OMB Justification - Progress Reports

Corporation for National and Community Service

Learn and Serve America Progress Reports

Supporting Statement for Paperwork Reduction Act Submission

A. Justification

1. Circumstances that make the collection of information necessary.
   Learn and Serve America provides grants to state education agencies, higher education institutions, Indian Tribes and U.S. Territories, national nonprofits and state commissions on national and community service to implement service-learning programs. To ensure appropriate oversight of Federal funds, Learn and Serve America requires all grant recipients to submit Progress Reports describing grant activities and progress toward approved program objectives. Information received from the reports informs continuation funding decisions and how to target training and technical assistance.

2. Indicate how, by whom, and for what purpose the information is to be used.
   Information collected on this form will be used by CNCS to monitor grants and to provide feedback on the grantee’s service-learning efforts, areas for continuous improvement and to address program challenges.

3. Using information technology to reduce burden.
   CNCS requires all Learn and Serve America programs funded to complete a report on their accomplishments and progress toward meeting program objectives each grant year. All Progress Reports are submitted through our grants management system, eGrants.

4. Efforts to identify duplication.
   There are no other sources of information to use or modify.

5. Minimizing burden for small businesses or other small entities.
   The collection of information does not impact small businesses or other small entities because they are not eligible to apply.

6. Consequence if the collection is not conducted.
   CNCS would be unable to fulfill its legal obligation to provide appropriate grant oversight for Learn and Serve America School-Based, Community-Based, Higher Education, and Indian Tribes and U.S. Territories programs if this information is not collected. Without this information, CNCS would not be able to identify accomplishments and progress, or target training and technical assistance resource.

7. Special circumstances that would cause information collection to be collected in the specified ways.
   There are no special circumstances.

8. Provide copy and identify the date and page number of publication in the Federal Register of the agency’s notice.
   This is a request for renewal. The Federal Register Notice appeared Thursday, October 12, 2006; Vol. 71, No. 197, page 60111.

9. Payment to respondents.
   There is no payment or gift to respondents.

10. Confidentiality provided to respondents.
The information does not require an assurance of confidentiality because no personal information is requested.

11. Justification for questions of a sensitive nature.
    The application does not ask respondents to answer any questions of a sensitive nature.

11. Estimate of the hour burden of the collection of information.
    It is estimated that there will be approximately 102 respondents, requiring approximately 2 hours each to complete Progress Reports in eGrants. This equals a new estimated annual burden of approximately 204 hours for the collection.

Since the renewal notification was published, reporting requirements were reduced from semi-annual to annual Progress Reports. Thus the burden calculation changed from twice per year x 2 hours per report to once per year x 2 hours per report, a reduction of 50% for each respondent.

11. Estimate for the total annual cost burden. (2hours to complete)
    $18.04 x 102 (number of respondents) x 102 (number of responses) x 1 (once per year) = $3,753 (annual cost burden)

11. Estimate of costs to the Federal government.
    There is no cost, beyond the cost of doing ordinary business, to the Federal government.

11. Reasons for program changes.
    Streamlining efforts led to the deletion of two questions.

11. Publication of results.
    Not applicable because this information collection will not be published.

11. Explanation for reason to not display the expiration date of OMB approval.
    Not applicable.

11. Exceptions to the certification statement.
    There are no exceptions to the certification statement in OMB Form 83-I.