Hi,

There is a potential issue with Erate rules enacted in the past year and
doorprizes at the ACTEM conference - please pass this on to anybody in
your district who is attending the conference and who is involved in the
erate process.

This is as murky as it comes and I am not a lawyer so please take the
following as an advisory only - it is up to you to figure out how you are
affected by this issue. 

It is up to conference attendees to figure out whether or not they can
accept doorprizes or gifts.  If you want your name removed from the Friday
afternoon door prize drawing, please email me at [log in to unmask] before
Friday morning to take care of this.


This only affects gifts or doorprizes from vendors that do priority 2
erate services and attendees who are involved in the erate decisionmaking
process for their schools.

The best USAC advice for technology decision makers on any gift from any
vendor that deals with the E-Rate program at your
district/school/consortium is: Do not accept any gifts from any E-Rate
vendor for any reason.  If you do, make sure you adhere to the new E-Rate
gift policy that is currently in effect:

•     No single gifts over $20.00 for a single occurrence
•     A maximum limit of $50.00 per person, per vendor, per year.

Possible scenarios for receiving gifts at ACTEM's MainED conference:

a.)   Exhibitors/vendors donate their prize to the convention/ACTEM and
ACTEM gives the door prize to the attendee (so it’s from ACTEM, not the
vendor):

In this example, this would not violate the E-Rate gift policy as long as
there was no attribution back to the vendor that gave the gift to ACTEM. 
If there is identifier of which gift was given by which vendor, you will
need to keep in mind the gift policy prior to accepting any gift. 

b.)    Attendees register at the individual booths either by dropping a
business card or signing up to enter a drawing to win a prize.

In this example, because the vendor is identifiable for any gift that you
might have registered for, this would be part of the gift policy and
something for which you need to take into consideration prior to accepting
any of these gifts.

For those so of you that do not file for any priority two (P2) services
within the E-Rate program, you would not have to worry about the gift
policy in terms of P2 gifts. The only caution is that if you think you
only file for priority one (P1) services and then the SLD moves some P1
funding over to a P2 category, you would be held accountable for any gifts
that were accepted from any P2 vendor.

USAC - http://www.usac.org/sl/tools/news-briefs/preview.aspx?id=331

Standard weasel clause: this is in no way to be considered legal advice or
even an accurate reading of USAC gift rules. This is an advisory only, it
is up to the the conference attendee to figure out what they can accept
for gifts or doorprizes.

Thank you for your time,

Crystal



Crystal Priest
ACTEM President