§ 54.2001 - Cap, budgets, and duration.

§ 54.2001 Cap, budgets, and duration.

(a) Cap. The Schools and Libraries Cybersecurity Pilot Program shall have a cap of $200 million.

(b) Pilot participant budgets. Each Pilot participant will be subject to a specific budget. Budgets are specified in terms of annualized dollar amounts, but participants' expenses are capped based on the full three-year duration of the Pilot and participants may seek reimbursement for more than the annual budget for any given Pilot Program year, so long as the total amount disbursed over the three-year term does not exceed three times the applicable annual budget.

(1) Schools. At a minimum, each eligible school or school district will receive a pre-discount budget of $15,000 annually. Schools and school districts with 1,100 students or fewer will be eligible to receive the annual pre-discount $15,000 funding floor. For schools and school districts with more than 1,100 students, the annual budget is calculated using the pre-discount $13.60 per-student multiplier, subject to an annual pre-discount budget maximum of $1.5 million.

(2) Libraries. Each eligible library will receive a pre-discount budget of $15,000 annually up to 11 libraries/sites. For library systems with more than 11 libraries/sites, the budget will be up to $175,000 pre-discount annually.

(3) Consortia. Consortia comprised of eligible schools and libraries will be eligible to receive funding based on student count, using the pre-discount $13.60 per-student multiplier and $1.5 million pre-discount funding caps, and the number of library sites, using the pre-discount $15,000 annual per-library budget and $175,000 pre-discount funding caps. Consortia solely comprised of eligible schools or comprised of both eligible schools and libraries are subject to the pre-discount annual $1.5 million budget maximum for schools and school districts. Consortia solely comprised of eligible libraries will be subject to the pre-discount annual $175,000 budget maximum for library systems.

(c) Duration. The Schools and Libraries Cybersecurity Pilot Program shall make funding available to applicants selected to participate in the Pilot for three years, to begin when the applicants selected to participate in the Pilot are first eligible to receive eligible services and equipment (i.e., from the date of the first funding commitment decision letter).

(d) Rules of prioritization. If total demand for the Schools and Libraries Cybersecurity Pilot Program exceeds the Pilot Program cap of $200 million, funding will be made available as follows:

(1) Schools and libraries eligible for a 90 percent discount shall receive first priority for funds, as determined by the schools and libraries discount matrix in § 54.2007. Funding shall next be made available for schools and libraries eligible for an 80 percent discount, then for a 70 percent discount, and continuing at each descending discount level until there are no funds remaining.

(2) If funding is not sufficient to support all of the funding requests within a particular discount level, funding will be allocated at that discount level using the percentage of students eligible for the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). Thus, if there is not enough support to fund all requests at the 90 percent discount level, funding shall be allocated beginning with those applicants with the highest percentage of NSLP eligibility for that discount level, and shall continue at each descending percentage of NSLP until there are no funds remaining.