[Federal Register Volume 67, Number 81 (Friday, April 26, 2002)]
[Notices]
[Pages 20756-20758]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 02-10357]


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DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

[CFDA No.: 84.144]


Migrant Education Program (MEP) Consortium Incentive Grants 
program

ACTION: Notice inviting applications for new awards for fiscal year 
2002.

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    Purpose of Program: The purpose of the FY 2002 MEP Consortium 
Incentive Grants program is to provide incentive grants to State 
educational agencies (SEAs) that participate in consortium arrangements 
with another State or appropriate entity to improve the delivery of 
services to migrant children whose education is interrupted.
    Eligible Applicants: SEAs receiving MEP Basic State Formula grants.
    Applications Available: April 26, 2002.
    Deadline for Transmittal of Applications: June 3, 2002.
    Deadline for Intergovernmental Review: August 2, 2002.
    Available Funds: $2,300,000.
    Estimated Range of Awards: $25,000-$75,000.
    Estimated Average Size of Awards: $57,500.
    Estimated Number of Awards: 40.
    Project Period: Up to 27 months.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Migrant Education Program (MEP) is 
authorized under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 
(ESEA), as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (Pub. L. 
107-110). The MEP provides financial assistance to States to support 
high-quality and comprehensive educational programs so that migrant 
children are provided with appropriate educational and supportive 
services that (1) address their special needs in a coordinated and 
efficient manner, and (2) give migrant children the opportunity to meet 
challenging State content and student performance standards.
    Section 1308(d) of the ESEA authorizes the Secretary to provide 
competitive incentive grants to SEAs that participate in consortium 
arrangements with another State or appropriate entity to improve the 
delivery of services to migrant children. Section 1308(d) also limits 
the size of each of these grants to not more than $250,000. For the FY 
2002 competition, the Secretary plans to reserve $2.3 million for 
consortium incentive grant awards.
    Through this notice the Secretary announces requirements and 
procedures to govern the competition for FY 2002 grant funds. So that 
existing consortia relationships that were established under the ESEA 
as previously authorized may be maintained and funded without 
disruption of services for migrant students, the Secretary has decided 
to announce these requirements and procedures at this time without 
first providing the public an opportunity for review and comment. 
Except for the new statutory requirement in Section 1308(d) that the 
consortium arrangements improve the delivery of services to migrant 
students whose education is interrupted, the requirements and 
procedures for the upcoming FY 2002 competition are the same as the 
Secretary has used for competitions conducted under the ESEA as 
previously authorized.

Waiver of Proposed Rulemaking

    Under the Administrative Procedure Act (5 U.S.C. 553) the 
Department generally offers interested parties the opportunity to 
comment on proposed regulations. However, in order to make

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timely grant awards in FY 2002, the Secretary has decided to issue 
these final requirements without first publishing them as proposals for 
public comment. These requirements will apply to the FY 2002 grant 
competition only. The Secretary takes this action under section 
437(d)(1) of the General Education Provisions Act.
    At a later date the Secretary plans to publish a notice of proposed 
requirements for this program and offer interested parties the 
opportunity to comment. The proposed requirements (or more 
specifically, the final requirements resulting from them) would apply 
to grant competitions under the program beginning in FY 2003.

Requirements and Procedures To Govern the FY 2002 Grant Competition

    The Secretary will award consortium incentive grants for FY 2002 
under section 1308(d) to SEAs that propose to form a consortium with 
another State or entity and demonstrate in accordance with section 
1303(d)(3) of the ESEA that doing so will--
    a. Reduce administrative costs or program function costs for State 
MEP programs; and
    b. Make more MEP funds available for direct services to add 
substantially to the welfare or educational attainment of children to 
be served.
    In addition, section 1308(d) requires that SEAs receiving grants 
form consortia to improve the delivery of services to migrant students 
whose education has been interrupted.

Applicable Definitions

    For purposes of this program, ``administrative or program function 
costs'' include all costs that an SEA or its local operating agencies 
pay from MEP funds to support MEP activities other than direct 
educational or support services for migrant children. Administrative 
and program function costs include the costs of general program 
administration paid from funds reserved under section 1004 of ESEA as 
well as the costs of other, program-specific administrative activities, 
such as identification and recruitment; interstate, intrastate, and 
interagency coordination; and parent advisory councils. The term 
``direct educational or support services'' means any instructional or 
support activities provided directly to migrant children, as well as 
training of instructional or support staff who provide instructional or 
support services directly to migrant children.
    In addition, for purposes of section 1308(d) the term ``other 
appropriate entity'' can mean any public or private agency or 
organization.

Application Requirements

    A single SEA may be part of more than one consortium arrangement. 
However, consistent with the provisions in section 1303(d) of the ESEA, 
for the FY 2002 competition each consortium arrangement that the 
Secretary approves must separately decrease the amount of MEP 
administrative or program function costs in total for the participating 
SEAs and, conversely, increase the amount of MEP funds available for 
direct services to migrant children in total for the participating 
SEAs. An SEA will submit the information that the Department needs in 
order to review the SEA's consortium arrangement and determine the size 
of the SEA's consortium incentive grant.

