30-day justification

SUPPORTING STATEMENT FOR PAPERWORK REDUCTION ACT SUBMISSIONS

 

A. Justification

A1.  Need for Information Collection

The Edward M Kennedy Serve America Act, Public Law 111-13, reauthorizes and expands national service programs administered by CNCS for National and Community Service and, among other things, authorizes AmeriCorps members to transfer all or part of an education award, with limitations on who can transfer the award and who can receive the transferred award. This information collection implements provisions of 42 USC 12604(f) concerning award transfers.

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

Members use these forms to verify their eligibility to request a transfer and the eligibility of the person receiving the transferred award, as well as establish a Trust account for the transfer recipient.

 

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

The Corporation will be eliciting and accepting members’ and award transfer recipients’ responses electronically via the My AmeriCorps portal, the Corporation’s secure online member account management system. If they are unable to apply or respond on-line, they can use the attached forms and instructions to submit their application.

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 award transfers.

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

 

The Corporation will be unable to identify members qualified to transfer their awards or those qualified to accept transfer of the award in accordance with the provisions of 42 U.S.C 12604(f) without approval of this.

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 Tuesday, September 01, 2020 on page 54357. 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.

Information provided by this collection will be held solely by AmeriCorps member, award transfer recipients, and CNCS staff. Confidentiality of information supplied by respondents is ensured by the Privacy Act. A Privacy Act notice appears on the form.

A11.  Sensitive Questions

 

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

 

A12. Hour burden of the collection

There are four forms in their electronic versions implementing the Award Transfer provisions. We expect the Award Transfer Request Form and the Accept/Decline Form to be the primary forms, used by approximately 150 respondents each. The frequency of response will not be greater than annually and should not exceed 5 minutes of effort per respondent. The estimated burden hours are 12.5.

 

A13. Respondent Burden and its Labor Costs

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

Estimation of Respondent Burden
Number of respondents	900
Responses per respondent	1
Minutes per response	5
Estimated hours (number of responses multiplied by hours per response)	75
Cost per hour (hourly wage)	$55.76
Annual public burden (estimated hours multiplied by cost per hour)	$4,182

Notes: The cost per hour is based on the Office of Personnel Management(OPM) General Schedule (GS) hourly rate of $41.66 for a GS-12, step 5, 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 ($41.66 + $15.10 = $56.76, rounded to the nearest dollar).  

A13. Respondent Costs Other Than Burden Hour Costs

CNCS does not estimate any annual cost burden apart from the hourly burden in Item 12 above.

A14. Cost to the Government

Estimation of Cost to the Government
Number of responses	900
Hours per response	10 minutes
Estimated hours (number of responses multiplied by hours per response)	150
Cost per hour (hourly wage)	$55.76
Annual public burden (estimated hours multiplied by cost per hour)	$8,364

Notes: The cost per hour is based on the OPM GS hourly rate of $41.66 for a GS-12, step 5, employee (for calendar year 2020) plus the 36.25% civilian personnel full fringe benefit rate from OMB memorandum M-08-13, rounded to the nearest dollar).

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

Not applicable.

 

 A16.  Publication of results

Not applicable because the responses to this information collection will not be published.

 

 

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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