3090-0291-Supporting Statement

SUPPORTING STATEMENT

FOR PAPERWORK REDUCTION ACT SUBMISSION

OMB Control No: 3090-0291

FFATA Subaward Reporting System (“FSRS”) Registration

A. Justification

1. Explain the circumstances that make the collection of information necessary. Identify any legal or administrative requirements that necessitate the collection. Attach a copy of the appropriate section of each statute and regulation mandating or authorizing the collection of information.

The Transparency Act requires information disclosure of entities receiving Federal financial assistance through Federal awards such as Federal contracts, sub-contracts, grants, and sub-grants, FFATA § 2(a)(2)(i), (ii).

Specifically, the Transparency Act’s section 2(b)(1) requires the Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) to ensure the establishment of a publicly available website that contains the following information about each Federal award:

• name of the entity receiving the award;

• amount of the award;

• information on the award including transaction type, funding agency, the North American Industry Classification System code or Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance number, program source, award title descriptive of the purpose of each funding action;

• location of the entity receiving the award and primary location of performance under the award, including city, State, congressional district, and country;

• unique identifier of the entity receiving the award and the parent entity of the recipient, should the entity be owned by another entity; and

• names and total compensation of the five most highly compensated officers of the entity if the entity in the preceding fiscal year received 80 percent or more of its annual gross revenues in Federal awards; and $25,000,000 or more in annual gross revenues from Federal awards; and the public does not have access to this information about the compensation of the senior executives of the entity through periodic reports filed under section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (15 U.S.C. §§ 78m(a), 78o(d)) or section 6104 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986. FFATA § 2(b)(1).

Beginning October 1, 2010, this Paperwork Reduction Act submission directs compliance with the Transparency Act to report prime and first-tier subaward data. Specifically, Federal agencies and prime awardees of grants will ensure disclosure of executive compensation of both prime and subawardees and subaward data. This information collection requires reporting of only the information enumerated under the Transparency Act.

This information collection requires information necessary for prime awardee registration into the FFATA Subaward Reporting System (“FSRS”) and review of its entity-related information. This information collection is necessary to allow for prime awardee reporting of subaward and executive compensation data pursuant to the Act.

This information collection request is a request for clearance for the collection of this information related to new Federal grants as of October 1, 2010. The information requested pursuant to the Act is standardized in nature and involve 10 or more respondents.

GSA requests OMB’s emergency review and clearance of this information collection by July 30, 2010. Emergency review and clearance of this Paperwork Reduction Act is essential to the implementation of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (“FFATA,” “Transparency Act,” or “Act”). Without expedited OMB review and approval, prime grant awardees will be unable to report subaward and executive compensation data pursuant to FFATA’s transparency requirements for new grant awards as of October 1, 2010. GSA requests OMB review and clearance of this information collection by July 30, 2010. This information collection requirement will also be included in the new 2 CFR Part 33, as guidance to agencies on the requirement for prime grant recipients reporting under the Transparency Act. Approval by this date will allow all federal agencies to properly notify potential grant awardees of the new information collection requirements associated with applicable grants. With such notification, potential grant awardees will have sufficient opportunity to manage internal business processes and administrative systems to facilitate reporting beginning October 1, 2010.

2. Indicate how, by whom, and for what purpose the information is to be used. Except for a new collection, indicate the actual use the agency has made of the information received from the current collection.

This is a new collection. The information collected will be used to allow prime grant recipients to register and report information about executive compensation (if applicable) for Grants prime and subawardees and subaward information, pursuant to the Transparency Act. While some information is currently publicly available on prime awardees, executive compensation of prime awardees and subawardees, as applicable is not. In addition, this information collection will provide public access to information on grant subaward information, pursuant to the Transparency Act.

1. What grants are subject to reporting pursuant to the Transparency Act?

New Federal, non-Recovery Act funded grant awards with an award date on or after October 1, 2010, and resulting first-tier subawards, are subject to the reporting requirements under the Transparency Act. New Federal grants includes grants with a new Federal Award Identification Number (FAIN) as of October 1, 2010 and does not include continuing grants awarded in prior fiscal years with new obligations beginning October 1, 2010.

For any new awards as of October 1, 2010, Federal agencies are required to transmit to prime awardees revised standard terms and conditions (to be published July 2010) that delineate reporting requirements pursuant to the Transparency Act.