Amount of Incentive Grants

    Each SEA with one or more consortium arrangements that the 
Secretary determines meet the criteria announced in this notice, and 
whose consortium arrangements increase the amount of MEP funds 
available for direct services to migrant children in its State, will 
receive one incentive award. In determining the size of an SEA's award, 
the Secretary will rank SEAs seeking incentive grants on the basis of 
the total percentage increase in MEP funds that the SEA will make 
available for direct services to migrant children in its State as a 
result of the SEA's participation in the consortium arrangements, as 
compared to the level of direct services that would be made available 
to migrant children in the State in the absence of the consortium.

    Example 1: SEA A has one consortium arrangement that increases 
the amount of funds available for direct services in State A by ten 
percent, while SEA B has two consortium arrangements that increase 
the total amount of funds available for direct services in State B 
by eight percent. SEA A would be ranked higher than SEA B even if 
SEA B's consortium arrangements permit more total funds to be used 
for direct services.
    Example 2: SEA C and SEA D participate together in one 
consortium, and this consortium is the only one in which each SEA 
participates. If the amount available for direct services increases 
in total across the two States due to their participation in the 
consortium, but the amount available for direct services in State C 
does not increase, the consortium arrangement will be approved, but 
only State D, and not State C, will receive an incentive grant.

    From the information that an SEA submits, the Secretary will 
calculate, for each State, the total percentage increase in MEP funds 
available for direct services as a result of all the approved 
consortium arrangements in which the applicant SEA participates. The 
Secretary will then rank these percentages in descending order and 
divide the distribution into thirds (that is, into terciles). Each SEA 
ranked in the highest third of the distribution will receive an 
incentive grant that is three times the size of the grant received by 
each SEA ranked in the lowest third, while each SEA ranked in the 
middle third will receive an incentive grant that is twice the size of 
that provided to each SEA ranked in the lowest third. Within each 
third, grant awards will be of equal size, except that adjustments will 
be made so that no consortium incentive grant will be greater than 
$250,000 or 100 percent of the amount of funds awarded to the SEA under 
its formula grant allocation, whichever is less.

Use of Consortium Incentive Grant Funds

    An SEA may use incentive grant funds awarded under section 1308(d) 
of the ESEA only to provide direct services to migrant children. These 
funds are in addition to, and not in place of, the funds awarded under 
the MEP formula grant.

Applicable Regulations

    In view of the process that the Secretary proposes to use to obtain 
information on proposed SEA consortium arrangements, and the criteria 
it proposes to use to determine, by formula, the amount of the 
consortium incentive grant that each applicant SEA will receive, the 
regulations in 34 CFR part 75 (Direct Grant Programs) of the Education 
Department General Administrative Regulations (EDGAR) do not apply. 
Instead, the consortium incentive grant program will be administered, 
like the MEP itself, under the provisions of 34 CFR parts 76, 77, 79, 
80, 82 and 85 of EDGAR.
    For Applications and Further Information Contact: To obtain a copy 
of the application or to obtain information on the program, call or 
write James English, U.S. Department of Education, Office of Elementary 
and Secondary Education, Office of Migrant Education, 400 Maryland 
Ave., SW., Room 3E315, FOB6, Washington, DC 20202-6135. Telephone: 
(202) 260-1394. Inquiries may be sent by e-mail to [email protected] 
or by FAX at (202) 205-0089. If you use a telecommunications device for 
the deaf (TDD), you may call the Federal Information Relay Service 
(FIRS) at 1-800-877-8339. A copy of the application can be obtained

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electronically at: http://www.ed.gov/GrantApps.
    Individuals who use a telecommunications device for the deaf (TDD) 
may call may call the Federal Information Relay Service (FIRS) at 1-
800-877-8339. Individuals with disabilities may obtain this document in 
an alternative format (e.g., Braille, large print, audiotape or 
computer diskette) on request to the contact person listed in the 
preceding paragraph.

Electronic Access to This Document

    You may view this document, as well as all other Department of 
Education documents published in the Federal Register, in text or Adobe 
Portable Format (PDF) on the Internet at the following site: 
www.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister. 
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free at this site. If you have questions about using PDF, call the U.S. 
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Washington, DC area at 202-512-1530.

    Note: The official version of this document is the document 
published in the Federal Register. Free Internet access to the 
official edition of the Federal Register and the Code of Federal 
Regulations is available on GPO Access at: http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/index.html.


    Program Authority: 20 U.S.C. 6398(d).

    Dated: April 22, 2002.
Susan B. Neuman,
Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education.
[FR Doc. 02-10357 Filed 4-25-02; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4000-01-P