0701-0064 - Supporting Statement

Supporting Statement for

Air Force Academy Candidate Personal Data Record

HQ USAFA/RRI

USAFA Form 146

OMB 0701-0064

A. JUSTIFICATION

1. Need for the Information Collection

USAFA Form 146 implements the provisions of 10 USC 9346. Information collection is necessary in order to provide a candidate’s family and personal background. This data also includes eligibility by verification of age, U.S. citizenship, law infractions, schooling beyond high school, previous active duty tours, and previous applications to service academies. Final USAF Academy selections could not be made if reviewing committees are not able to determine whether basic requirements have or have not been met. 10 USC 9346 is attached.

2. Use of Information

The information collected on this form is required by USC 10 and used by Air Force Academy officials to select appointees to the Academy. If the information on this form is not collected, the individual cannot be considered for admittance to the Air Force Academy.

3. Use of Technology

This form utilizes the current state of the art scanning equipment to register each candidate’s high school academic performance, which determines academic eligibility when these results are combined with candidate’s college board scores.

4. Non-duplication

An internal study was conducted to review and eliminate redundancy on all candidate screening and selections processes.

5. Burden on Small Business

The collection of this information does not impact small businesses.

6. Less Frequent Collections

This is a one-time collection for each person who has been sent a candidate kit. If the information is not collected, final eligibility cannot be determined, and therefore, the student cannot be considered for an appointment to the Academy.

7. Paperwork Reduction Act Guidelines

There are no special circumstances. The collection of information will be conducted in a manner consistent with the guidelines in 5 CFR 1320.5(d)(2).

8. Consultation and Public Comments

A 60 day Federal Register notice was published. No comments were received. The Directors of Admissions of the three service academies periodically meet to discuss the availability of data and report format for the information collected from high school students. In addition to the meetings, the Air Force Academy surveys the freshman class each year to gather input pertaining to form completion.

9. Gifts or Payments

No payments or gifts will be made to respondents.

10. Confidentiality

The information collected is handled, stored, and disposed of in accordance with existing Department of Defense procedures for safeguarding official information. We also certify that the Privacy Act of 1974 and OMB Circular A-108, “Responsibilities for the Maintenance of Records about Individuals by Federal Agencies” are upheld. We are a military institution and all records for the Department of Defense are stored and tracked by Privacy Act information. The USAF Academy is also actively looking at using a Cadet Personal ID number as an alternative to their Social Security number information and is performing a cost analysis on changing all the data that is stored in the Cadet Management system and historical data. Since these individuals are going to be sworn into the military we must abide by the military regulations governing their personnel, medical, and other records. If the military system changes, using PIDs for each member of the Armed Forces, then the USAF Academy and other military institutions would follow suit. Each form that the Office of Admissions uses is stored in the database in different tables and is keyed by the SSAN. If we only collected the SSAN once, then we would not be able to store any of the data from the online forms (which was mandated by OMB in prior years to go paperless). We would then be required to spend numerous manhours and money to restructure our entire institutions Cadet/Historical/Admissions, hospital, etc databases to accept something other than the SSAN. As stated prior, when the military changes to go back to a system like the unique identifier that was used prior to 1970, then we will comply with changing all information and a great cost to the federal government.

11. Sensitive Questions

Questions 5 and 12, dealing with gender and ethnicity, respectively, will be used for statistical purposes only and play no role in the selection process. This is stated in the “Instructions to Candidates” booklet.

12. Respondent Burden and Costs

The annual hour burden for respondents is 4250 hours. This was derived by taking the number of respondents, 8500, and multiplying this number by the estimated one-half hour required by the candidate to complete a form.

The annual cost to respondents is $27,625. This was derived by taking the number of respondents, 8500, and multiplying this figure by $3.25. The $3.25 was based on a one-half hour completion time at $6.50 per hour, the average hourly rate of a high school age candidate.

13. Cost of Respondent Burden

There are no capital or start-up costs associated with this information collection.

14. Cost to the Federal Government

The cost to the federal government is $32,678. This estimate was derived by applying a factor of $24.17 per hour times the 1352 hours estimated for processing and analyzing the information collected.

15. Reasons for Change of Information

This is an extension of a previously approved collection for which there is no change in burden.

16. Collections of Information

Results will not be published for statistical purposes.

17. Expiration Date

The Air Force is not seeking an exception to display the expiration date of this information collection.

18. Certification Statement

No exceptions to the certification statement are being requested.

B. COLLECTIONS OF INFORMATION EMPLOYING STATISTICAL METHODS:

Statistical methods are not employed for this collection of information.