For those new Federal grants as of October 1, 2010, if the initial award is over $25,000, reporting of subaward and compensation data is required. If the initial award is below $25,000 but subsequent grant modifications result in a total award over $25,000, the award is subject to the reporting requirements, as of the date the award exceeds $25,000. If the initial award exceeds $25,000 but funding is subsequently de-obligated such that the total award amount falls below $25,000, the award continues to be subject to the reporting requirements of the Transparency Act and this Paperwork Reduction Act submission.

In addition to the award amount threshold, pursuant to the Transparency Act, Federal grant awards to individual recipients, Federal grant awards made to entities earning less than $300,000 in Federal benefits in the previous tax year, and classified information are not subject to the reporting requirements in this Paperwork Reduction Act submission, FFATA §§ 2(a)(1)(C), 2(e), 5.

Grant awards whether existing or new as of October 1, 2010 that are funded by the Recovery Act will continue to report to those awards and subawards through FederalReporting.gov and are not subject to the reporting requirements in this Paperwork Reduction Act submission.

2. Who will be required to register into FSRS to report information pursuant to the Transparency Act?

Prime awardee of Federal grants will be responsible for reporting under the Transparency Act.

3. What information is required to register into FSRS?

This information collection requests approval of the information needed to properly register an entity in FSRS to facilitate the statutorily required reporting of Transparency Act information. In order to facilitate proper registration, an entity may be required to provide information to include:

• DUNS number

• Name of Entity

• Address

• Parent DUNS number

• Federal Award Identification Number (FAIN)

• CFDA Number

• Federal Awarding Agency of the Grant

If a prime awardee has already registered in the system to report contracts-related Transparency Act financial data, a new log-in will not be required. It is anticipated that users of FederalReporting.gov may also be able to access the FSRS.gov system without requiring new registration. Instead, the entity will be able to apply that registration information to log-in for the purposes of its grants-related reporting under the Act. The system will identify the prime awardee’s grants for reporting purposes, based on the registration information provided.

In addition, the prime awardee will be responsible for verifying the accuracy of pre-populated information about itself (e.g. name, address, DUNS number, Parent DUNS). Because the Federal Government has a majority of this information already through the prime awardee’s prior registration in the Central Contractor Registration System or provided to the Federal Awarding agency itself, the prime awardee will not be required to provide this information again. Instead, most, if not all, of the information required under the Act about the prime awardee will be pre-populated into the system, using information that the awardee had previously provided to either the Federal awarding agency or to the Central Contractor Registration System (CCR), as a condition of receipt of the grant. See attached data elements spreadsheet for a detailed description of data elements and source of pre-population. Where most of this information will be pre-populated, however, the prime awardee will be responsible for reviewing this information for accuracy.

It is intended that, to the maximum extent possible, information already collected from Federal agencies on Federal grants and prime awardees will be pre-populated to minimize duplicative reporting of the prime awardees’ entity information (e.g. address, DUNS number) and grant information (e.g. CFDA number, award amount, prime award description).

4. By when will the prime awardee need to register into FSRS and be responsible for reporting under the Transparency Act?

The prime awardee will be responsible for reporting information about itself, as needed, or its subawardee, if any, by the end of the month following the month the award or obligation was made.

For subaward reporting:

If applicable, the prime awardee must report subawardee data by the end of the month following the month the award or obligation was made.

Example 1:

Prime recipient awards subaward on October 1, 2010

Prime recipient must report subaward information by November 30, 2010

Example 2:

Prime recipient awards subaward on October 31, 2010

Prime recipient must report subaward information by November 30, 2010

For executive compensation reporting:

If applicable, the prime awardee must report its own executive compensation data by the end of the month following the month the award or obligation was made.

Example 1:

Federal agency awards grant to prime awardee on October 1, 2010

Prime awardee must report executive compensation data, if necessary, by November 30, 2010.

Example 2:

Federal agency awards grant to prime awardee on October 31, 2010

Prime awardee must report executive compensation data, if necessary, by November 30,

2010.

Similarly, the prime awardee must report the subawardee’s executive compensation data by the end of the month following the month the award or obligation was made.

