54.623—Cap.
(a) Amount of the annual cap.
The annual cap on federal universal service support for health care providers shall be $400 million per funding year, with the following exceptions.
(b) Funding year.
A funding year for purposes of the health care providers cap shall be the period July 1 through June 30.
(1)
Generally, funds shall be available to eligible health care providers on a first-come-first-served basis, with requests accepted beginning on the first of January prior to each funding year.
(4)
The Administrator shall implement a filing period that treats all rural health care providers filing within the period as if their applications were simultaneously received.
(d) Annual filing requirement.
Health care providers shall file new funding requests for each funding year.
(e) Long term contracts.
If health care providers enter into long term contracts for eligible services, the Administrator shall only commit funds to cover the portion of such a long term contract scheduled to be delivered during the funding year for which universal service support is sought.
(f) Pro-rata reductions.
Administrator shall act in accordance with this paragraph when a filing period described in paragraph (c) of this section is in effect. When a filing period described in paragraph (c) of this section closes, Administrator shall calculate the total demand for support submitted by all applicants during the filing window. If the total demand exceeds the total support available for the funding year, Administrator shall take the following steps:
(1)
Administrator shall divide the total funds available for the funding year by the total amount of support requested to produce a pro-rata factor.
(2)
Administrator shall calculate the amount of support requested by each applicant that has filed during the filing window.
(3)
Administrator shall multiply the pro-rata factor by the total dollar amount requested by each applicant. Administrator shall then commit funds to each applicant consistent with this calculation.
[62 FR 32948, June 17, 1997, as amended at 62 FR 56120, Oct. 29, 1997; 63 FR 2132, Jan. 13, 1998; 63 FR 3832, Jan. 27, 1998; 63 FR 43097, Aug. 12, 1998; 63 FR 70572, Dec. 21, 1998; 64 FR 2594, Jan. 15, 1999; 64 FR 30442, June 8, 1999; 70 FR 6373, Feb. 7, 2005; 71 FR 65750, Nov. 9, 2006]