Supplemental Supporting Statement: Closing the Skills Gap Grants

Funding Opportunity Announcement

Apprenticeships: Closing the Skills Gaps

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 “Apprenticeships: Closing the Skills Gaps” Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA). The purpose of this grant program is to promote apprenticeships as a significant workforce solution in filling current job vacancies and closing the skills gap between employer workforce needs and the skills of the current workforce. The overarching goals of this grant program are threefold: (1) to accelerate the expansion of apprenticeships to industry sectors and occupations that have not traditionally deployed apprenticeships for building a skilled workforce, such as cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and health care; (2) to promote the large-scale expansion of apprenticeships across the nation to a range of employers, including small and medium-sized employers; and (3) to increase apprenticeship opportunities for all Americans.

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 will be available on the www.grants.gov website. Based on past DOL experience, the Department anticipates 85 percent of responses will be submitted electronically and 15 percent of responses will be submitted through a hardcopy.

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 solicitation implicates no special circumstances.

Burden:

The DOL expects to receive approximately 100 applications from an equal number of respondents.  The public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 20 hours per response, including time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining needed data, and completing and reviewing the collection of information.

100 applications x 20 hours = 2000 hours

The DOL has increased the average hourly earnings in the professional and business services industry to $33.27 per hour to monetize this burden.  See The Employment Situation—May 2019, DOL, Bureau of Labor Statistics, https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf at page 33.

2000 hours x $33.27 = $66,540

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 and performance reports to the ETA. Those information collection requirements will be cleared under a separate control number.

Total burden: 100 respondents, 100 responses, 2000 hours, $0 other cost burden.

Supplemental Supporting Statement B: Statistical Methods

This information collection does not employ statistical methods.

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