Example 1:

Prime recipient awards subaward on October 1, 2010

Prime recipient must report subawardee’s executive compensation data, if necessary, by November 30, 2010

Example 2:

Prime recipient awards subaward on October 31, 2010

Prime recipient must report subawardee’s executive compensation data, if necessary, by November 30, 2010

3. Describe whether, and to what extent, the collection of information involves the use of automated, electronic, mechanical, or other technological collection techniques or forms of information technology, e.g., permitting electronic submission of responses, and the basis for the decision for adopting this means of collection. Also describe any consideration of information technology to reduce burden.

This collection of information will be electronic. The FFATA Subaward Reporting System (FSRS) is accessed at http://www.fsrs.gov. The prime awardee will be allowed to report information about itself, as needed, and its subawardees, if applicable, by specific grant, or through a batch uploading mechanism. The system will allow a prime awardee to save its reporting for further review or addition, or report immediately. Providing such flexibility, in both the form of reporting (individual and batch uploading capabilities) and in timing will ensure that the burden is minimized to the maximum extent possible.

Further, as discussed above, it is intended that to the maximum extent possible, information already collected from Federal agencies on Federal grants and prime awardees will be pre-populated to minimize duplicative reporting of the prime awardees’ entity information (e.g. address, DUNS number) and grant information (e.g. CFDA number, award amount, prime award description).

4. Describe efforts to identify duplication. Show specifically why any similar information already available cannot be used or modified for use of the purposes described in Item 2 above.

As discussed above, it is intended that to the maximum extent possible, information already collected from Federal agencies on Federal grants and prime awardees will be pre-populated to minimize duplicative reporting of the prime awardees’ entity information (e.g. address, DUNS number) and grant information (e.g. CFDA number, award amount, prime award description).

In addition, GSA recognizes that recipients of Federal grants funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act continue to report through FederalReporting.gov. Therefore, to avoid duplicative reporting, prime awardees in receipt of ARRA-funded grants will not be subject to the reporting requirements in this Paperwork Reduction Act submission.

5. If the collection of information impacts small businesses or other small entities, describe any methods used to minimize burden.

As discussed above, it is intended that to the maximum extent possible, information already collected from Federal agencies on Federal grants and prime awardees will be pre-populated to minimize duplicative reporting of the prime awardees’ entity information (e.g. address, DUNS number) and grant information (e.g. CFDA number, award amount, prime award description).

6. Describe the consequences to Federal program or policy activities if the collection is not conducted or is conducted less frequently, as well as any technical or legal obstacles to reducing burden.

The collection of this information complies with P.L. 109-282 requiring the statutorily required reporting of information on: (1) executive compensation of applicable grants prime and subawardees and (2) other grants award-related information about grants subawardees accessible to the public, thus making Government more transparent. See attached data elements spreadsheet for full list of data elements.

7. Explain any special circumstances that would cause an information collection to be conducted in a manner:

• requiring respondents to report information to the agency more often than quarterly;

Respondents will be submitting information electronically at www.fsrs.gov. Prime recipients will be required to report its own executive compensation data, if needed pursuant to the Transparency Act, by the end of the month of the prime award’s obligation from the Federal Government to the prime awardee, plus an additional 30 days. The same timeframe is applied for a prime awardee’s reporting of subaward information, if a subaward is obligated. The frequency of this reporting is specifically required by the Transparency Act. FFATA § 2(c)(4) (“The website established under this section shall be updated not later than 30 days after the award of any Federal award requiring a posting.”)

Respondents will not be required to keep records for more than three years.

• in connection with a statistical survey, that is not designed to produce valid and reliable results that can be generalized to the universe of the study;

The information collection is not connected with a statistical survey.

• requiring the use of statistical data classification that has not been reviewed and approved by OMB;

The information collection is not connected with the use of statistical data classification.

• that includes a pledge of confidentiality that is not supported by authority established in statute or regulation, that is not supported by disclosure and data security policies that are consistent with the pledge, or which unnecessarily impedes sharing of data with other agencies for compatible confidential use; or

The information collection does not request data that is confidential.

8. If applicable, provide a copy and identify the date and page number of publication in the Federal Register of the agency's notice, required by 5 CFR 1320.8(d), soliciting comments on the information collection prior to submission to OMB. Summarize any public comments received in response to that notice and describe actions taken by the agency in response to these comments. Specifically address comments received on cost and hour burden.

