Under the Violent Crime and Control Act of 1994, the U.S. Department of Justice COPS Office requires programmatic progress reports from active COPS grantees in order to monitor each program, project or activity funded by the COPS Office.
This change in burden is a result of combining the following two collections: COPS Non-Hiring Progress Report (1103-0102) and COPS Hiring Recovery Program (CHRP) Progress Report (1103-0106).
In addition, the COPS Office established an office-wide initiative in FY11 to enhance the integration of the community policing principles into its grant programs. One of these enhancements includes requiring hiring grant applicants to complete a more comprehensive community policing plan that incorporates a problem-solving component asking applicants to specify crime issues that they will target with hiring funding. Once the awards have been made, grantees are held accountable for the community policing plans identified in their applications. Therefore, additional questions have been added to the Progress Reports FY11 Hiring grantees as a result of this office-wide initiative. Because the FY11 grantees represent such a small portion of the total number of respondents, the total burden was not impacted significantly.
Therefore, this collection now reflects the burden of Progress Reports for both hiring and non-hiring grants.
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.