Supporting Statement for FOA

Funding Opportunity Announcement

The National Farmworker Jobs Program (NFJP)

Career Services and Training Grants and Housing Grants 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 “The National Farmworker Jobs Program (NFJP) Career Services and Training Grants and Housing Grants” Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA). The Department

will announce the availability of approximately $91,896,000 in grant funds authorized by the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) Section 167 for Migrant and Seasonal Farmworker Programs, also known as the National Farmworker Jobs Program (NFJP).

A portion of NFJP funding, $545,000, will be set aside for other discretionary purposes. Of the approximately $91,351,000 available for NFJP grants, the Department intends to award approximately $85,229,000 for Career Services and Training Grants to fund an estimated 52 grants. As specified in the NFJP appropriation (P.L. 116-94), grantees must spend at least 70 percent of this grant on employment and training services; this requirement is explained in detail in Section IV.E.6 of this FOA. Further, approximately $6,122,000 is available for Housing Grants to fund an estimated 7-20 grants. For Housing Grants, the Department will award at least 70 percent of the funds for permanent housing.

DOL will award grants through a competitive process to organizations providing career services, training services, youth services, related assistance services, and housing assistance to eligible migrant and seasonal farmworkers and their dependents. Through the provision of these services, grantees will work toward the goals of NFJP: to help farmworkers and their dependents acquire necessary skills to either stabilize or advance in their agricultural jobs or obtain employment in new industries or occupations. Section 167(a) of WIOA requires a grant competition every four years for NFJP. These awards will have a 51-month period of performance and will fund program years (PY) 2020 – 2023, that is, July 1, 2020 to September 30, 2024 (note that, within this period, this grant is renewable annually for a total of four years based on annual Departmental application requirements and subject to the availability of funds).

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 website. Based on past DOL experience, the Department anticipates that at least 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 80 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.

80 applications x 20 hours = 1,600 hours

The DOL uses the average hourly earnings in the professional and business services industry of $34.29 per hour to monetize this burden.  See The Employment Situation—March 2020, DOL, Bureau of Labor Statistics, https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf at page 35.

1,600 hours x $34.29 = $54,864

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: 80 respondents, 80 responses, 1,600 hours, $0 other cost burden.

Supplemental Supporting Statement B: Statistical Methods

This information collection does not employ statistical methods.

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