Justification

Generic Solicitation for Grant Applications

Control Number 1225-0086

Training and Service Learning Grants Justification

Abstract:

The U.S. Department of Labor (the Department), Employment and Training Administration (ETA), is announcing the availability of approximately $12.1 million from funds made available through the Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 DOL appropriation for Training and Employment Services for grants to State Workforce Agencies (SWA) to develop the Workforce Data Quality Initiative (WDQI). For the remainder of this document, reference to the databases being created under the WDQI may be called “workforce longitudinal administrative databases” or “workforce longitudinal databases” interchangeably. Grants awarded will provide SWAs the opportunity to develop and use State workforce longitudinal administrative data systems. These State longitudinal data systems will, at a minimum, include information on programs that provide training, employment services, and unemployment insurance, connect with education data contained in Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS) databases and will be linked longitudinally at the individual level to allow for enhanced opportunity for evaluation of Federally and State supported education programs and lead to better information for customers and stakeholders of the workforce system. Where such longitudinal systems do not exist or are in early development, WDQI grant assistance may be used to design and develop workforce data systems that are longitudinal and which are designed to link with relevant education data or longitudinal education data systems. WDQI grant assistance may also be used to improve upon and more effectively use existing State longitudinal systems. Current WDQI grant recipients are ineligible for this competition.

Electronic availability:

This grant solicitation is available on the grants.gov Web site. Based on past DOL experience, the Department anticipates 80 percent of responses will be submitted electronically.

Small Entities:

This information collection will not have a significant impact on a substantial number of small entities.

Assurances of confidentiality:

These grant solicitations do not offer applicants assurances of confidentiality.

Special circumstances:

This information collection complies with 5 CFR 1320.5

Burden:

Based on past experience, the DOL expects to receive approximately 30 applications. Public reporting burden for the information collection is estimated to average 20 hours per response for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information.

30 applications x 20 hours = 600 hours.

In addition to the application, each grantee will be required to submit quarterly financial, performance, and narrative reports to ETA. Those information collection requirements will be cleared under a separate Control Number.

The DOL has increased the November 2011 average hourly earnings in the professional and business services industry of $27.95 by 40 percent (total $39.13) to monetize this burden. See The Employment Situation—January 2012, DOL, Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_02032012.pdf at 36.

600 hours x $39.13 = $23,478.

The DOL associates no other burden costs with this information collection.

Total burden: 30 respondents, 30 responses, 600 hours, $0 other cost burden.

Supporting Statement B; Statistical Methods

This information collection does not employ statistical methods.

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