Supporting Statement A (Promise Zones)

Supporting Statement for Paperwork Reduction Act Submissions

Promise Zones

OMB Number 2577-xxxx

A. Justification

1. Under the Promise Zones initiative, the federal government will invest and partner with high-poverty urban, rural, and tribal communities to create jobs, increase economic activity, improve educational opportunities, leverage private investment, and reduce violent crime. Additional information about the Promise Zones initiative can be found at www.hud.gov/promisezones, and questions can be addressed to [email protected].  The selection of communities to be designated as Promise Zones in 2013 is being conducted as a demonstration pursuant to section 7(d) of the Department of Housing and Urban Development Act, and following a process meeting the requirements of Section 470(a) of the Housing and Urban-Rural Recovery Act of 1983 (42 U.S.C. 3542).

Eligible applicants interested in obtaining Promise Zone designations will be required to submit applications to HUD. The application covers the information needed from local government entities, or housing authorities or nonprofits working with local government entities to determine which applicants should be designated. The information provided demonstrates the applicants’ plans to implement the initiative requirements, which includes the capacity of lead applicant and partners. The information will be used by federal agency staff to evaluate threshold requirements and rate and rank applications.

3. Technology applied to the collection: This information collection includes a fillable PDF form to improve data quality and to reduce the public reporting burden. Other materials will be collected through electronic submission via [email protected].

4. Duplication of Effort: There is no duplication of effort. Information collected is unique to each type of collection and does not duplicate any similar information or method. In developing this information collection, HUD and other agencies have built upon the experience with programs in relevant policy areas that are administered by multiple agencies, including the Choice Neighborhoods, Promise Neighborhoods, Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation programs and Rural Development programs. An online mapping tool, adapted from the Choice Neighborhoods program, will be used to assist applicants in gathering demographic, property and other important data for the geography they define as their Promise Zone.

5. Impact on Small Business and Small Entities: These information collections have no impact on small businesses or other entities.

6. Consequence of Less Frequent Collection: The selection process for designations could not be conducted in a fair and transparent manner if the collection is not conducted.

7. Special Circumstances for Information Collection: There are no special circumstances that would cause these information collections to be conducted inappropriately.

8. Federal Register Notice and Public Comments: A Notice was published in the Federal Register, Volume 78, page 48182 on Wednesday, August 7, 2013, to solicit comments on the Promise Zones information collection. Two comments were received in response to the Federal Register notice. While many comments and questions were received by email about the initiative, they generally focused on the policy and programmatic content of the initiative, how it will be evaluated, and related matters. No questions received by email related to the estimated burden of the information collection except requests for clarification respecting submission deadlines.

The Department is requesting emergency clearance procedures and waiver of the second Federal Register notice and comment period. The request is being made due to the unexpected event of the partial government shut-down, which prevented the publication of the second Federal Register notice and consideration of comment during the period beginning October 1 and ending October 16, 2013.

9. Payment/Gifts to Respondents: No payments or gifts are provided to respondents for any of these information collections.

10. Assurances of Confidentiality: Assurance of confidentiality is neither provided nor needed for any of these information collections.

11. Questions of a Sensitive Nature: No sensitive questions are being asked for any of these information collections.

12. Estimate of Annual Burden Hours for Information Collection: The chart below outlines the burden associated with the various aspects of the Promise Zones initiative and a breakout of the forms associated with each portion of that burden.

For Promise Zones the burden hours per response total 48 hours. The total burden hours is estimated at 3,744 hours.

Information Collection	Number of Respondents	Frequency of Response	Responses Per Annum	Burden Hour Per Response	Annual Burden Hours	Hourly Cost Per Response	Annual Cost
Abstract	78	1	1	3	234	$40	$9360
Qualifying Criteria/ Need – Mapping with Narrative	78	1	1	5	390	$40	$15600
Local leadership support- Documentation	78	1	1	4	312	$40	$12480
Need - Poverty rate	78	1	1	1	78	$40	$3120
Need - Crime rate	78	1	1	3	234	$40	$9360
Need - Employment rate	78	1	1	1	78	$40	$3120
Need – Vacancy rate	78	1	1	1	78	$40	$3120
Strategy – Community Assets and Neighborhood Position	78	1	1	4	312	$40	$12480
Strategy – Narrative	78	1	1	3	234	$40	$9360
Strategy – Evidence base	78	1	1	3	234	$40	$9360
Strategy – Sustainability and financial feasibility	78	1	1	3	234	$40	$9360
Capacity – Lead documentation	78	1	1	3	234	$40	$9360
Capacity – Partner documentation	78	1	1	4	312	$40	$12480
Capacity – Partner Organization Chart	78	1	1	4	312	$40	$12480
Capacity – Local government	78	1	1	3	234	$40	$9360
Capacity – Partnership commitments documentation	78	1	1	3	234	$40	$9360
Total	78	1	1	48	3744	$40	$149, 760

13. Cost Burden of Information Collection: There are no start-up or additional costs to the respondents other than those reported in Item 12 above in the Burden Cost Column. The GS-14-1 wage was used for most collections, at $40 per hour.

14. Annualized Cost to Federal Government: The development of the information collection instrument has required, in its initial year, approximately three full-time equivalent positions plus substantial part-time engagement from other participating agencies. Review of information collected using this instrument will require at least two weeks of full-time effort by approximately 28 people from several participating agencies. While the development of the information collection instrument and related programmatic materials will be less intensive in future rounds, a much wider range of communities will be eligible to apply, and the increased volume of applications is anticipated to require a consistent level of three full time equivalents at HUD plus part time effort from at least five other agencies. This level of effort is estimated to cost an average of $794, 585 annually.

15. Changes or Adjustments to OMB Form 83-I: None.

16. Publication of Information Collection Results: Notification of decisions will be made by letter, and a Notice of Promise Zone designations for 2013 and a description of the Promise Zone initiative will be published in the Federal Register. Such notifications and publication are expected to take place within the first two months of calendar year 2014.

After the selection process, HUD may post on-line certain summary and contact information from the applications of communities selected as Promise Zones or Promise Zone finalists (e.g., the Executive Summary, neighborhood map, Lead Applicant contact information, etc.) in order to provide information to interested non-federal organizations and members of the public.

All lead organizations of designated Promise Zones, implementation partners in the Promise Zone strategies and any federal grantees whose federally funded work contributes to Promise Zone strategies will be required to participate in evaluations of Promise Zone and related federal grant activities that may be conducted from time to time. Lead organizations, implementation partners and federal grantees contributing to Promise Zones must agree to work with evaluators designated by federal agencies, including providing access to program personnel and all relevant programmatic and administrative data as specified by the evaluator(s) under the direction of a federal agency, during and after the term of the Promise Zone designation and/or grant agreement.

17. Expiration Date: The OMB approval number and date will appear on the HUD-prescribed forms.

18. Exceptions to Certification Statement: There are no exceptions to the certification statement identified in item 19.

B. Collections of Information Employing Statistical Methods: There are no collections of information that employ statistical methods.