. Provision Scout maximizes your reimbursement through proactive discovery to ensure each area of your technology spend is accounted for and filed for reimbursement. Without this dedicated process, many schools have later discovered that they have been missing out on funding in several areas and unfortunately USAC does not allow retroactive filing for historical funding years. Other consultants will only do large schools or school districts because “it’s simply not worth the time investment” for them. Some consultants ONLY do Category 2 for new building and some consultants only do Category 1 (they don’t want to take on the complexity of Cat2). A few of our schools previously started the process with a former consultant only to have them stop half way through prior to funding, leaving the school stranded without funds. We file not just for your largest refund amounts, but everything including your smallest qualified funding amounts. The bottom line is that Provision Scout is focused on building a long-term relationship with our schools by learning their needs and endeavoring to improve their technology position while maximizing budgetary savings through E-Rate reimbursement.
Unlock thousands of dollars every year from a program you already pay into.
What We Do
By taking advantage of our services, we provide end-to-end E-Rate program management and compliance to ensure you receive the provisions allocated for you. Leveraging over a decade of experience, we specialize in all the heavy lifting so you don’t have to. We offer unparalleled expertise and dedicated manpower often unavailable within schools. We strive for long term positive relationships with our schools through competency, communication, and character.
Our process starts with educating the school of the program details, comprehensive discovery to unlock the greatest refund possible, and ends with diligent execution on the schools behalf. Visit our Process page to learn more.
