DATE: December 16, 2009
TO: Bridget Dooling
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
Office of Management and Budget
THROUGH: Kate Mullan
Regulatory Information Management Services
Department of Education
FROM: Jenelle Leonard
Office of Elementary and Secondary Education,
Office of Indian Education
Department of Education
Lily Clark
Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development,
Performance Information Management Service, EDFacts
Department of Education
The Office of Indian Education (OIE) is requesting a three-year reinstatement of the OMB #1810-0021, Formula Grants to Local Educational Agencies program. No significant changes are proposed for this collection.
This grant is an annual solicitation so applicants must apply every year to receive funding. The upcoming grant cycle for 2010 will be the fourth consecutive year of the electronic application submission. The application system is called the Formula Grant Electronic Application System for Indian Education (EASIE), which is a component of EDFacts. The online application process consists of two parts. In Part I prospective applicants submit their Indian student counts based on the number of ED 506 forms the LEA has on hand. In Part II applicants complete the remaining portion of their application which includes the submission of student performance data, project objectives and budget information. The feedback from grantees is overwhelming approval of the new EASIE system. In fact, since the introduction of the EASIE system three grant cycles ago, the number of applicants has increased by approximately 7%, enabling this Formula Grant to reach more Indian students.
In the previous clearance for this information collection, there were three Terms of Clearance, all of which have been addressed:
The Office of Indian Education completed the transfer of the burden and instruments of Part I from EDFacts (OMB collection 1875-0240) into this collection (1810-0021) in 2007 as planned. All of the required collection information needed from an applicant to successfully apply for an Indian Formula Grant is now contained exclusively in collection 1810-0021.
At the time of the previous Information Clearance submission the Office of Indian Education switched from a paper-based application process to an entirely web-based application system. What once took an average 45 hours to complete via paper submissions can now be accomplished in five hours with the web-based Electronic Application System for Indian Education. The Electronic Application System for Indian Education and its estimated information collection time for each applicant have not changed from the previous collection. Other than the transfer of burden hours from the EDFacts collection as described above, the only adjustment of total burden hours is the direct result of more applicants applying for the Indian Formula Grant funds.
The Office of Indian Education has continued to offer the option of submitting a paper-based application for applicants that cannot submit electronically. However, during the three past grant cycles in which the Electronic Application System for Indian Education has been in use, not a single applicant has requested paper submission due to a lack of Internet access.
| File Type | application/msword |
| File Modified | 2009-12-15 |
| File Created | 2009-12-15 |