DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Administration for Community Living
Circumstances Making the Collection of Information Necessary
The Administration for Community Living (ACL) funds discretionary grants under the Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act of 2000 (DD Act), which is administered by the Administration on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AIDD) as well as the Older Americans Act of 1965, which is administered by the Administration on Aging (AoA). In addition, ACL is also responsible for administering other authorizing statutes relevant to older Americans and individuals with disabilities, which includes, but is not limited to, the following authorizing statutes:
The Older Americans Act of 1965, as amended (most recently in 2016).
The Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act of 2000 (DD Act).
Title II of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, authorizes the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research.
Title VII of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, authorizes the Independent Living Services and Centers for Independent Living programs.
The Assistive Technology Act of 1998, as amended, authorizes the Assistive Technology Act program.
The Help America Vote Act (signed into law on October 29, 2002), assigns responsibility for the administration of the law’s disability provisions (section 291) to the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, who delegated the responsibility to the Administration on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.
Sections 311 and 317 of the Public Health Services Act authorizes the Paralysis Resource Center.
Section 398 of the Public Health Services Act authorizes the Alzheimer’s Disease Supportive Services Program.
Title III of the Public Health Services Act authorizes the Limb Loss Resource Center.
Title XXIX of the Public Health Service Act authorizes the Lifespan Respite Care Program.
The Traumatic Brain Injury Reauthorization Act of 2014 authorizes the Traumatic Brain Injury program.
Section 4360 of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 authorizes the State Health Insurance Assistance Program.
ACL receives Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control (HCFAC) funding as authorized by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. The HCFAC funds, which are received from the Medicare Trust Fund, are used to support the Senior Medicare Patrol program, technical assistance, and other program support and capacity-building activities designed to enhance program effectiveness.
The Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act, as amended, authorizes and appropriates funding for Medicare beneficiary outreach activities through FY 2017.
Title XX of the Social Security Act, Subtitle B, the Elder Justice Act of 2009, authorizes the Adult Protective Services program and establishes the Elder Justice Coordinating Council and other responsibilities within the Office of the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Based on guidance from the Department of Health and Human Services, and using the previously approved Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) template, ACL has developed a template for FOAs to solicit applications for funding the above discretionary programs.
Purpose and Use of the Information Collection
ACL Program Officers use the Funding Opportunity Announcement template, which also contains Grant Application Instructions and other informational resources and templates, as a guide for the development of solicitations for new discretionary funding opportunities. Prospective applicants prepare their applications based on these announcements.
Use of Improved Information Technology and Burden Reduction
The information are made available and must be submitted in electronic form via www.grants.gov.
Efforts to Identify Duplication and Use of Similar Information
No other source is available to obtain this information.
Impact on Small Businesses or Other Small Entities
The information to be collected does not involve or result in assignment of specific burden to any small business or other small entity. There is minimal burden in applying for ACL discretionary funding, where applications are typically limited to a maximum of 20 pages or less.
Consequences of Collecting the Information Less Frequently
Applicants submit only one application for each funding opportunity.
There are no special circumstances related to this request.
A 60-day Federal Register Notice was published in the Federal Register on February 1, 2017 (Vol. 82, Number 20; pp. 8940-8941) soliciting comments on this information collection. In response to the notice, the Department received two comments, one with 57 signatories. The commenters were concerned that the FOA template did not reference an eight percent cap on the indirect cost rate associated with training programs. Instead, the notice included language from the Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards (commonly called "Uniform Guidance"), which were implemented in fiscal year 2015 (https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/learn-grants/grant-policies/omb-uniform-guidance-2014.html) . This language requires agencies to accept the indirect cost rate negotiated with their agency, and the requirement applies to all grant making agencies in the Federal Government. However, the HHS Grants Policy Administration Manual (GPAM) and the Grants Policy Statement (GPS) provide that the indirect cost rate for training grants is capped at eight percent cap. ACL has reviewed all pertinent information and has determined that no change is necessary to the FOA template. This notice is for a generic template that is used by all ACL grant applicants. Requirements associated with particular programs are included in the specific FOAs for those programs. The UCEDD programs were designated as training programs in the past as part of the specific FOA for the UCEDD program.
