Emergency Justification Memo

DATE: May 3, 2011

FROM: Reports Clearance Officer, HRSA

TO: Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, OMB

Through: Office of Strategic Operations and Regulatory Affairs, CMS

SUBJECT: HRSA Request for Competing Supplement Funding Opportunity Announcement for the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program (Section 2951 of the Affordable Care Act): NEW Information Collection Request (ICR)

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) is requesting Office of Management and Budget (OMB) review and approval of the Fiscal Year 2011 Competing Supplement Funding Opportunity Announcement (the Competitive FOA) for the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program, under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (P.L. 111-148). HRSA is requesting emergency processing procedures for the FY 2011 Competitive FOA because the applications for FY 2011 funding must be submitted and reviewed before the expiration of the normal time limits under regulations at 5 CFR Part 1320 to ensure that successful applicants receive funding before the beginning of the 2011 fiscal year.

Through a provision authorizing the creation of the Affordable Care Act Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program, the Act responds to the diverse needs of children and families in communities at risk and provides an unprecedented opportunity for collaboration and partnership at the Federal, state, and community levels to improve health and development outcomes for at risk children through evidence-based home visiting programs. Section 2951 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, which added Section 511 to Title V of the Social Security Act (SSA), requires states to provide a description of how they intend to address needs identified as a result of their needs assessment.

The Fiscal Year 2011 Competitive FOA must be made available in May 2011, to allow states the requisite time needed to plan and implement programs likely to achieve the legislatively mandated benchmarks for demonstrating improvements among eligible families participating in the states’ home visiting programs. Emergency processing is necessary because of the critical timing of this request for grantees and is unavoidable for the following reasons:

• If we were to obtain normal clearance through even an abbreviated public comment period, this would result in a significant delay in publishing the Competitive FOA. As a result, states would not have sufficient time to respond to the FOA within a time period that would allow for the appropriate review, ranking, selection, and subsequent award of competitive funding before the beginning of the FY 2011 fiscal year. This would result in public harm, harm to the program as legislated, and significant difficulty for states seeking to strengthen home visiting programs.

• The development of the Competitive FOA has depended on the completion of three prior steps: (1) the analysis of the statewide needs assessments submitted in late September 2010; (2) the analysis of the extensive comments received in response to a Federal Register Notice (FRN) seeking public review of proposed criteria for establishing the evidence base for home visiting models eligible to be implemented under this program; and,(3) the publication and release of the second SIR. Because the development of the Competitive FOA was dependent on completion of these prior steps, the draft of the Competitive FOA was delayed, resulting in an unavoidable request for emergency processing of the information collection request (ICR).

• The development of the Competitive FOA has required significant policy decisions that will have considerable implications for states and the success of this Federal program. Accordingly, various Federal agencies have provided critical review and input to ensure the proper foundation and future direction of this important initiative. As a result, HRSA only recently has been able to send a draft FOA forward for clearance through the Department and now through OMB, and the need for emergency processing of the ICR has been unavoidable.

The ICR including the Supporting Statement will be submitted through standard processes (via ICRAS) as soon as possible along with publication of a 60-day Federal Register Notice requesting public comment. Attached is the draft of the Fiscal Year 2011 Competitive FOA.

Thank you.

Carla Haddad

Carla Haddad, MPH

Public Health Analyst

Office of Planning, Analysis and Evaluation

Health Resources and Services Administration

5600 Fishers Lane, 10-49

Rockville, MD 20857

(301) 443-0165 | [email protected]

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