[Federal Register Volume 66, Number 114 (Wednesday, June 13, 2001)]
[Notices]
[Pages 31921-31925]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 01-14879]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Administration on Aging


Agency Information Collection Activities: Submission for Office 
of Management and Budget (OMB) Review; Comment Request; Extension and 
Revision of a Currently Approved Information Collection

AGENCY: Administration on Aging.

[[Page 31922]]


ACTION: Notice of revision and request for comments.

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SUMMARY: The Administration on Aging is announcing an opportunity for 
public comment on the proposed request for an extension and revision to 
the currently approved information collection, as required by the 
Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. This notice solicits comments on the 
requirements relating to the submission, by AoA grantees, of semiannual 
financial reports on all Title III grants. The information contained in 
the OMB 269 and its supplemental forms are reports currently being 
collected concurrently.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
    Title: Supplemental Form to the Financial Status Report for all AoA 
Title III Grantees OMB control number 0985-0004.
    Description: Supplemental form to the Financial Status Report 
provide an understanding of how projects funds by the Older American 
Act are being administered by grantees, in conformance with legislative 
requirements, pertinent federal regulations, and other applicable 
instructions and guidelines issues by the Administration on Aging 
(AoA). This information will be used for federal oversight of Title III 
Projects.
    Respondents: State Agencies on Aging.
    Number of Respondents: 56.
    Average Number of Responses per Respondent: 2.
    Average Burden Hours: 1 hour per State Agency.
    Comments to Federal Register Notice Published January 29, 2001, 
Page 8113 Attached Additional Information: Written comments and 
recommendations for the proposed information collection should be sent 
to the following address within 30 days of the publication of this 
notice: Office of Regulatory Affairs, Attn: Allison Herron Eydt, OMB 
Desk Officer, Room 10325, Washington, DC, 20503.

Norman L. Thompson,
Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Aging.
Attachments: National Family Caregiver Support Program Data 
Collection Form, Respondents Comments and Standard Form 269 
Instructions and Forms.

Comments to Federal Register Notice Published January 29, 2001, page 
8113 and Consultation

