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(a)Except as provided under §16.38 of this subchapter,
if at the close of the application period the office has received
multiple applications that propose to provide broadband service to
the same broadband serviceable locations, the office shall, prior
to publishing information regarding the applications as required by §16.36
of this subchapter, resolve the overlapping areas to ensure that the
award of grant funds are not duplicated for a broadband serviceable
location.
(b)The office shall resolve overlapping applications;
by evaluating each impacted application independently; and the office
shall:
(1)score each impacted application and the application
receiving the highest score shall proceed to grant funding consideration
with its project area locations intact; and
(2)remove the overlapping project locations from the
lower scored applications and provide notice to the impacted applicants
that the overlapping project locations have been removed from the
application.
(c)The office shall provide notice of a determination
made by the office under subsection (b) of this section to each affected
applicant including notice of the right, if any, to submit an amended
application under subsection (e) of this section.
(d)If removing overlapping project locations as provided
under subsection (b) of this section results in the application retaining
less than 50% of the broadband serviceable locations originally proposed
for the project area, the office shall contact the applicant to determine
whether the applicant wants to proceed with a substantially reduced
application and the office shall take into account this preference
when determining whether to remove the application from further consideration.
The office may, notwithstanding the preference of an applicant to
proceed with a substantially reduced application, at its sole direction,
remove the application from grant funding consideration.
(e)If the office removes an overlapping location from
an application, an applicant may amend and resubmit an application
without the overlapping location if:
(1)The remaining number of broadband serviceable locations
in the project area is greater than 50% of the broadband serviceable
locations originally proposed for the project area; or
(2)The remaining number of locations in the application
is less than 50% of the broadband serviceable locations originally
proposed for the project area and the application has not been removed
from grant funding consideration under subsection (d) of this section.
(f)If an amended application without the overlapping
locations is not received by the office by the 10th business day after
an applicant receives notice that it may amend its application under
subsection (c)(2) of this section, the office may remove the application
from grant funding consideration.
The agency certifies that legal counsel has reviewed
the adoption and found it to be a valid exercise of the agency's legal
authority.
Filed with the Office
of the Secretary of State on March 4, 2024
TRD-202400957 Victoria North
General
Counsel for Fiscal and Agency Affairs
Comptroller of Public Accounts
Effective date: March 24, 2024
Proposal publication date: October 13, 2023
For further information, please call: (512) 475-2220
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