Justification for Non-Substantive Change

NON-SUBSTANTIVE CHANGE TO AN EXISTING COLLECTION

OMB Control No: 1103-0105

The COPS Office is requesting approval of a non-substantive change to an existing collection (OMB Control Number 1103-0105), covering a single collection event using a modified and reduced version of the approved form.

1. Testing Plan.

The CP-SAT will be administered in an online format using Vovici EFM Community Web-based survey software. Vovici’s survey hosting environment has been designed with security as a foremost consideration, with features such as 128 bit SSL encryption and redundant firewalls. Participant email addresses will be uploaded into the Vovici Community secure Web site and each respondent will be sent a link to the survey via their email address. Although the survey administrators can identify a participant’s survey status (e.g., not started, started, completed), there are no individual identifiers in the data and there is no way to link an individual’s data to their email address. If the respondent does not have an email account, participants can be directed to a URL address via alternate means (e.g., via agency memo with URL address, access to a common computer lab with the site loaded onto each computer). All data exported from the Vovici Community secure Web site will be kept in a secured folder.

ICF International will administer the CP-SAT in an online format using Vovici EFM Community Web-based survey software. Vovici’s survey hosting environment has been designed with security as a foremost consideration, with features such as 128 bit SSL encryption and redundant firewalls. Participant email addresses will be uploaded into the Vovici Community secure Web site and each respondent will be sent a link to the survey via their email address.

Emails to participants will include the following statement prominently displayed notifying them of the confidential nature of their surveys:

“Your responses to this survey will be kept confidential. There are no individual identifiers in the data that your agency will receive, and the agency will not be able to link an individual’s responses or data to their email address.”¹

This email will look like it came from the name and email address supplied by the agency in #2 above. Although the survey administrators can identify a participant’s survey status (e.g., not started, started, completed), there are no individual identifiers in the data and there is no way to link an individual’s data to their email address.

At the conclusion of this collection, ICF will make agency-level data available to the government with identifying information removed from the data set.

2. Objectives.

The COPS Office has awarded ICF International a cooperative agreement through the Community Policing Development Program. The purpose of this project is to improve the practice of community policing throughout the United States by supporting the development of a series of tools that will allow law enforcement agencies to gain better insight into the depth and breadth of their community policing activities. These tools are designed to operationalize community policing at various levels of the agency, and the survey captures information related to partnership, problem solving, and organizational change activity. The questions included in this survey represent an abbreviated version of the approved collection instrument, and they were reprogrammed and loaded into the survey software. The objective of this test is to ensure that any technical issues are identified before we plan to launch this version (which will be submitted as a revision to the previously approved collection, 1103-0105). It is also important for us to obtain information on how easily agencies are able to implement this shortened version of the survey agency wide. The Director of the COPS Office has presented the plan to release this resource as a mandatory component of our FY11 hiring program to the Associate Attorney General and Office of the Vice President.

3. Uses of the Information.

The pilot for the shortened version of the Community Policing Self Assessment Tool will establish that the shortened version is completed in 15 minutes compared to the 30 to 45 minutes per respondent for the full, previously approved version.

Results from a full agency of about 80 officers for the pilot version of the CP-SAT will allow the COPS Office to be confident that before this version is administered to hundreds of agencies, any issues or questions will have been identified and addressed. Further, the results of the pilot will ensure that the COPS Office will meet our mission and goals in FY11 and beyond.

4. Estimate of Hour Burden.

The CP-SAT shortened form is a resource that will be administered to a pilot agency in Redlands (CA) Police Department who is voluntarily participating in this test and are looking forward to its administration. The estimated hour burden to respondents within an agency for completing the survey is no longer than 15 minutes for each respondent and the total time burden for our participating pilot covered by this non-substantive change request is an estimated maximum of 18 hours. For this collection, the 18 hours estimated to complete the survey can be included under the already existing time burden estimate of 800 hours for the long-form version. Because this particular agency is participating in the short-form testing instead of the taking the previously approved long-form version, fewer hours are required, thus reducing this agency’s time burden (as a result of each respondent seeing fewer questions). The estimated maximum number of hours for the long version would have been no longer than one hour per respondent.

5. Estimate of Cost Burden.

Completing the Community Policing Self Assessment Tool will not generate any costs other than those associated with the respondents’ time. Therefore, the direct cost of the tool is $0.00. Another way to evaluate cost is by the time burden for salaried officers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics Division of Occupational Employment estimates that the average hourly wage for a line level police officer is $25.23² and $36.54³ for supervisors. We estimate an 8:2 ratio of line level to supervisor officer participation in our survey. We therefore calculate Salary-based Cost of Burden using a mean hourly wage of $27.49 and the 15 minute cost of burden at $6.87. Given the figures for Total Time Burden, the estimated Salary-based Total Cost of Burden covered under this request is $494.64.

Time and Cost Burden Estimates

A. # of Officers in participating pilot agency (Redlands CA P.D.)	B. % of Officers Taking CPSAT	C. # of Officers taking CPSAT (A x B)	D. Time Burden Estimate (C x 15 minutes)	E. Total Salary-based Cost of Burden4 (D x $6.87)
80	90%	72	18 hours	$494.64

1 We can only protect the confidentiality of those respondents covered under this collection. The CP-SAT will be more widely distributed and therefore we decided against including any statement on the forms themselves, as those forms may be distributed outside of this survey process.

2 US Bureau of Labor Statistics Division of Occupational Employment, 33-3051 Police Sheriff’s Patrol Officers, http://www.bls.gov/OES (May 2008)

3 US Bureau of Labor Statistics Division of Occupational Employment, First-line Supervisors/ Managers of Police and Detectives,

4⁴ http://www.bls.gov/OES (May 2008)