    AoA received 15 comments in response to its Federal Register 
announcement in connection with this request for OMB approval for the 
use of the Supplementary Statement to the SF 269. A matrix summarizing 
the issues addressed in these comments is available upon request, along 
with the actual letters and an updated version of the Supplemental 
Form, which eliminates the collection of Part E Statewide Expenditures 
for the National Family Caregiver Support Program. AoA's response to 
the issues raised by the respondents has been included below.
    The Administration on Aging (AoA), in accordance with the Paperwork 
Reduction Act of 1965, requested approval from the Office of Management 
and Budget for an extension and revision to the currently approved AoA 
supplemental forms to the SF 269 to include a data collection 
requirement for the new Title III-E of the Older Americans Act (OAA), 
as amended in 2000.
    The OAA, which was reauthorized on November 13, 2000, included an 
important new program, the National Family Caregiver Support Program 
(NFCSP). This program will help hundreds of thousands of family members 
who are struggling to care for their loved ones who are ill or have 
disabilities. The NFCSP is authorized at $125 million for grants to 
State agencies on aging in FY 2001. State agencies on aging, working 
with area agencies on aging and community and service provider 
organizations, will provide support services, including information and 
assistance to caregivers, counseling, support groups, respite and other 
home-and community-based services to families caring for frail older 
members. This program also recognizes the needs of grandparents who are 
caregivers of grandchildren, and other older individuals who are 
relative caregivers of children who are eighteen and under. Focusing on 
services for the caregiver rather than the care recipient is a shift 
for the OAA.
    In order to get preliminary information that is necessary to 
collect on an interim basis that would document the need for a 
comprehensive caregiver delivery system, AoA proposed that states 
report expenditures, units of service, and people served (caregivers) 
for the following categories of service.
     Information
     Assistance
     Counseling, support groups and training
     Respite
     Supplemental services
    This data would be sent to the AoA on a semi-annual basis.
    AoA received 15 comments in response to the January 19, 2001 
Federal Register announcement. The comments can be grouped into five 
categories: program income, performance measures, service definitions, 
client profile, use of SF 269, expenditure data and frequency of 
reporting (see attached summary table).
    Specific comments included the following:
     Asked if cost sharing fees collected under the NFCSP could 
be used as match for the program;
     Suggested delaying the implementation barring the use of 
voluntary contributions as match;
     Recommended formal regulations process should be used to 
amend matching requirements and that states should be given ample time 
to make transition;
     Agreed (one respondent) with proposed changes to use of 
voluntary contributions as match;
     Concerned about lack of guidance on performance measures;
     Recommends collecting more useful information to meet the 
requirement to evaluate the effectiveness of the program;
     Concerned that service definitions have not been provided;
     Provided recommendations for some of the service 
definitions;
     Requested clarity on the target population--caregiver or 
care recipient;
     Concerned about lack of a uniform system for collecting 
information on people served;
     Concerned about reporting service data on SF 269;
     Recommended data be collected on a separate form until the 
NAPIS can be revised; and
     Indicated that using the SR 269 was administratively 
burdensome and duplicative of the NAPIS reporting.
    Based on the comments received from the 15 respondents, the AoA 
proposes to amend its proposal published in the Federal Register, Vol. 
66, No. 9 issued on Monday January 29, 2001 in two specific ways:
    (1) on an interim basis, have a separate collection for the NFCSP; 
and
    (2) reiterate the rationale for the remaining changes, which relate 
specifically to the recommendation of the Inspector General on 
grantees' use of and reporting for voluntary contributions.
    Relative to the NFCSP, we propose to collect expenditure data, 
units of service and number of people served for the five categories of 
service (information, assistance, counseling, support groups and 
training, respite and supplemental services) as a temporary separate 
stand-alone report that can be sent to AoA once a year instead of bi-
annually as required for the Supplemental to the SF 269. To facilitate 
submission of this

[[Page 31923]]

data, AOA will provide states an electronic copy of the National Family 
Caregiver Support Program data collection form, hereafter referred to 
as the NFCSP data form, whose contents will be exactly the same as that 
previously contained in the addendum which had been proposed for 
inclusion on the SF 269 Supplement to collect Part E data. The NFCSP 
data form can be completed and returned to AOA at the same time all 
other program performance data is due.
    We believe that this change addresses the concerns raised by the 
comments submitted in response to the Federal Register announcement. 
Because our decision to decouple the report from the Supplement to the 
SF 269 is responsive to these comments, we do not believe this change 
requires a new 60-day comment period. Additionally, this temporary 
reporting procedure will provide AoA with the opportunity to have more 
in-depth consultations with the aging network about how to incorporate 
the new requirements associated with Title III-E into the on-going data 
collection system.
    With regard to reporting for voluntary contributions, in a report 
entitled, States Use of Voluntary Contributions Under Title III of the 
Older Americans Act (A-12-00-00002), the OIG recommended that AoA 
``submit revised regulations to make clear that voluntary contributions 
cannot be used as cost sharing or matching, but must instead be used to 
expand services.''
    In our response, AoA agreed that the current regulations at 45 CFR 
1321.67(b) and 1321.73 are inconsistent with section 307(a)(13)(C)(ii) 
of the Older Americans Act (OAA), as amended through December 31,1992. 
To be more specific, 45 CFR 1321.67(b) stipulated that the 
``contributions from supportive services and nutrition services be used 
to expand supportive services and nutrition services respectively'' and 
45 CFR 1321.73 required that ``grant related income be used either in 
the matching or cost sharing alternative in 45 CFR 92.25(g)(2), or the 
additive alternative 45 CFR 92.25(g)(3) or a combination of the two.''
    With the enactment of the FY 2000 amendments to the OAA, however, 
section 307(a)(13)(C)(ii) was replaced with the new section 315 
(b)(4)(E). The new section requires area agencies on aging to ensure 
that service providers ``use all collected contributions to expand the 
services for which the contributions were given.'' This change, in our 
view, negated the need for revising the regulations relating to the 
former section, as it supercedes the previous language that was 
interpreted in the aforementioned regulations. The new statutory 
language is clear on its face. Regulatory language for the new statute 
as a whole, however, is in the process of being developed and as such 
will encompass the specific changes required for section 315 (b)(4)(E), 
thus negating the need for a separate regulation to announce the 
section changes.
    AoA did, however, outline the following actions taken in the 
interim to inform states that voluntary contributions may not be used 
for cost sharing or matching and that voluntary contributions and any 
related interest earned are program income and must be used to expand 
services:
    a. AoA regional administrators have provided the OIG report to the 
State Units on Aging so that the states may begin to make changes 
consistent with OIG recommendations.
    b. AoA has revised the instructions for completing the supplemental 
statement to the SF 269 Financial Status Report to clarify that 
voluntary contributions are not to be reported as having fulfilled the 
state cost sharing or match requirements. (We also informed the OIG 
that the revised form was in the final stages of the OMB Paperwork 
Reduction Clearance Process, as addressed by this process.)
    c. A Program Instruction will be prepared to accompany the revised 
form when it is implemented.
    d. Revised instructions to the AoA Regional Offices and the 
Division of Grants Management for the review of the revised form are 
being prepared.
    The remainder of the changes incorporated into the form were made 
to bring us into compliance with the Inspector General recommendations 
and statutory requirements.

