Portable Retirement Benefits Planning Supplemental Supporting Statement

Funding Opportunity Announcement

Portable Retirement Benefits Planning

Supplemental Justification

Supplemental Supporting Statement A: Justification

The U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL” or “the Department”) Women’s Bureau (“WB”) is preparing a Funding Opportunity Announcement (“FOA”) soliciting applications for its FY 2016 Portable Retirement Benefits Planning grant program. This request seeks OMB approval of the FOA in light of the Paperwork Reduction Act.

The FOA will announce the availability of approximately $100,000 in grant funds. The WB expects to award two to four grants of up to $75,000 each. Funds provided under this grant program will be FY 2016 funds, and the budget for this program will not exceed $100,000. The Department’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA) is responsible for the grant award process of this WB grant program.

This grant program is intended to increase retirement security for low-wage workers —many of whom have never had access to retirement benefits through an employer. The grant will help nonprofit organizations (“nonprofits”) undertake certain types of program-planning activities needed to develop a portable retirement benefits program for their stakeholders or target populations. These activities must fall into one or more of the following three categories:

• Assessment of the challenges and barriers unique to low-wage workers or target populations with little or no retirement savings;

• Research and analysis of available opportunities and tools to expand existing or build new portable retirement savings vehicles, especially for low-wage workers or target populations; and

• Research and analysis of scalable models for portable retirement benefits programs, as well as identification of legal constraints and changes to state and/or federal law that would be required in order for these models to be viable for low-wage workers or target populations.

Grants issued through this program must be used to carry out specified categories of program-planning activities. This grant program does not require grantees to enact a portable retirement benefits program, and receipt of funds under this grant program is not contingent upon a potential grantee’s agreement to do so.

Selection of grantees will be based on the strength of the proposal, including the design, cost, innovative ideas and solutions, and ability to access relevant data to support the program.

Applicants must:

• Present a clear description of the activities they intend to carry out and identify the anticipated deliverables from such activities;

• Explain how such activities and deliverables will advance their efforts to develop, implement, expand, and/or improve a portable retirement benefits program for their stakeholders or target populations;

• Describe how such a program would directly benefit low-wage, underserved workers, or women; and

• Outline a solid financial infrastructure that demonstrates proper resource management.

Applicants must also commit to sharing any knowledge and promising practices gleaned from their research and analysis with non-participating organizations at forthcoming events.

The WB expects the period of performance for these grants to be one year, starting in September 2016; grantees will be required to submit quarterly financial and programmatic narratives. Additionally, full participation (by grantee and sub-grantees) in any evaluation initiated by DOL is a condition of all grant awards.

Applications will include the following information collections: (1) Signed SF-424, Application for Federal Assistance (separately cleared), 2) SF-424A, Budget Information Form (separately cleared), 3) Budget Narrative, 4) Project Narrative; and 5) Abstract.

Electronic availability:

The FOA will be available electronically at: http://www.grants.gov/. Based on past DOL experience, the Department anticipates that 80 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 ten applications from an equal number of respondents. ETA estimates the 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 has increased the average hourly earnings in the professional and business services industry to $30.56 per hour to monetize this burden. See The Employment Situation—May 2016, DOL, Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_06032016.pdf at page 33.

200 hours x $30.56 = $6,112.

DOL associates no other cost burdens with this information collection.

Total burden: 8 respondents, 8 responses, 160 hours, $0 other cost burdens.

Supplemental Supporting Statement B: Statistical Methods

This information collection does not employ statistical methods.

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