1505-0274 SS Capital Project Grant Plan 2022-03

Department of the Treasury

Information Collection Request – Supporting Statement

Coronavirus Capital Projects Fund

OMB No. 1505-0274

Part A. Justification

1. Circumstances necessitating the collection of information

Section 604 of the Social Security Act (the “Act”), as added by section 9901 of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, Pub. L. No. 117-2 (Mar. 11, 2021) authorized the Coronavirus Capital Projects Fund (“CPF”). The CPF provides $10 billion in funding for the Department of the Treasury (“Treasury”) to provide grant payments to States (defined to include the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico), seven territories and freely associated states (including the United States Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic of Palau), and Tribal governments¹ to carry out critical capital projects directly enabling work, education, and health monitoring, including remote options, in response to the public health emergency with respect to the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)”.

Section 604(b) of the Act prescribes that the $10 billion be allocated to eligible grant recipients according to a formula provided in the statute. Treasury has used this formula to calculate the CPF grant fund allocations for each eligible recipient and has posted these allocations on its website². In general, each state (including the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico) will receive between approximately $107 million and $500 million, each of the seven named territories and freely associated states will receive approximately $14 million, and each Tribal government will receive approximately $167,000.

Section 604(c) of the Act requires that a process of applying for grants to access funding be made available no later than 60 days after March 11, 2021. Treasury complied with this requirement, and began accepting grant applications in September 2021. In order to access project funding, recipients must submit grant plans to be approved by Treasury.

Treasury published an Application Guidance document with details on CPF grant terms and conditions, eligible uses and costs, the CPF grant process, and other requirements in September 2021. Treasury is also planning to publish Compliance and Reporting Guidance soon and will be providing the Compliance and Reporting Guidance to OIRA in due course.

CPF Grant Application Form

Eligible entities that elect to receive a CPF grant award must complete and certify a grant application on Treasury’s web-based portal. The form is divided into tabs to make it easier to navigate the webpage.

• Tab 1 provides necessary information and instructions and does not collect any information.

• Tab 2 collects general information needed to verify the identity of and communicate with the applicant and its designated representative, if any. This tab also collects information on the relationship of the entity filling out the application with the eligible recipient. Specifically, Tribal recipients may apply directly on their own, or they may apply jointly with other Tribes. Tribal consortia and similar organizations may apply on behalf of one or more Tribes³.

• Tab 3 collects banking and payment information.

• Tab 4 collects award information; this tab varies by applicant type. States, territories, and freely associated states will identify the amount of award they wish to receive (up to a maximum of their allocation published by Treasury and provided on the form), and the amount of program administrative funds they wish to receive immediately upon execution of a grant agreement (up to a maximum of 5 percent of their total award). These recipients will need to provide additional information at a later date, via the Grant Plan, in order to access their remaining award. Tribal governments will identify the amount of award they wish to receive (up to a maximum of their allocation published by Treasury and provided on the form). These recipients will also complete a series of check boxes and short fill-in boxes demonstrating how they plan to use their award. This obviates the need for a separate grant plan to be submitted and allows Treasury to pay Tribal recipients their entire award upon execution of a grant agreement.

• Tab 5 permits applicants to upload designation letters, which are necessary to demonstrate that the entity completing the application is duly authorized by the eligible recipient to complete it on their behalf. This tab also provides information on how to receive and sign (via DocuSign) the Application Certification. Tribal recipients or their designees will also be shown instructions on receiving and completing the Grant Agreement. Tab 5 may also provide information on holding the application in suspense if the applicant requires additional time prior to certifying and submitting.

CPF Grant Plan Form

A Grant Plan will consist of an executive summary, an Allocation Table showing the broad categories of Capital Projects the Recipient seeks to undertake using Capital Projects Fund grant funds (e.g., Broadband Infrastructure Projects, Digital Connectivity Technology Projects, Multi-Purpose Community Facility Projects) and how much the Recipient intends to spend on each such category, and one or more Program Plans. Each Program Plan is intended to provide more detailed information on a particular type of Capital Project the Recipient intends to undertake and Grant Plan approval is a required condition that must be met before a Recipient may access the majority of their CPF funds. For example, a State might file a Grant Plan that indicates that it intends to spend funding on broadband deployment throughout the State, and a Program Plan that provides detailed information on its deployment plan for only some of the counties in the State. Later, it could file Program Plans detailing its deployment plans for other counties in the State.