                         National Family Caregiver Support Program Data Collection Form
                                        [Part E (Statewide expenditures)]
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                                                                Expenditures        Units         People served
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Information.................................................               $   ...............
Assistance..................................................               $   ...............
Counseling support groups training..........................               $   ...............
Respite.....................................................               $   ...............
Supplement services.........................................               $   ...............
    Total...................................................               $
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The Administration on Aging (AoA)

Additional Instructions for Completing Financial Status Report and 
Supplemental Form to SF-269

General Instructions
    (1) All amounts reported should be rounded off to the nearest 
dollar; no cents should be reported.
    (2) Leave blank items 10.c and 10.g since the Deductive and the 
Matching or Cost Sharing alternatives are not allowed.
    (3) The amount reported in item 10.e should represent non-State, 
subrecipient contributions (i.e. those non-Federal resources 
contributed by AAA's, nutrition and service providers, etc.).
    (4) The amount reported in item 10.h should represent those outlays 
made from State resources.
    (5) Item 10.k should include the total Federal and State share of 
unliquidated obligations. These would include State funds awarded to 
AAA's, etc. which have not been earned/expended.
    (6) Item 10.1, the State's share from 10.k above.
    (7) Please note that program income used in accordance with the 
Additional Alternative (Item 10.r) is a CUMULATIVE AMOUNT and should 
not be included in the total outlays on line 10.a.
    Since the current form does not have multiple columns for reporting 
more than one program function, State Agencies are required to break 
down the following items on the Supplemental Form to the SF 269.
    ITEM 10.i  Total recipient share of outlays.
    Sections 304 and 308 of the Older Americans Act and Section 1321.47 
of the Title III regulations require a match of 25 percent for State 
and Area Plan and 15 percent for all services. Breakdown Item 10.i, 
Column III, to

[[Page 31924]]