On June 6, 2008, the Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) published proposed guidance to Federal agencies with an award term needed to implement requirements related to subaward reporting under the Transparency Act. [73 FR 32417] The guidance was proposed for adoption in a new part 33 within title 2 of the Code of Federal Regulations (“CFR”). We received comments from 75 entities in response to that Federal Register notice, including: 29 State agencies and two associations of State officials; 16 institutions of higher education and an association of research universities; six nonprofit organizations and an association of nonprofits; two local governmental organizations and an association of local government officials; two commercial firms; one individual; and 14 Federal agencies. Other commenters raised a number of matters that are related to subaward reporting under the Transparency Act but are not directly related to the content of the guidance. For example, we received comments that suggested:

● Specific data elements that either should be included in, or excluded from, the information that will be required for each subaward.

● A need for better definitions of some data elements or clarification of the information desired in some data fields.

● Using the same information technology systems for submission of data on both: (1) subawards under Federal assistance awards subject to the Transparency Act’s requirements; and (2) sub-contracts that entities receiving Federal procurement contracts must submit under the Act.

● Other specific features that would be important to include in those information technology systems.

Based on the comments received, and in order to minimize the burden to recipients for reporting subaward data, GSA is requesting clearance of only those new data elements, as required by the Transparency Act, that are not currently collected under Federal Reporting.gov or USA Spending.gov. This Paperwork Reduction Act Submission requests only the collection of information from prime grant awardees on either awards to sub-grant awardees or disclosure of compensation data about either prime or subawardees, pursuant to the Transparency Act.

Robust outreach and solicitation of comments will continue through the start of this information collection’s implementation and beyond to ensure that the requirements are implemented in the least burdensome manner possible while adhering to the requirements under the Transparency Act.

The Notice published in the Federal Register at 75 FR 43166, on July 23, 2010, solicited public comments. Comments were received and discussed in the subsequent Federal Register published at 76 FR 4897, on January 27, 2011.

9. Explain any decision to provide any payment or gift to respondents, other than remuneration of contractors or grantees.

No payment or gifts to respondents will be provided.

10. Describe any assurance of confidentiality provided to respondents and the basis for the assurance in statute, regulation, or agency policy.

The information requested is specifically enumerated under the Transparency Act and is required by the Act to be released to the public.

11. Provide additional justification for any questions of a sensitive nature, such as sexual behavior and attitudes, religious beliefs, and other matters that are commonly considered private. This justification should include the reasons why the agency considers the questions necessary, the specific uses to be made of the information, the explanation to be given to persons from whom the information is requested, and any steps to be taken to obtain their consent.

Information of a sensitive nature is not requested.

12. Provide estimates of the hour burden of the collection of information. The statement should:

• Indicate the number of respondents, frequency of response, annual hour burden, and an explanation of how the burden was estimated.

• If this request for approval covers more than one form, provide separate hour burden estimates for each form and aggregate hour burden estimates for each form and aggregate the hour burdens in Item 13.

• Provide estimates of annualized costs to respondents for the hour burdens for collections of information, identifying and using appropriate wage rate categories. The cost of contracting out or paying outside parties for information collection activities should not be included here. Instead the cost should be included in Item 14.

Burden Hours

Estimates are based on the following:

Summary

	Respondents	Hours/Response	Total Hours	Total Cost	Cost Calculation
State, local governments	36,981	.5 hrs/response	18,491	$904,555.00	$24.46/respondent x 36,981 respondents
All Other	12,327	.5 hrs/response	6,164	$301,518.00	$24.46/respondent x 12,327 respondents
TOTAL BURDEN	49,308	.5 hrs/response	24,655	$1,206,073.00

On an annual basis, approximately 49, 308 Grants prime awardees¹ will enter their information into FSRS. The burden hours associated with each information submission is _.5_ hour. This is based on the assumption that where all prime grant awardees are registered in CCR, prime grant awardees will only be required to manually input a minimal amount of information. Assuming one response per year, where 49,308 information submissions (49,308 Respondents x 1 response) are received annually, then burden hours are calculated as follows:

Total Burden:

49,308 of Total Respondents x .5 hours = 24,655 burden hours.

State, Local and Tribal Governments:

36,981 State, Local and Tribal Governments² x .5 hours = 18,491 burden hours.

