NonSub Change Memo - RPG Updated Feb 2020

MEMORANDUM

TO: Josh Brammer and Daniel Cline

Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA)

Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

FROM: Dori Sneddon

Children’s Bureau (CB)

Administration for Children and Families (ACF)

SUBJECT: Non-substantive Change Request to Regional Partnership Grants (RPG) National Cross-Site Evaluation and Evaluation Technical Assistance (OMB #0970-0527)

DATE: March 2, 2020

__________________________________________________________________________________________

This memo requests approval of non-substantive changes to the approved information collection, Regional Partnership Grants (RPG) National Cross-Site Evaluation and Evaluation Technical Assistance (OMB # 0970-0527). The Children’s Bureau within the Administration for Children and Families of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services seeks approval to add eight additional grantee sites as respondents to this information collection and to update the administration mode of and make minor edits to one survey.

Background

Between 2017 and 2018, under RPG, the Children’s Bureau issued 27 grants to organizations such as child welfare or substance abuse treatment providers or family court systems to develop interagency collaborations and integration of programs, activities, and services designed to increase well-being, improve permanency, and enhance the safety of children who are in an out-of-home placement or are at risk of being placed in out-of-home care as a result of a parent’s or caretaker’s substance abuse. In May 2019, OMB approved an information collection request through which data is collected from these 27 grantees. In the fall of 2019, the Children’s Bureau awarded eight additional grants to RPG partnerships to participate in the ongoing evaluation and technical assistance support project. The eight additional grantees will assume the same data collection requirements and reporting structure as the existing two cohorts of 27 grantees.

Overview of Requested Changes

Revised Burden Estimates

The revisions in the burden estimates take into account the addition of eight grantees, bringing the total up to 35. The total annualized cost and total annual burden hours increased overall, however, the burden hours and cost per grantee remains the same.¹ The overall annualized burden hours increased by 9,220 hours, from 31,394 hours to 40,614 hours. The overall annualized cost increased by $191,113, from $649,496 to $840,609.

Below we detail the estimate of burden for the RPG evaluation previously approved by OMB (table 1) and provide a revised estimate of burden (table 2).

Updates to Partner Survey

In addition, as part of the non-substantive change request we also seek approval to revise the administration mode of the partner survey (Appendix C) to paper and pencil. This change is being made because we do not have the resources or time to acquire an Authority to Operate (ATO) for the data collection system needed to administer the survey via the web. We made the following changes to the partner survey: (1) Reformatted the instrument into a self-administered questionnaire (SAQ); (2) made wording changes in the introductory text to align with SAQ format; (3) made wording changes to question stem for item C2 to better align with SAQ format; (4) added additional response categories to existing items A1, A2, A5, and C2; (5) split two questions (A4 and B3) each into two separate items (i.e. A4 and A4a, B3 and B3a) for ease of administration in SAQ format; and deleted three items. These minor edits to individual items and the change in administration mode will not change the burden estimates for this the data collection activity.

Table 1. Estimate of burden and cost for the RPG evaluation and total burden request (original)

Data collection activity	TOTAL number of respondents	Number of responses per respondent (each year)	Average burden hours per response (in hours)	Total burden hours	Average hourly wage	Total annual burden hours	Total annualized cost
Site visit and key informant data collection
Program director individual interview	21	0.33	2	42	$33.91	14	$474.74
Program manager/supervisor individual interviews	21	0.33	1	21	$33.91	7	$237.37
Partner representative interviews	63	0.33	1	63	$33.91	21	$712.11
Frontline staff interviews	42	0.33	1	42	$22.11	14	$323.54
PD/PM phone interview	12	0.33	1	12	$33.91	4	$135.64
Partner survey	135	0.33	0.42	56.3	$59.35	19	$1127.65
Enrollment and services data
Semiannual progress reports	27	2	16.5	2,673	$ 33.91	891	$30,213.81
Case enrollment data	81	43	0.25	2,612.3	$ 23.11	871	$20,123.03
Case closure	81	43	0.02	209	$ 23.11	70	$1,609.84
Case closure – prenatal	81	33	0.02	161	$ 23.11	54	$1,235.46
Service log entries	162	2,288	0.03	33,360	$ 23.11	11,120	$265,975.80
Outcomes and impacts data
Administrative data
Obtain access to administrative data	27	1	42.60	3,450.6	$ 42.81	1,150	$49,231.50
Report administrative data	27	2	144	23,328	$ 16.73	7,776	$130,092.48
Standardized instruments
Review and adopt reporting templates	27	0.33	8	213.8	$ 16.73	72	$1,204.56
Data entry for standardized instrumentsa	27	130	1.25	13,162.5	$ 16.73	4,387.5	$73,402.88
Review records and submit	27	2	25	4,050	$ 16.73	1,350	$22,585.50
Data entry for comparison study sites (22 grantees)a	22	130	1.25	10,725	$ 16.73	3,575	$59,809.75
Estimated total burden				94,183		31394.1	$649,495.67

^aBurden hour estimates assume that only half of this burden is part of the cross-site evaluation.

Table 2. Estimate of burden and cost for the RPG evaluation and total burden request (revised)

Data collection activity	TOTAL number of respondents	Number of responses per respondent (each year)	Average burden hours per response (in hours)	Total burden hours	Average hourly wage	Total annual burden hours	Total annualized cost
Site visit and key informant data collection
Program director individual interview	27	0.33	2	54.0	$33.91	18.0	$610.38
Program manager/supervisor individual interviews	27	0.33	11	27.0	$33.91	9.0	$305.19
Partner representative interviews	81	0.33	1	81.0	$33.91	27.0	$915.57
Frontline staff interviews	54	0.33	1	54.0	$23.11	18.0	$415.98
PD/PM phone interview	16	0.33	1	16.0	$33.91	5.3	$180.85
Partner survey	175	0.33	0.42	73.0	$59.35	24.3	$1,443.69
Enrollment and services data
Semiannual progress reports	35	2	16.5	3,465.0	$33.91	1,155.0	$39,166.05
Case enrollment data	105	43	0.25	3,386.3	$23.11	1,128.8	$26,085.41
Case closure	105	43	0.02	270.9	$23.11	90.3	$2,086.83
Case closure – prenatal	105	33	0.02	207.9	$23.11	69.3	$1,601.52
Service log entries	210	2288	0.03	43,243.2	$23.11	14,414.4	$333,116.78
Outcomes and impacts data
Administrative data
Obtain access to administrative data	35	1	42.67	4,480.0	$42.81	1,493.3	$63,929.60
Report administrative data	35	2	144	30,240.0	$16.73	10,080.0	$168,638.40
Standardized instruments
Review and adopt reporting templates	35	0.33	8	280.0	$16.73	93.3	$1,561.47
Data entry for standardized instrumentsa	35	130	1.25	17,062.5	$16.73	5,687.5	$95,151.88
Review records and submit	35	2	25	5,250.0	$16.73	1,750.0	$29,277.50
Data entry for comparison study sites (28 grantees)a	28	130	1.25	13,650.0	$16.73	4,550.0	$76,121.50
Estimated total burden				121,840.7		40,613.6	$840,608.61

^aBurden hour estimates assume that only half of this burden is part of the cross-site evaluation.

1 The per grantee annualized burden hours decreased by 3 hours, a reduction from 1,163 hours to 1,160 hours. The per grantee annualized cost decreased by $38, from $24,055 to $24,017. However, there were no cost changes for individual grantees and this slight variation in per grantee cost stems from rounding error and one minor correction to the average annual burden hours per response for IC Obtain access to administrative data.