Eligible States, Territories, and Freely Associated States that elect to receive a CPF grant award must submit a Grant Plan via Treasury’s web-based portal to access project funds.

• Tab 0 is the landing page, which provides necessary information and instructions and does not collect any information.

• Tab 1 provides necessary information and instructions and does not collect any information.

• Tab 2 collects an Executive Summary, which is a text document of not more than 2 pages that will be uploaded into the portal. The Executive Summary will describe the objective(s) intended to be achieved with the grant funds, the Programs⁴ expected to be funded, the rationale for fund allocation, the rationale for Program choices, and a description of the Recipient’s approach for identifying critical needs and the communities to be served by the capital assets.

• Tab 3 collects information regarding grant fund allocations for each submitted Program. Tab 4 requires recipients to upload one or more Program Plans. Program Plans contain general programmatic information regarding how the Program will be implemented. Program Plans consist of one or more uploaded text documents as well as any necessary supporting material. The specific requirements for the document contents are described in the instrument instructions, attached to this supporting statement.

2. Use of the data

All information will be provided by eligible entities or their designees. The information reported will allow Treasury to verify applicant identity, assess applicant eligibility, and confirm that the recipient will use CPF funds in a manner consistent with program requirements. The information will also be used to process payments to approved recipients and as a reference for future data submissions, grant reporting, and compliance. Data will be shared with other Federal agencies to the extent necessary to process applications, or in response to inquiries by inspectors general and other oversight bodies.

3. Use of information technology

Treasury will manage the form intake, certification, and payment processes with the use of existing and widely available technology such as online web-based forms and e-mail.

4. Efforts to identify duplication

This information collection is required under new statutory mandates. The information is not known to overlap with any other data collected under any other information collections at Treasury. Furthermore, the information collection is tailored to leverage data that already exists and only additional data that is necessary for making payments to eligible entities.

5. Impact on small entities

This collection of information will minimally affect small entities. However, Treasury will attempt to minimize the burden on small entities to the greatest extent practicable.

6. Consequences of less frequent collection and obstacles to burden reduction

This collection of information is at a minimum. Applicants will submit a limited amount of information, most of which should be readily available. Tribal applicants will also be asked for certain information about how they intend to spend CPF funds. If Treasury does not conduct this information collection, it will be unable to provide CPF grant funds to eligible entities.

7. Circumstances requiring special information collection

There are no special circumstances that require the collection to be conducted in a manner inconsistent with OMB guidelines.

8. Solicitation of comments on information collection and justification for expedited processing pursuant to 5 C.F.R. § 1320.13

On December 29, 2021, Treasury published a notice in the Federal Register (86 FR 74231-32) soliciting public review and comment on the Grant Application form and Grant Plan form (collectively, the Forms) for a 60-day period. During the comment period, Treasury received one comment from the Internet & Television Association (NCTA).  Treasury thanks the commentor for their thoughtful insights. The comment raised several issues for consideration, which are summarized below along with Treasury’s responses:  

First, the commentor requested that Treasury modify the Forms to collect additional information on broadband infrastructure, specifically, that the Broadband Infrastructure Program Plan template (Template) and/or Forms collect, among other things, the entire service area of a proposed project, the extent to which the project will deploy broadband infrastructure to unserved and underserved areas, and the extent to which the projects will deploy broadband infrastructure in certain serviced areas. 

No changes are necessary at this time. Treasury already plans to collect information on the service area of a project and the extent to which a project will deploy broadband infrastructure to unserved and underserved areas through its reporting requirements for recipients. With respect to certain serviced areas, CPF requirements only partly overlap with the requirements of other federal broadband programs. While Treasury consulted with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, a component of the U.S. Department of Commerce (NTIA), and the Department of Agriculture (USDA) in the development of the Forms, Congress designed the CPF to empower recipients to identify critical needs within their own communities and deploy broadband infrastructure accordingly.  Treasury plans to share data collected through reporting requirements with the FCC, NTIA, and USDA, and will make some or all of it available to the public.   

