Justification for change

JUSTIFICATION FOR CHANGE REQUEST
NOAA COMMUNITY-BASED RESTORATION PROGRAM PROGRESS REPORTS
OMB CONTROL NO. 0648-0472
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) would like to make several nonsubstantive changes to the format of its information collection to make it simpler to understand
and use by grantees. In particular, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) grantees
that have their first semi-annual progress reports due to NOAA in January 2010 should find that
the modification to a consolidated format described below provides some relief from the
complex reporting requirements they already face overall.
Description of Non-substantive Changes
The currently approved NOAA information collection modeled after the Standard Form
Performance and Progress Report (SF-PPR) series maintained the separate documents format for
grantees to provide a performance narrative, report basic contact information, program
indicators, performance measures, etc, with each document containing its own set of instructions.
NOAA had elected to use some, but not all of the SF-PPR formats and minimized modifications
to them for the renewal request, believing that they would ultimately become standardized across
the government. Now that is no longer the case, NOAA would like to consolidate the formats
that are used by Restoration Center grantees from six documents into two documents, as follows.
The SF-PPR Cover Page, required of all recipients of Federal awards, and the optional formats
SF-PPR-2 (Cover Page Continuation), SF-PPR-A (Performance Measures), SF-PPR-B (Program
Indicators), and SF-PPR-D (Table of Funding Information) have been:
• combined into a single document
• the pages reordered for better transition
• the parts sequentially lettered to eliminate the gaps left by the portions of the SF-PPR
format that are not being used, and
• the header references to the SF-PPR removed.
• Field-by-field instructions were simplified since they now only need pertain to NOAA
requirements, and they have been consolidated at the end of the document.
The SF-PPR-F (Program/Project Management) will remain in its current form as an individual
document, and has been relabeled at Part D so that it continues the sequential order of this
reorganized collection, with no gaps. Part D is not appropriate for use by all recipients, and it
will therefore only be required by those recipients with awards with a federal share of $500,000
and above and/or those that provide sub-awards for multiple projects as part of multi-year awards
(i.e. awards with long project periods and budget periods that are funded in annual increments).
The need for use of Part D will be determined by the Program Office on a case by case basis and
will be specified in award documents provided to recipients.
In addition to modifying the headers to remove references to the SF-PPR and sequentially
lettering the four major parts of this information collection that appear after the cover and cover
continuation pages, non-substantive modifications were made as follows:
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Cover Page (formerly SF-PPR)
• Performance narrative box expanded to allow more room for text.
• Item #13 “Agency Use Only” box removed, as NOAA has no need for it.
Cover Page Continuation (formerly SF-PPR-2 Cover Page Continuation)
• Project location zip code field removed. Many habitat restoration projects are subtidal
and do not have a zip code.
• Geographic identifier field was removed as purely descriptive and unnecessary, as the
information collection already requires geographic coordinates.
• List of Species field was revised to highlight target species of interest to NOAA, and
generalized examples (fish, shellfish) converted into specific examples (coho salmon,
Olympia oyster) to better guide recipients in filling out this field.
Part A. Program Indicators (formerly SF-PPR-B)
• Note at bottom regarding requirement for use for reporting on NOAA Restoration Center
awards removed as unnecessary.
• This part was placed before the Performance Measures page as a more logical order of
transition along the performance narrative to performance measures continuum.
Part B. Performance Measures (formerly SF-PPR-A)
• This page was reordered to fall after the Program Indicators page as a more logical order
of transition along the performance narrative to performance measures continuum.
Part C. Table of Activities and Funding (formerly SF-PPR-D)
• Format changed from portrait to landscape to allow more room in each column for
responses.
• Note at bottom regarding requirement for use for reporting on NOAA Restoration Center
awards removed as unnecessary.
Part D. Program/Project Management (formerly SF-PPR-F)
• Note at bottom regarding requirement for use for reporting on NOAA Restoration Center
awards removed as unnecessary; information included as part of new header.
Description of Changes to Reporting Burden and Costs
There is no change to reporting burden and costs for this non-substantive change.

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