YouthBuild Grant Program Supporting Statement

Funding Opportunity Announcement

YouthBuild

Supplemental Justification

Supplemental Supporting Statement A: Justification

This request seeks OMB approval under the Paperwork Reduction Act for the unique information collection requirements in the YouthBuild Grant Program. The Employment and Training Administration (ETA), U.S. Department of Labor will announce the availability of approximately $89 million in grant funds authorized under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) (Pub. L. 113-128) for the YouthBuild Grant Program. The purpose of this program is to fund organizations to provide a pre-apprenticeship program model that encompasses education, occupational skills training, leadership development, and post-program placement opportunities to at-risk youth.

YouthBuild is a community-based alternative education program for youth between the ages of 16 and 24 who are high school dropouts that also have other risk factors, including being adjudicated youth, youth aging out of foster care, youth with disabilities, migrant farmworker youth, and other disconnected youth populations. The YouthBuild program simultaneously addresses multiple core issues important to youth in low-income communities: affordable housing, leadership development, education, and employment opportunities in in-demand industries and apprenticeship pathways. YouthBuild programs are the connection point to vital services for the youth they serve. Meaningful partnership and collaboration are key aspects of this service delivery model, through the workforce system, as well as the education and human services systems. The YouthBuild model balances project-based academic learning and occupational skills training to prepare disadvantaged youth for career placement. The academic component assists youth who are often significantly behind in basic skill development in obtaining a high school diploma or State high school equivalency credential. The occupational skills training component prepares at-risk youth for apprenticeship and other career pathways and/or further education or training. It also supports the goal of increasing affordable housing within communities by teaching youth construction skills learned by building or significantly renovating homes for sale or rent to low-income families or transitional housing for homeless families or individuals.

Applications will include the following information collections: 1) Form SF-424 “Application for Federal Assistance,” separately cleared under OMB control number 4040-0004, 2) Project Budget, 3) Project Narrative, and 4) Attachments to the Project Narrative.

Electronic availability:

This grant solicitation is available on the grants.gov website. Based on past DOL experience, the Department anticipates that at least 80 percent of responses will be submitted electronically.

Small Entities:

This information collection will not have a significant impact on a substantial number of small entities.

Assurances of confidentiality:

These grant solicitations do not offer applicants assurances of confidentiality.

Special circumstances:

This FOA implicates no special circumstances.

Burden:

Based on past experience, the DOL expects to receive approximately 200 applications from an equal number of respondents.  The ETA estimates public reporting burden for the information collection to average 20 hours per response for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining needed data, and completing and reviewing the collection of information.

200 applications x 20 hours = 4000 hours

The DOL uses the average hourly earnings in the professional and business services industry of $35.19 per hour to monetize this burden.  See The Employment Situation—October 2020, DOL, Bureau of Labor Statistics, https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf  at page 36.

4000 hours x $35.19 = $140,760

The DOL associates no other burden costs with this information collection. In addition to the application, each grantee will be required to submit quarterly financial, performance, and narrative reports to the ETA. Those information collection requirements will be cleared under a separate control number.

Total burden: 200 respondents, 200 responses, 4000 hours, $0 other cost burden.

Supplemental Supporting Statement B: Statistical Methods

This information collection does not employ statistical methods.

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