Justification

Request for Approval under the “Generic Clearance for the Collection of Qualitative Feedback on Agency Service Delivery”

(OMB Control Number: 2030-0051; EPA ICR Number: 2434.258)

TITLE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION: Impact Analysis Questions for Communities in the Southeast New England Program Network (SNEP)

PURPOSE:

In the fall of 2019, the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) awarded a five-year cooperative agreement to the New England Environmental Finance Center (NEEFC) to establish a technical assistance network for the Southeast New England region. The Southeast New England Program Network (SNEP Network) provides training and technical assistance to municipalities, tribes, and organizations within Southeast Massachusetts and Rhode Island to empower communities to achieve healthy watersheds, sustainable financing, and long-term climate resilience through the management of stormwater and restoration projects.

In FY5 of the SNEP Network (October 2023-September 2024), the SNEP Network plans to follow up with communities who have received technical assistance from the Network. By following up with communities, the SNEP Network will be able to track whether the SNEP technical assistance led to the advancement of a project and an increased ability of the community to address stormwater and watershed management challenges. The customer satisfaction survey will also help us understand how we can improve our technical assistance and our effectiveness building community capacity to address stormwater, watershed management, and climate resilience challenges.

DESCRIPTION OF RESPONDENTS:

The respondents of the customer satisfaction survey will be the recipients of the SNEP Network technical assistance. Specifically, the SNEP Network will follow up with communities who received technical assistance with a community assistance project. The SNEP Network’s community assistance projects offer in-depth technical, financial, and training assistance to municipalities, tribes, and non-profits in the SNEP region. We solicit responses from SNEP communities that need in-depth assistance with established stormwater and restoration programs to advance their practice to the next level. The respondents will be the community contacts who requested and were awarded technical assistance from the SNEP Network.

TYPE OF COLLECTION: (Check one)

[ ] Customer Comment Card/Complaint Form [ X] Customer Satisfaction Survey

[ ] Usability Testing (e.g., Website or Software) [ ] Small Discussion Group

[ ] Focus Group [ ] Other: ______________________

To assist review, please provide answers to the following question:

Personally Identifiable Information:

1. Is personally identifiable information (PII) collected? [ ] Yes [ X ] No

2. If Yes, is the information that will be collected included in records that are subject to the Privacy Act of 1974? [ ] Yes [ ] No

3. If Applicable, has a System or Records Notice been published? [ ] Yes [ ] No

Gifts or Payments:

Is an incentive (e.g., money or reimbursement of expenses, token of appreciation) provided to participants? [ ] Yes [ X ] No

BURDEN HOURS

Category of Respondent	No. of Respondents	Participation Time	Burden Hours
Local and Tribal Governments	20	15 minutes	5 Hours
Community-Based Organizations	10	15 minutes	2.5 hours
Totals	30	15 minutes	7.5 hours

FEDERAL COST: The estimated annual cost to the Federal government is $0

No federal employees will be conducting the survey. The survey will be conducted by the New England Environmental Finance Center (NEEFC). The NEEFC has been awarded a $6M grant over 5 years (2019-2024) from EPA Region 1’s Southeast New England Program (SNEP). The NEEFC’s staff members will spend approximately 20 hours doing this work, totaling approximately $750.00, which has already been disbursed to the grantee.

If you are conducting a focus group, survey, or plan to employ statistical methods, please provide answers to the following questions:

The selection of your targeted respondents

1. Do you have a customer list or something similar that defines the universe of potential respondents and do you have a sampling plan for selecting from this universe? [ X] Yes [ ] No

If the answer is yes, please provide a description of both below (or attach the sampling plan)? If the answer is no, please provide a description of how you plan to identify your potential group of respondents and how you will select them?

We will use our contact list of recipients who applied and received technical assistance from the Southeast New England Program Network.

Administration of the Instrument

1. How will you collect the information? (Check all that apply)

[ ] Web-based or other forms of Social Media

[X ] Telephone

[ ] In-person

[ ] Mail

[ ] Other, Explain

2. Will interviewers or facilitators be used? [ X ] Yes [ ] No

Please make sure that all instruments, instructions, and scripts are submitted with the request.

CERTIFICATION:

I certify the following to be true:

1. The collection is voluntary.

2. The collection is low-burden for respondents and low-cost for the Federal Government.

3. The collection is non-controversial and does not raise issues of concern to other federal agencies.

4. The results are not intended to be disseminated to the public.

5. Information gathered will not be used for the purpose of substantially informing influential policy decisions.

6. The collection is targeted to the solicitation of opinions from respondents who have experience with the program or may have experience with the program in the future.

Name:

Matthew Stamas, Project Officer for the SNEP Grant, EPA Region 1

Erin Flannery-Keith, Attorney, EPA Region 1 Office of Regional Counsel

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