Second, the commentor proposed making the submitted Forms and the Template publicly available.  No changes are necessary at this time. Treasury may share information from recipients’ grant plan submissions on Treasury’s website, after they have been approved.  Additionally, pursuant to forthcoming Compliance and Reporting Guidance, Treasury will require that State, territory, and freely associated state recipients post their annual performance reports on their public-facing websites before submitting their reports to Treasury.

9. Provision of payments to respondents

No payments or gifts are provided to respondents.

10. Assurance of confidentiality

Information collected will be kept confidential to the extent appropriate and consistent with the Freedom of Information Act and other applicable laws.

11. Justification of sensitive questions

No sensitive questions will be asked of eligible entities.

12. Estimate of the hour burden of information collection

The CPF Grant Application form burden estimates are as follows:

Reporting	# Respondents	# Responses Per Respondent	Hours per response	Total Burden in Hours	Cost to Respondent ($48.80 per hour*)
CPF Grant Application – States, Territories, and Freely Associated States	59	1	1.0	59	$2,879
CPF Grant Application – Tribal Governments	597	1	2.05	1,194	$58,267
CPF Grant Plan – States, Territories, and Freely Associated States	59	1	60	3,540	$172,752
Total	715	-	-	4,793	$233,898

* Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, Accountants and Auditors, on the Internet at https://www.bls.gov/ooh/business-and-financial/accountants-and-auditors.htm (visited March 28, 2020). Base wage of $33.89/hour increased by 44% to account for fully loaded employer cost of employee compensation (benefits, etc.) for a fully loaded wage rate of $48.80.

13. Estimated total annual cost burden to respondents 

There are no annualized capital/startup costs for the eligible entities to provide the information in the form or certification.

14. Estimated cost to the federal government

The cost to the federal government includes staff and contractor time required to develop the information collection forms, provide customer service and outreach to assist with form completion, and to review and adjudicate the submitted forms. The total estimated cost to the federal government is $2.214 million, based on a methodology that estimates the time and loaded labor rate, and estimated contract allocations.

15. Reasons for change in burden

There is no change in the estimated burden for this collection. Treasury is submitting this request to extend the OMB approval.

16. Plans for tabulation, statistical analysis, and publication

Treasury plans to publish total award amounts and disbursements. Some additional information will be made available to the public on Sam.gov as required by law, and on Treasury’s website in accordance with CPF program terms.

17. Display of the expiration date for OMB approval

Treasury plans to display the expiration date for OMB approval of the information collection on all instruments.

18. Exceptions to certification requirement

There are no exceptions to the certification statement.

Part B. Describe the use of statistical methods such as sampling or imputation

This collection does not employ statistical methods.

1 An eligible Tribal government is the recognized governing body of any Indian or Alaska Native tribe, band, nation, pueblo, village, community, component band, or component reservation, individually identified (including parenthetically) in the list published most recently as of the date of enactment of this Act pursuant to section 104 of the Federally Recognized Indian Tribe List Act of 1994 (25 U.S.C. 5131). The State of Hawaii, for exclusive use of the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands and the Native Hawaiian Education Programs to assist Native Hawaiians, is also eligible to apply for funding under this funding category.

2 https://www.treasury.gov/CPF

3 Only one application shall be accepted for each eligible entity. If anyone other than the eligible Tribal government’s duly authorized Tribal official is submitting the application on behalf of the eligible entity, a signed designation letter is required.

4 “Program” means one or more Capital Projects with common characteristics (e.g., a group of Multi-Purpose Community Facility Projects that directly enable work, education, and health monitoring).

5 The burden for Tribal government is estimated at 2 hours per response, which is slightly higher than other recipients, because they will also complete a series of check boxes and short fill-in boxes demonstrating how they plan to use their award. This eliminates the need for a separate grant plan to be submitted later, and allows Treasury to pay Tribal recipients their entire award upon execution of a grant agreement.