identify the total Non-Federal amount expended for State and Area Plan 
Administration.
    ITEM 10.o  Total Federal funds authorized for this funding period.
    The break down of Item 10.o should be the State's allocation of 
Federal funds for the following five (5) program functions:
    1. State Administration/Administrative Activities.
    Sections 308(a)(1) and (b)(2) provide the authority for States to 
expend the greatest of 5% of their total allotment or $500,000 for this 
function. Provide the total amount of Title III funds used for State 
Administration. This total must be broken down further to identify the 
amount of funds utilized from each program allotment.
    2. Part B, Supportive Services, Part C1, Congregate Meals and Part 
C2, Home Delivered Meals
    Sections 308(b)(4) and (5) provide the authority for States to 
transfer between Subparts C1 and C2 and between Parts B and C. Provide 
the amount utilized by the State after transfers for each of the three 
program allotments.
    3. Long-Term Care Ombudsman.
    Sections 304(d)(1)(B) and 307(a)(9) provides the authority to 
utilize Part B funds for Long-Term Care Ombudsman services. Provide the 
amount of Fiscal Year 2000, Title III-B funds utilized by the State for 
costs incurred by the State Agency in support of the Statewide Long-
Term Care Ombudsman program. This amount should be excluded from Part B 
amount in item 2 above.
    4. Part D, Disease Prevention and Health Promotion Services
    Section 303(d) authorizes funds for grants under Part D. Provide 
the amount of Title III funds utilized for preventive health services.
    5. Part E, National Family Caregiver Support Program
    Sections 303(e)(1) and (2) authorizes funds for grants under Part 
E. Provide the amount of Title III funds utilized for caregiver 
services. Also provide statewide expenditures by service categories.
    6. Area Plan Administration
    Sections 304(d)(1)(A) and 308(a)(3) provide the authority for 
States to utilize a maximum of 10% of their total allotment for Area 
Plan Administration. This total must be broken down further to identify 
amount of funds utilized from each program allotment.

                                            Financial Status Report AOA Supplemental Form to SF-269-Title III
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STATE ________________..........................................................................  FY ____________
DATE SUBMITTED ________________.................................................................  REPORTING PERIOD ENDED ____________
Item 10 i  Column III, Total Recipient Share of Outlays which consist of outlays from:
                                                                   State                                                   AAAs
    ADMIN...............................  $____________________                                   $____________________
Title III
    Part B..............................  $____________________                                   $____________________
    LTCO (Part B).......................  $____________________                                   $____________________
    Part C-1............................  $____________________                                   $____________________
    Part C-2............................  $____________________                                   $____________________
    Part D..............................  $____________________                                   $____________________
    Part E..............................  $____________________                                   $____________________
      Total.............................  $____________________                                   $____________________
Item 10 j  Column III, Federal Share of Net Outlays:
                                                                   State                                                   AAAs
    ADMIN...............................  $____________________                                   $____________________
Title III
    Part B..............................  $____________________                                   $____________________
    LTCO (Part B).......................  $____________________                                   $____________________
    Part C-1............................  $____________________                                   $____________________
    Part C-2............................  $____________________                                   $____________________
    Part D..............................  $____________________                                   $____________________
    Part E..............................  $____________________                                   $____________________
      Total.............................  $____________________                                   $____________________
Item 10 o  Column III Total Federal Funds Authorized by AOA for the Federal FY ________ have been allocated by the State as follows (as applicable):
1. State administrative activities which consists of funds in the amount of $________ from the following:
    Part B..............................  $____________________
    Part C-1............................  $____________________
    Part C-2............................  $____________________
    Part D..............................  $____________________
    Part E..............................  $____________________
2. Part B, Supportive Services..........  $____________________
3. Part B, Long Term Care Ombudsman.....  $____________________                                   FY 2000 $____________________
4. Part C-1, Congregate Meals...........  $____________________
5. Part C-2, Home Delivered Meals.......  $____________________
6. Part D, Preventive Health............  $____________________
7. Part E, Caregivers...................  $____________________
Area Plan Administration which consists of funds from:
    Part B..............................  $____________________
    Part C-1............................  $____________________
    Part C-2............................  $____________________
    Part E..............................  $____________________
Item 10 p  Column III, Unobligated Funds:
    Part B..............................  $____________________                                   Part D $____________________
    Part C-1............................  $____________________                                   Part E $____________________
    Part C-2............................  $____________________

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Item 10 r  Column III, Disbursed Program Income using the additional alternative (cumulative amount):
    Part B..............................  $____________________                                   Part D $____________________
    Part C-1............................  $____________________                                   Part E $____________________
    Part C-2............................  $____________________
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[FR Doc. 01-14879 Filed 6-12-01; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4154-01-P