Justification for Change to FV-244 and FV-245-A

Change of Worksheet

OMB No. 0581-0215

May 2011

Revision of Form FV-244 and FV-245A

This change of worksheet addresses minor revisions to one form that is currently approved under OMB No. 0581-0215. These changes address administrative errors, and would have no effect on the burden hours for this package. The revisions are explained below:

Form FV-244, Handler Ballot, and Form FV-245A, Handler Nomination

Form FV-244 and FV-245A are used by the Administrative Committee for Pistachios (Committee) to nominate and select handler candidates to the Committee, and will be used in 2011. During renewal of the Committee form, approved in May 2011, the incorrect versions of Forms FV-244 and FV-245A were inadvertently uploaded to ROCIS and reginfo.gov. The differences between the old forms and the updated, correct forms originate from administrative errors and will have no effect on the burden for this package. The burden correctly accounted for handler nominee respondents during the previous submission.

The order of pages in FV-244 was reorganized to first reflect the instructions, followed by the ballot and certification statement. The instructions page has been retitled from “Administrative Committee for Pistachios Handler Members and Alternate Handler Members Instructions for Completing the Attached Ballot,” to “Ballot for Election of Handler Member and Alternate Handler Member.”

In the instructions for completing the ballot on the old version of FV-244, the voting period was not clarified and the address of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) field office is given instead of the Committee’s office. In number 5 of the instructions on FV-244, the old form does not ask for an email address. The civil rights statement is briefly summarized in number 8 in the new form of FV-244, and clarified in more detail on page 3, rather than having the entire time in the instructions as it caused the old form to spill over into a second page.

On the old FV-244 the handler position was written explicitly for position one handler, whereas the new form allows flexibility in number of positions. Additional statement on each position has been added to the directions on the page to provide clarity and allow the form to be reused for more than one handler. There are two candidate options given and one write in, as opposed to the previous form’s one candidate and one write in. Another line reminding the reader that signature and certification is required on the next page/reverse side of ballot was added to the bottom and the form number, revision date, and page number, have been added to the bottom of the ballot. In the previous version, these things were noted on the next page or not at all.

In the new FV-244, the certification statement has been reformatted to fit on one page and increase ease of filling information. In the updated versions of both FV-244 and FV-245A the respondents are given the address of the Committee rather than the USDA field office, and the burden statement has been reformatted for ease of reading and clarity in statement.

The old version of FV-245A started off with an envelope page which was taken out in the new form, as it is unnecessary. All the instructions for FV-245A have been reformatted to fit on one page. The new form removed number 2 on the old form as it was a repeat of material stated elsewhere. In the new version of FV-245A, the instruction page has greater details given on the two positions and clarifies the date as 20_ _ rather than 200_ as was stated on the old version. Similar to the situation with FV-244, an overview of the civil rights statement is provided on the new version of FV-245A, with greater detail provided on a following page.

The nomination form for FV-245A has been reformatted to accommodate for the greater production area and the two handler positions (where there was previously only one). Furthermore, the handler’s email address is included in the new FV-245A form.