The proposed template may be found on the ACL website at
https://acl.gov/Funding_Opportunities/Announcements/docs/ACL_PA_Template_FINAL.docx.
No payments or gifts are provided to applicants.
Information provided in a Funding Opportunity Announcement is confidential and only becomes public if an application is funded. No personally identifiable information is requested or accepted from applicants.
This request does not involve questions of a sensitive nature.
|
Number of Competitions |
Applicants Per FOA |
Number of Respondents |
Frequency of Response Per Year |
Average Hour Burden Per Respondent |
Total Estimated Data Burden |
NIDILRR |
17 |
16 |
272 |
1 |
22-52 |
8,300
|
Other ACL |
34 |
14.5 |
493 |
1 |
48 |
23,664 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
31,964 |
Estimated Number of Responses: 768 annually. Total Estimated Burden Hours: 30,964.
A broad spectrum of personnel work on ACL projects, and the estimates of annual burden hours vary greatly in accordance with the size, complexity, and technological capacity of the projects. We estimate that 17 NIDILRR and 34 other ACL competitions will be held in fiscal year 2017. The current estimate of annual burden is between 22-52 hours for NIDILRR projects and approximately 48 hours per respondent for ACL service projects. The total estimated number of responses is 765, and the total data burden associated with this information collection is 31,964.
Our experience with these grants over time and consultations with selected States indicate that the cost per hour for these projects also show a good deal of variance. For the purpose of these estimates, we used the Bureau of Labor Statistics mean hourly wage for life scientists and related fields of $39.98 as a proxy for NIDILRR projects (https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes191099.htm). This rate was increased by 100% to accommodate fringe benefits and overhead for a total of $79.96 per hour. That figure was then multiplied by the 8,300 estimated data burden hours for a total annual cost of $663,668. The estimated average cost per hour for other ACL grants includes a base average salary of $20.21 plus 100% of salary for fringe benefits and overhead. The hourly rate was derived from the Bureau of Labor Statistics salary category for Community and Social Service occupations (https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm). The total annualized cost of the burden hours expressed in dollars is $1,643,831.
|
Number of respondents |
Average Hour Burden Per Respondent |
Total Estimated Data Burden |
Estimated Cost Per Hour |
Total Annual Cost |
NIDILRR |
272 |
22-52 |
8,300 |
$79.96 |
$663,668 |
Other ACL |
493 |
48 |
23,664 |
$41.42 |
$980,163 |
|
|
|
|
|
1,643,831 |
There are no out of pocket expenditures resulting from this collection of information. We estimate that any costs that may be incurred by the respondent would be negligible.
Annualized Cost to the Federal Government
Project Officer prepares Funding Opportunity Announcements -- 60 hours
Posting of Application of announcements on www.grants.gov -- 3 hours
Project Officer review of applications/arranging independent review --135 hours
Program and Grants Officer follow-up with applicants --135 hours
Total Government Hours (Per Project Officer) -- 333 hours
The annual salary for a GS-13, step 1, is $94,796, and the hourly rate of $45.42. Multiplying this rate by 333 hours comes to an individual cost per competition of $15,125. Multiplied by a projected 51 competitions results in an estimated total cost to the Federal Government of $771,375.
There were only minor changes to the data collection forms. We do not project a change in the burden hours per grantee on this basis. However, ACL added a number of programs since the last ICR, including the State Health Insurance Assistance Program; Paralysis Resource Center; National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research; Assistive Technology programs; Independent Living Administration; Limb Loss Resource Center, and Traumatic Brain Injury program. This resulted in the projected increase in total burden, as compared to the 2013 request. In addition, NIDILRR estimates a slightly lower average hour burden per respondent based on their experience over the past several years. This is reflected in the tables and discussion in question 12.
ACL normally issues a press release on newly funded projects. No other tabulation or publication is planned.
The Administration for Community Living has no reason not to display the expiration date of OMB approval for this collection of information.
There are no exceptions to the certification statement.
| File Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| File Title | Supporting Statement for Form OMB 83 |
| Author | gcase |
| File Modified | 0000-00-00 |
| File Created | 2021-01-22 |