2020 CNCS Application Justification

SUPPORTING STATEMENT FOR PAPERWORK REDUCTION ACT SUBMISSIONS

 

A. Justification

A1. Need for Information Collection

The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) awards grants to states, institutions of higher education, non-profit organizations, Indian tribes, and U.S. Territories to operate AmeriCorps State and National, AmeriCorps NCCC, AmeriCorps VISTA, and Senior Corps programs. This information collection comprises the questions applicants answer to apply for grant funding when appropriations are available.

A2. Indicate how, by whom, and for what purpose the information is to be used.

Applicants respond to the questions in order to apply for grant funding through CNCS competitions. CNCS staff will use the information collection to select recipients for funding.

 

 A3. Minimize Burden: Use of Improved Technology to Reduce Burden

CNCS will be eliciting and accepting applicants’ response to these questions electronically via Grants and Member Management System.

A4. Non-Duplication

There are no other sources of information by which CNCS can meet the purposes described in A2 (above).

 

A5. Minimizing for economic burden for small businesses or other small entities.

This collection of information does not impact small businesses because they are not eligible to apply for grants. There is no economic burden to any other small entities beyond the cost of staff time to collect and report the data. This is minimized to the degree possible by only asking for the information absolutely necessary to assess an organization’s eligibility to apply and capacity to administer a grant.

A6. Consequences of the collection if not conducted, conducted less frequently, as well as any technical or legal obstacles to reducing burden.

 

CNCS will be unable to request the necessary information to assess prospective grantees.

A7. Special circumstances that would cause information collection to be collected in a manner requiring respondents to report more often than quarterly; report in fewer than 30 days after receipt of the request; submit more than an original and two copies; retain records for more than three years; and other ways specified in the Instructions focused on statistical methods, confidentially, and proprietary trade secrets.

There are no special circumstances that would require the collection of information in these ways.

A8. Provide copy and identify the date and page number of publication in the Federal Register of the Agency’s notice. Summarize comments received and actions taken in response to comments. Specifically address comments received on cost and hour burden.

The 60-Day Notice soliciting comments was published on April 21, 2020 on page 22151. No comments were received.

 

 A9. Payment to Respondents

There are no payments or gifts to respondents

  

A10. Assurance of Confidentiality and its basis in statute, regulation, or agency policy.

Your responses to this information collection will be disclosed as appropriate unless prohibited by law.

A11. Sensitive Questions

 

The information collection does not include questions of a sensitive nature.

 

A12. Hour burden of the collection

We expect approximately 13,200 respondents to use these instructions to apply to become CNCS grantees. The frequency of response will depend on the availability of appropriations and should not exceed six hours of effort per respondent. There is no estimated annual hour burden outside of the customary and usual business practices.

 

A13. Cost burden to the respondent

The estimated respondent burdens and labor costs are shown in the following table.

Estimation of Respondent Burden
Number of respondents	13,200
Responses per respondent	1
Number of responses	13,200
Hours per response	6
Estimated hours (number of responses multiplied by hours per response)	79,200
Cost per hour (hourly wage)	$36.04
Annual public burden (estimated hours multiplied by cost per hour)	$2,854,368

Notes: The cost per hour is based on the Office of Personnel Management(OPM) General Schedule (GS) hourly rate of $26.45 for a GS-11, step 1, employee (for calendar year 2020 for the rest of the U.S.) plus the 36.25% civilian personnel full fringe benefit rate from OMB memorandum M-08-13 ($26.45 + $9.59 = $36.04, rounded to the nearest dollar). This corresponds to the median hourly rate of the respondents.

 

A14. Cost to Government

The cost to government is $95,000 for federal oversight.

A15. Reasons for program changes or adjustments in burden or cost.

Not applicable.

 

 A16. Publication of results

Some results of this grant competition will be published on the CNCS website for the purpose of transparency in federal grantmaking. 

 

A17. Explain the reason for seeking approval to not display the expiration date for OMB approval of the information collection.

Not applicable.

 

 A18. Exceptions to the certification statement

There are no exceptions to the certification statement in the submitted ROCIS form.

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