Supporting Statement for PRA Submission

SUPPORTING STATEMENT FOR
PAPERWORK REDUCTION ACT SUBMISSION
OMB Number 1405-0168
DS-4096

Civilian Response Corps In-Processing Database Electronic Form

A. JUSTIFICATION

1. In 2004, Congress created a new office within the Department of State, the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction & Stabilization, to facilitate United States efforts "to address crises in countries or regions that are in, or are in transition from, conflict or civil strife." [Section 408 of the 2005 Consolidated Appropriations Bill, P.L. 108-447]. Among other mandates, Congress charged the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction & Stabilization with "Cataloguing and monitoring the non-military resources and capabilities of Executive agencies, . . . State and local governments, and entities in the private and non-profit sectors that are available to address crises in countries or regions that are in, or are in transition from, conflict or civil strife." Id. The information collected on this form, DS-4096, will be used by the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction & Stabilization to fulfill this statutory mandate.

2. In 2008, Congress authorized the establishment of the Response Readiness Corps (a.k.a. The Civilian Response Corps), [P.L. 110-447, Title XVI, Section 62 (b)] “to provide assistance in support of reconstruction and stabilization operations in countries or regions that are at risk of, in, or are in transition from, conflict or civil strife. The Corps shall be composed of active and standby components consisting of United States Government personnel, including employees of the Department of State, the United States Agency for International Development, and other agencies who are recruited and trained (and employed in the case of the active component) to provide such assistance when deployed to do so by the Secretary to support the purposes of this Act”.

2. The information is collected voluntarily from individuals who choose to complete the electronic form that is submitted via the CRC website to the CRC Database. This electronic form contains the same information as the previous paper form DS-4096 (Civilian Response Corps In-Processing Database Form). Completion of the electronic form allows individuals to participate in the Civilian Response Corps, obtain benefits, and deploy on Conflict Prevention and Stabilization missions. The purpose of the information collected will be multi-fold:

• The personal data and professional experience information will be collected in order to populate the CRC Database for possible future CRC deployments.

• The program’s electronic application will be used to continue populating the CRC database, which contains necessary information for individuals who have been hired for or agreed to one or more of the response mechanisms that the office is developing, either in an overseas capacity or via domestic support for an overseas operation. The response mechanisms in the Civilian Response Corps include Active and Standby components, and in the future, possibly an Experts Corps.

3. This information will be collected through an end-to-end electronic submission process - https://crc.state.gov, which is intended to eliminate the paper form DS4096. Converting to electronic version from paper version will not change the burden time.

4. Given the unique mission of the office, no similar information or collection method is available.

5. This information collection does not impact small businesses.

6. If the proposed information collection were not conducted, S/CRS would be unable to identify resources for important conflict prevention and stabilization programs. Qualified candidates will be asked to fill out the form once, when they are identified and selected as a member of one of the components of the Civilian Response Corps.

7. There are no special circumstances.

8. S/CRS will publish a notice in the Federal Register to solicit public comments. S/CRS has consulted with expert contractors and prior program participants to develop and refine the questions used in the in-processing database. The final product matches the questions from the old form.

9. No payment of gifts of any kind will be given to respondents.

10. No explicit promise of confidentiality will be made. A Privacy Act Statement is placed on all forms in accordance with the Privacy Act of 1974, as amended, 5 U.S.C. § 552a.

11. There are no questions of a sensitive nature.

12. S/CRS estimates that that there will be a total of 2,000 annual respondents. It will take respondents an average of 60 minutes to fill out the form. Based on this estimate, the annualized burden on respondents will be 2,000 hours. Converting to electronic version from paper version will not change the burden time.

13. There are no costs to respondents.

14. The total average annualized cost incurred by the Federal Government is estimated to be $14,000. It is expected that a full time individual (GS 7-9), with an average yearly salary of $40,000, will be required to maintain and update the electronic database containing the data from the submitted applications. It is estimated that this employee would devote an average of 35% of his or her time to these requirements, thus the average annual cost is expected to be $14,000.

15. There are no burden changes.

16. The results will not be published.

17. The OMB expiration date will be displayed.

18. No exceptions are sought to the certification statement.

B. COLLECTION OF INFORMATION EMPLOYING STATISTICAL METHODS:

This collection does not employ statistical methods.