The CDFI Fund is implementing a Financial Education and Counseling (FEC) Pilot Program to provide financial assistance awards to eligible organizations to provide a range of financial education and counseling services to prospective home buyers.
The Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund is requesting emergency Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) clearance of the FY 2009 Financial Education and Counseling (FEC) Pilot Program Application. The attached clearance package includes the application and supporting tables and instructions. This package is simultaneously being internally cleared at the CDFI Fund, but no substantive changes are expected at this time.
Under the FEC Pilot Program, the CDFI Fund will provide financial assistance awards to eligible organizations to provide a range of financial education and counseling services to prospective homebuyers. The FEC Pilot Program was authorized in July of 2008 under Section 1132 of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (Pub. L. 110-289), and in March of 2009, $2 million was appropriated for this program under the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009 (Pub. L. 111-8). In order to announce the availability of funds for this program prior to the end of FY 2009, it is critical that the normal PRA clearance process be waived with respect to the 2009 funding round. The Administration is not requesting funds for this Program in FY 2010, but if additional funds are provided by Congress for FY 2010, then the CDFI Fund shall seek approvals under the standard PRA clearance process at that time.
The CDFI Fund plans to award grants associated with the FEC Pilot Program within a six-month time frame. It is the goal of the Fund to publish the FY 2009 FEC Notice of Funds Availability and Application by September 15, 2009. The Application due date is November 2, 2009, and the CDFI Fund hopes to announce the award recipients by February of 2010.
The pool of applicants is not anticipated to be extensive. The Fund anticipates that approximately 75 FEC Pilot Program applications will be submitted, and that only 5 awards will be made totaling $2 million. The total hour burden of this information collection is estimated 40 hours per applicant. Given the low number of expected applicants, and the fact that the FEC Pilot Program may only be administered for this fiscal year, the Fund would not expect a full PRA process to yield any revisions to the existing materials.
This clearance package includes a draft of the Financial Education and Counseling Pilot Program Application. Due to the timing constraints related to announcing this program before the end of the fiscal year, as well as the limited scope and duration of this program, the Fund opted to not collect public comments. However, the application materials have been vetted and cleared with the Office of Financial Education (OFE) at the U.S. Department of Treasury, and were also shared with members of the inter-governmental Financial Literacy and Education Commission (FLEC). Those comments are reflected in the final application. There were no significant comments from those offices on the potential burden.
The Fund cannont meet its statutory requirements to make award decisions without using an application form; this is anticipated to be a one-time collection for the FY 2009 funding round. Elements specified in the program's authorizing statute limit the amount to which the application burden can be reduced below the current level.
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that the collection of information encompassed by this request complies with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR 1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding the proposed collection of information, that the certification covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control number;
If you are unable to certify compliance with any of these provisions, identify the item by leaving the box unchecked and explain the reason in the Supporting Statement.