All Other:

12,327 Respondents³ x .5 hours = 6,164 burden hours

These estimated numbers of respondents may be an overestimate, given that FSRS will leverage existing registrations if the entity has already registered for the purpose of reporting Federal contracts, pursuant to the FAR Interim Final Rule published on July 8, 2010. They may also be underestimates, given the uncertainty of the total number of prime grants who may have subawards or be subject to reporting compensation data and the time needed to undergo registration. Because these are new statutory requirements for reporting, GSA has provided its best estimates based on available information. GSA will continue to review and revise these burden estimates as more information becomes available.

13. Provide an estimate of the total annual cost burden to respondents or recordkeepers resulting from the collection of information. (Do not include the cost of any hour burden shown in Items 12 and 14).

Respondent Costs

The respondent cost estimates are computed using the hourly rates of a GS 12/1. These hourly rates are comparable to salaries of staff that will perform these functions for the respondent (data entry and review). The time required for data entry and review is estimated at .5 hrs per respondent. Using the Office of Personnel Management‘s January 2010 Salary Table, the hourly rate for a GS 12/1 is $35.88. Therefore, the cost for one respondent is as follows:

Data Entry and review (GS 12/1 equiv.) hourly rate of $35.88 x .5 hrs = 17.94

36.35% overhead 6.52

Total Cost, One Respondent $ 24.46

The estimated total annual cost burden to All respondents is $24.46 x 49,308 Respondents or $1,206,073.

The estimated total annual cost burden to States, Local, and Tribal Governments is $24.46 x 36,981 = $904,555

The estimated total annual cost burden to all other respondents is $24.46 x 12,327 = $301,518

This estimated total annual cost burden of respondents may be an overestimate, given that FSRS will leverage existing registrations if the entity has already registered for the purpose of reporting Federal contracts, pursuant to the FAR Interim Final Rule published on July 8, 2010. They may also be underestimates, given the uncertainty of the total number of prime grants who may have subawards or be subject to reporting compensation data and the time needed to undergo registration. Because these are new statutory requirements for reporting, GSA has provided its best estimates based on available information. GSA will continue to review and revise these burden estimates as more information becomes available.

14. Provide estimates of annualized cost to the Federal Government. Also, provide a description of the method used to estimate cost, which should include quantification of hours, operational expenses (such as equipment, overhead, printing, and support staff), and any other expense that would not have been incurred without this collection of information. Agencies also may aggregate cost estimates from Items 12, 13, and 14 in a single table.

The cost associated with collecting FSRS Registration information will be building, operating and maintaining the FSRS system and training and assisting federal and nonfederal users. It is not expected that federal agencies will modify their systems to collect this data, as it will be collected through. It is estimated that the annualized cost for these efforts will be approximately $3,000,000 in the first year, decreasing annually as start-up costs are no longer incorporated.

In addition, time required for Government-wide review is estimated at an average of 1 hour in reviewing and analyzing the information, to the extent that the pre-populated awardee has identified inaccuracies in the pre-populated information, or that Federal agencies will respond to grant awardee requests for information or clarification. It is anticipated that subsequent to initial implementation of the system, the subsequent Paperwork Reduction Act submissions will be able to better estimate burden associated with this review.

Annual Government Burden and Cost

Reviewing time/hr	.5
Responses	X 49,308 _____
Review time/yr	49,308
Average wages/hr (GS 12/1 hourly rate)	X $35.88
Average wages/yr	1,769,171
Benefits and overhead	100%
Total Government cost	3,538,342

15. Explain the reasons for any program changes or adjustments reported in Items 13 or 14.

Not applicable.

16. For collections of information whose results will be published, outline plans for tabulation and publication.

The information collected will be published on USASpending.gov. Information will be provided is free to the public.

17. If seeking approval to not display the expiration date for OMB approval of the information collection, explain the reasons that display would be inappropriate.

Such approval is not being requested.

18. Explain each exception to the certification statement identified in the Certification of Paperwork Reduction Act Submissions”.

There are no exceptions to the certifications.

1 This figure is based on the total reported prime grant awardees reporting into USASpending.gov in FY 2009.

2 It is assumed that out of the total number of Respondents or prime grant awardees, approximately 75% or 36,981 are state, local or tribal governments.

3 It is assumed that out of the total number of Respondents or prime grant awardees, approximately 25% or 12,327 are the remaining respondents.

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