FOA Supporting Statement and Justification

Funding Opportunity Announcement

Job Corps Scholars 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 “Job Corps Scholars Program,” Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA). The Department will announce the availability of approximately $23,738,000 in grant funds authorized by the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, Section 156 (a) (29 U.S.C. 3193(a)) and Section 189(c) (29 U.S.C._3249(c)) for Job Corps Scholars Program Partnership.

DOL will competitively award grants to accredited, two-year, public community colleges; accredited, public two- and four-year historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs); and accredited tribally controlled colleges and universities (TCCUs) as part of a “Job Corps Scholars Program” demonstration project. Grantees must enroll Job Corps eligible youth and provide those enrolled with intensive counseling services to support and facilitate each student’s employment and career success.

DOL expects grantees to provide these services throughout each student’s participation in the 12-month career technical training component of the Job Corps Scholars Program and the up to 12-month employment placement period following separation from the program. Grantees may also fund developmental coursework where necessary for student entry into the technical training component. The time necessary to complete such coursework does not count against the 12 months allotted for the career technical training component. Separation is defined, for the purpose of the demonstration project, as the successful completion and exit from the career technical training. All counseling should encompass activities that aim to ensure each student’s employment success.

DOL expects to serve 1,600 students through the award of approximately twenty (20) grants to accredited, two-year, public community colleges; accredited, public, two- and four-year HBCUs; and accredited, two- and four-year TCCUs. These students must be new enrollees, that is, not previously admitted or currently attending classes at the community college, HBCU, or TCCU. Transfer students are not considered new enrollees for the purpose of this program.

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 Web site. 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 100 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.

100 applications x 20 hours = 2000 hours.

The DOL has increased the average hourly earnings in the professional and business services industry to $33.46 per hour to monetize this burden.  See The Employment Situation—July 2019, DOL, Bureau of Labor Statistics, https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf at page 33.

2000 hours x $33.46 = $66,920

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: 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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