Notice of Intent to Fund Project on Occupational Licensing Review and Portability 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 Notice of Intent (NOI) to Fund Project on Occupational Licensing Review and Portability.
The Employment and Training Administration (ETA) intends to award up to a total of $7,500,000 to one or a few national or regional organizations that will establish consortia of states to design and implement strategies that enhance the portability of occupational licenses and to otherwise reduce overly burdensome restrictions. These funds are authorized in paragraph (6) under the heading “State Unemployment Insurance and Employment Services Operations” in Title I of Division H of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016, as further explained in the Explanatory Statement of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016, 161 Cong. Rec. H. 10281 (Dec. 17, 2015).
When designed and implemented carefully, licensing can offer important health and safety protections to consumers, as well as benefits to workers. However, the current licensing landscape in the United States also creates substantial costs; and often the requirements for obtaining a license are not well aligned with the skills needed for the job.
Selected organizations will work with states in the established consortia to review and analyze occupational licensing requirements and develop recommendations to make progress toward two main objectives: 1) identifying licensing criteria to ensure that existing and new licensing requirements are not overly broad or burdensome and that they do not create unnecessary barriers to labor market entry; 2) improving portability and reciprocity provisions for selected occupational licenses across state lines. Alternatives to current licensing approaches that may be considered include: streamlining administrative procedures for applying for licenses; recognizing prior learning from education or experience obtained either in another state, from the U.S. military or in another country; the formation of interstate reciprocity agreements; unilateral recognition of out-of-state licenses; harmonization of licensing requirements across states; or the development of accelerated pathways to licensure for workers moving across states.
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) Letter of Interest 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 NOI implicates no special circumstances.
Burden:
Based on past experience, the DOL expects to receive approximately 10 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.
10 applications x 20 hours = 200 hours.
The DOL is using the May 2016 hourly earnings in the professional and business services industry category, $30.56 per hour , to calculate the respondent cost of this request. See The Employment Situation—May 2016, DOL, Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_06032016.pdf at page 33.
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: 10 respondents, 10 responses, 200 hours, $0 other cost burden.
Supplemental Supporting Statement B: Statistical Methods
This information collection does not employ statistical methods.
| File Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| Author | Windows User |
| File Modified | 0000-00-00 |
| File Created | 2021-01-24 |