Discounts

(b) Discount percentages. The discounts available to participants in the Schools and Libraries Cybersecurity Pilot Program shall range from 20 percent to 90 percent of the pre-discount price for all eligible services provided by eligible providers. The discounts available shall be determined by indicators of poverty and urban/rurality designation.

(1) For schools and school districts, the level of poverty shall be based on the percentage of the student enrollment that is eligible for a free or reduced price lunch under the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) or a federally-approved alternative mechanism. School districts shall divide the total number of students eligible for the NSLP within the school district by the total number of students within the school district to arrive at a percentage of students eligible. This percentage rate shall then be applied to the discount matrix to set a discount rate for the supported services purchased by all schools within the school district. Independent charter schools, private schools, and other eligible educational facilities should calculate a single discount percentage rate based on the total number of students under the control of the central administrative agency.

(2) For libraries and library consortia, the level of poverty shall be based on the percentage of the student enrollment that is eligible for a free or reduced price lunch under the NSLP or a federally-approved alternative mechanism in the public school district in which they are located and should use that school district's level of poverty to determine their discount rate when applying as a library system or as an individual library outlet within that system. When a library system has branches or outlets in more than one public school district, that library system and all library outlets within that system should use the address of the central outlet or main administrative office to determine which school district the library system is in, and should use that school district's level of poverty to determine its discount rate when applying as a library system or as one or more library outlets. If the library is not in a school district, then its level of poverty shall be based on an average of the percentage of students eligible for the NSLP in each of the school districts that children living in the library's location attend.

(3) The Administrator shall classify schools and libraries as “urban” or “rural” according to the following designations. The Administrator shall designate a school or library as “urban” if the school or library is located in an urbanized area or urban cluster area with a population equal to or greater than 25,000, as determined by the most recent rural-urban classification by the Bureau of the Census. The Administrator shall designate all other schools and libraries as “rural.”

(4) Participants in the Schools and Libraries Cybersecurity Pilot Program shall calculate discounts on supported services described in § 54.2003 that are shared by two or more of their schools, libraries, or consortia members by calculating an average discount based on the applicable district-wide discounts of all member schools and libraries. School districts, library systems, or other billed entities shall ensure that, for each year in which an eligible school or library is included for purposes of calculating the aggregate discount rate, that eligible school or library shall receive a proportionate share of the shared services for which support is sought. For schools, the discount shall be a simple average of the applicable district-wide percentage for all schools sharing a portion of the shared services. For libraries, the average discount shall be a simple average of the applicable discounts to which the libraries sharing a portion of the shared services are entitled.

(d) Payment for the non-discount portion of supported services and equipment. A participant in the Schools and Libraries Cybersecurity Pilot Program must pay the non-discount portion of costs for the services or equipment purchased with universal service discounts, and may not receive rebates for services or equipment purchased with universal service discounts. For the purpose of this subpart, the provision, by the provider of a supported service or equipment, of free services or equipment unrelated to the supported service or equipment constitutes a rebate of the non-discount portion of the costs for the supported services and equipment.