Public Safety Officers Medal of Valor
OMB No. 1121 - 0259
JUSTIFICATION
1. Necessity of Information: On May 14, 2001, the United States Congress passed F1.R.802, the “Public Safety Officer Medal of Valor Act,” which was later signed into Law on May 30, 2001. The Law states, “After September 1, 2001, the President may award, and present in the name of Congress, a Medal of Valor of appropriate design, with ribbons and appurtenances, to a public safety officer who is cited by the Attorney General, upon the recommendation of the Medal of Valor Review Board, for extraordinary valor above and beyond the call of duty. The Public Safety Medal of Valor shall be the highest national award for valor by a public safety officer.” Without the collection of this data, public safety officers laying their lives on the line to protect the lives of others may go unrecognized. It is important that this information is collected to acknowledge these brave men and women for their altruistic acts of valor.
Each year, the application submission period opens on or about May 31st and closes on July 31st, to provide applicants a full two months to apply. Following which, the Board Members are accorded one month to conduct their initial reviews of each of the applications and any supporting documents, before convening to deliberate and make the Board’s recommendations of the recipients to receive the Public Safety Officer Medal of Valor (“MOV”). According to the Public Safety Officer Medal of Valor Act (“Act”), “not more often than once each year, the Board shall present to the Attorney General the name or names of those it recommends as MOV recipients.”
2. Needs and Uses: The information collected on these applications will provide the basis for considering each nomination of a public safety officer for the MOV award. This award will recognize public safety officers who have demonstrated courage and bravery above and beyond the call of duty without regard for their personal safety. A MOV Board (“Board”), as required by the legislation, is appointed by the President, the Majority and Minority Leaders of the U.S. Senate, and the Speaker and the Minority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives. The Board shall select candidates as recipients of the MOV from among those applications received by the National Medal of Valor Office.
3. Use of Technology: The application process is managed through the Internet, using the Office of Justice Programs’ (OJP) MOV electronic application system at:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov//medalofvalor/welcome.html
Prospective applicants must nominate candidate(s) using this electronic paperless system.
4. Efforts to Identify Duplication: These applications will be used to nominate public safety officers solely for this award. The information collected is specific for this program assistance.
5. Impact on Small Business: The information is collected is only requested from federal, state, local and tribal public safety agencies. There is no impact on small businesses or other entities as they are not are eligible to apply.
6. Consequences of Less Frequent Collection: If this collection is not conducted, the requirements of the Act would not be satisfied, and public safety officers who have risked their lives may go unrecognized for their exceptional valor, extraordinary decisiveness, presence of mind, and unusual swiftness of action, regardless of his or her own personal safety, in the attempt to save or protect human life.
7. Special Circumstances Influencing Collection:
This application/nomination is voluntary. Information is collected only if an agency decides to nominate a public safety officer(s) for exceptional acts of bravery. A separate application must be submitted for each public safety officer, per incident of bravery.
Applications/nominations will be used only for the recognition of acts of valor accomplished during a given valor period. Each valor period runs from June 1st through the following May 31st.
c. Applicants do not need to submit multiple copies of this form.
d. An official online MOV application/nomination must be submitted.
e. This collection is not part of a statistical survey.
f. This collection does not require the use of statistical data.
g. According to the Act, the Board shall not disclose any information which may compromise an ongoing law enforcement investigation or is otherwise required by law to be kept confidential.
h. The manual submission of supplemental supporting material in voluntary.
The collection does not request proprietary information.
8. Federal Register Publication and Consultation: OJP will solicit public comments on the data collection per OMB specifications. The 60-day and 30 Day Federal Register Notices will be published to inform and solicit comments from the public. OJP will address responses to the notice as they become available. If comments are pertinent, they will be incorporated into the on line application.
9. Payment or Gifts to Respondents: Respondents nominating a public safety officer will not be compensated for this collection. However, this application/nomination will be used to recommend one or more public safety officer(s) for recognition, therefore, an award would be presented to some of the nominee(s) if the Board deems the act(s) of valor worthy and the nominee(s) is subsequently cited by the U.S. Attorney General.
10. Assurance of Confidentiality: The Board shall not disclose any information which may compromise an ongoing law enforcement investigation or is otherwise required by law to be kept confidential. OJP is compliant with 28CFR22 which protects confidentiality of identifiable and statistical information and is committed to keeping a system of records that is consistent with the regulations of the Privacy Act.
11. Justification for Sensitive Questions: This application/nomination does not contain any questions of a sensitive nature.
12. Estimate of the Hour Burden: During the 2011-2012 Medal of Valor application submission period, there were a total of 176 applications/nominations received. The process takes approximately 25 minutes to gather the required information and complete the online form.
176 x 25 minutes = 4,400 minutes/60 = 73.33 hours.
The projected hours per response are based upon estimates provided by previous collections. This estimate includes reviewing the fields of required and optional information and entering the data into each relevant field.
13. Estimate of the Total Annual Cost Burden: There are no direct costs to the applicants other than the time taken to complete and submit the voluntary application. Applicants are not requested to create and maintain an independent data collection, reporting systems, nor travel. Consequently, the applicants incur no additional costs.
14: Estimates of Annualized Cost to the Federal Government: This estimate does not factor in the additional costs associated with the operation of this program outside the initial application review activities of the Designated Federal Officer. The estimated annualized cost of the Federal government for a GS-0301-13/5 to conduct the basic minimum review, compiling, and processing of the 176 applications at 10 minutes per application is projected as follows:
176 applications/nominations x 10 mins = 1760 minutes/60 min per hour = 29.33 hours.
GS-13/5 Program Lead/Designated Federal Officer (the general grade/step of incumbents that may fill this position)
29.33 hours x $ 63.73 (Average hourly wage of 47.21 plus 35% fringe benefit rate) = $1,869.20
Board Members
The authorized complement for the Board is 11 appointed members. These members are federal, state and local employees, public safety practitioners and/or private citizens. A budget is allocated as required by 42 U.S.C. § 15203 for travel, room and board and compensation for the non-governmental employee Board Members for time engaged in board related activities.
15. Reason for Changes in Reporting Burden: This is a revision of a previously approved information collection and is based on the average number of applications received over the last two years.
16. Plans for Publication: OJP anticipates the selection of MOV Recipients within 90-120 days following the submission to the U.S. Attorney General of the Board recommendations. The issuance of a press release, announcements and publication in newsletters or local media journals are contingent upon the identification of a date for the MOV ceremony and might take several months longer. Annually, the Department of Justice issues a press release requesting nominations for the MOV, the highest national award for valor by a public safety officer. The United States’ President or Vice President then awards the medal to five public safety officers and/or groups (by statue) who have exhibited exceptional courage.
Nominations are accepted for acts of valor that occurred between June 1 and May 31, of the following year; by completing an on line application at: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov//medalofvalor/welcome.html. The deadline for receipt of nominations is July 31.
17. Expiration Approval Date: The OMB Number and Expiration Date are displayed on the application form.
18. Exceptions to the Certification Statement: OJP does not request an exception to the certification of this information collection.
COLLECTION OF INFORMATION EMPLOYING STATISTICAL METHODS
Statistical methods will not be used in this information collection.
M. Berry/G. Joy
September, 2012
| File Type | application/msword |
| File Title | Public Safety Officers Medal of Valor |
| Author | Presslem |
| Last Modified By | Scarbora |
| File Modified | 2012-11-08 |
| File Created | 2012-11-08 |