America’s Promise Job Driven Grant Program Supplemental Supporting Statement

Funding Opportunity Announcement

America’s Promise Job Driven Grant Program

Supplemental Justification

Supplemental Supporting Statement A: Justification

This request seeks OMB approval under the Paperwork Reduction Act for the unique information collection requirements in the America’s Promise Job Driven Grant Program Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA). The Employment and Training Administration (ETA), U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), announces the availability of approximately $100,000,000 in grant funds authorized under the American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act of 1998 (ACWIA) to create or expand regional partnerships between employers, economic development, workforce development, community colleges, training programs, K-12 education systems, and community-based organizations that make a commitment – or a “promise” – to provide a pipeline of workers to fill existing job openings, meet existing employer needs for expansion, fuel the talent needs of entrepreneurs, and attract more jobs from overseas. These funds will be used to cover tuition and the costs of training-related activities on a first-dollar basis ensuring that training and education are free to individuals.

Through strong regional partnerships and commitments, communities will maximize the use of their resources and minimize duplication of effort. Projects funded through this FOA will leverage resources from Federal place-based partnerships and sector-based programs, such as EDA’s Investing in Manufacturing Community Partnership communities and Department of Transportation’s Ladders programs, among others.

We expect to award approximately 20 to 40 grants ranging from $1 million to $6 million each to the lead applicant of a regional workforce partnership, which must be a public or nonprofit organization that: 1) meets the FOA definition of one of the three types of eligible entities (workforce investment system; education and training provider; and a business-related nonprofit organizations, an organization functioning as a workforce intermediary for the express purpose of serving the needs of an industry, or a regional or industry association that represents at least five employers); and 2) includes in the partnership at least one representative of each of the four types of required regional workforce partnership entities (employers and industry representatives aligning with the partnership’s regional sector strategies; workforce investment system; economic development agency representing the regional service area; and education and training provider representing the regional service area). These grants have a performance period of 48 months, which includes all necessary implementation and startup activities. Grantees should begin serving participants no later than six months after the date of grant award.

Applications will include the following information collections: 1) Form SF-424 “Application for Federal Assistance,” separately cleared under OMB control number 4040-0004, 2) Project Budget, 3) Project Narrative, and 4) Attachments to the Project Narrative.

Electronic availability:

This grant solicitation is available on the grants.gov Web site. Based on past DOL experience, the Department anticipates 75 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 FOA implicates no special circumstances.

Burden:

Based on past experience, the DOL expects to receive approximately 200 applications from an equal number of respondents.  The ETA estimates public reporting burden for the information collection to average 20 hours per response for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining needed data, and completing and reviewing the collection of information.

200 applications x 20 hours = 4000 hours.

The DOL has increased the October 2014, average hourly earnings in the professional and business services industry of $29.29 per hour by 40 percent (total $41.01 per hour) to monetize this burden.  See The Employment Situation—October 2014, DOL, Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_11072014.pdf at page 32.

4000 hours x $41.01 = $164,040.00

The DOL associates no other burden costs with this information collection. In addition to the application, each grantee will be required to submit quarterly financial, performance, and narrative reports to the ETA. Those information collection requirements will be cleared under a separate control number.

Total burden: 200 respondents, 200 responses, 4000 hours, $0 other cost burden.

Supplemental Supporting Statement B: Statistical Methods

This information collection does not employ statistical methods.

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