Attendees: Jim Halley, Peter Adamy, Bill Fiske, Mike Shaughnessy, Sharon Hussey, Jim Monti, Melanie Turcotte

Approval of June 6, 2003 minutes.

Jim moved to approve; Bill seconded; minutes were unanimously approved.

New Business

Review of FY2003 End of Year Income Statement
Jim Halley made a motion to move $5000 from reserve to cover the
shortfall from the '03 Budget. Motion was seconded and approved.

Approval of FY2004 Budget
Several members requested that the municipal revenue and expense (line costs, hardware, and overhead) be listed as specific line items in the '04 Budget in future reports.

Discussion included Mike's surprise that the July '03 direct access invoicing showed a decrease in revenue in spite of the increase bandwidth being ordered by the districts. He noted that we had planned the price increase for bandwidth with the simultaneous elimination of the building charges for community clouds to be revenue neutral - we concluded that the $100K savings to Providence due to forming a community cloud accounted for the reduction in direct access revenue.

A motion to approve the '04 Budget was made, seconded, and approved.

Unfinished Business

Review of FY2002 Audit Report - members reviewed the notes and the financial position. Several questions were raised about lag time in accounts receivable. Melanie explained the timing of the SLD payments and the closing of the FY'02 accounting.

A motion was made to accept the audit as presented. It was seconded and approved.

Reports

Update on RI Telecommunication Education Fund
Bill summarized the status of the Act and posed the following questions to members for their consideration and input:

Q: Can we assume that the districts are not fussy about who provides the transport?
A: As long as there is reliability
Q: Assume RIDE will make decisions based on price; way that doling out happens may be distributed over several vendors based on availability. Do communities want to have input?
Q: When would districts know?
A: You would know by February 1 after Bill has done a bid and awarded services and assigned dollars. Assumption is that RIDE will use as much of lowest cost transport as possible. Want to dispel vendor perception that they may get cheated out of an opportunity.
Q: Why wouldn't RIDE accept all bids?

Discussion:

Bill posts bid; all respond; pricing is equivalent; e-rate wants allocation of dollars for specific services.
What to do in new environment - how to specify all vendors without allocating specific dollars for specific services.
Would need to look at vendor price list; pick out services; generalize what will be ordered
How do we know about fulfillment deadlines ahead of time - how to account for incumbent while waiting for new installation.
In first period, can only know what is there - in next period, if new vendor is desired you can plan with the vendor to have installs in place by a certain future date.
Have you ever tried to do a multi-year contract with the e-rate? Amount of paperwork is prohibitive - SLD views multi-year contracts with suspicion
Bill is insisting on one year contracts to avoid that situation.
Can problem be solved by redirection, ie, put out a bid to provide services through an agent such as RINET?
Bill doesn't think so - because of the fact that his funds are for telecommunication lines, not Internet access.
May challenge vendors the same way - why would they respond to an award on November 1 for a service that needs to be in the previous July1 and running by tomorrow and you eat the expenses if the award doesn't come through.
Winning is a nightmare for them.
If vendor is willing to come in at the margins and not trying to get the whole network.
Do you have to bid on an annual basis? In theory, no, but in practice, works out that way.
State contract is a five year contract;
What about modeling on Verizon pool? And vendors get a portion of the pool.
Sounds like COX proposal that vendors get a % of the pool based on contribution.
Let them bid on the pool and divide it up
A portion of the pool, eg, a percentage of the pool and it has a guaranteed fulfillment
May be a one line change to the RFP - instead of a bidder bidding on the whole package, they would bid on the portion they are able to deliver. In every other regard the bid response would look the same; specific charges for specific services.
Need to be concerned about quality of service
Price is the ultimate criteria for e-rate.
How about asking for bids based on categories and locations of customers.
Or, have them give pricing based on packaging
Or, provide opportunity for secondary bidding based on what is left out from first bid process.
What is impact on access to I2? Bill is buying only transport and it must meet minimum requirements.
In theory, we may spring free some dollars for additional bandwidth to districts.
Should drive costs down.
Assumption is Verizon will be paid out of the pool during transition from January 1 to June 30.
Or, Verizon must continue to contribute the money.
Is there a process whereby you can select another vendor under e-rate rules?
Only in cases where the selected vendor goes out of business or does something egregiously wrong.

Meeting adjourned at 11:15

Update to Projects Status - tabled for September 19 Worksession
Update on RINET-MUNI project - tabled for September 19 Worksession

Discussion
Alternative sources of revenue for dial-up revenues- tabled for September 19 Worksession
Agenda Items for 2003-2004 Meetings- tabled for September 19 Worksession