[Federal Register Volume 72, Number 56 (Friday, March 23, 2007)]
[Notices]
[Pages 13808-13810]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 07-1445]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration


Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection; 
Comment Request

    In compliance with Section 3506(c)(2)(A) of the Paperwork Reduction 
Act of 1995 concerning opportunity for public comment on proposed 
collections of information, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health 
Services Administration (SAMHSA) will publish periodic summaries of 
proposed projects. To request more information on the proposed projects 
or to obtain a copy of the information collection plans, call the 
SAMHSA Reports Clearance Office on (240) 276-1243.
    Comments are invited on: (a) Whether the proposed collections of 
information are necessary for the proper performance of the functions 
of the agency, including whether the information shall have practical 
utility; (b) the accuracy of the agency's estimate of the burden of the 
proposed collection of information; (c) ways to enhance the quality, 
utility, and clarity of the information to be collected; and (d) ways 
to minimize the burden of the collection of information on respondents, 
including through the use of automated collection techniques or other 
forms of information technology.

Proposed Project: Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment (SAPT) Block 
Grant Uniform Application Guidance and Instructions FY 2008-2010 and 
Regulations (OMB No. 0930-0080)--Revision

    This Federal Register Notice is revised to reflect that information 
collection approval requirements for the Substance Abuse Prevention and 
Treatment Block Grant regulation and Uniform Application Guidance were 
consolidated in August 2004 by a Notice of office of Management and 
Budget Action memo and terms of clearance. In accordance with that 
Notice of Action and through this amendment to the January 25, 2007 
FRN, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration 
communicates its intent to maintain these as a single item for OMB 
clearance purposes. Accordingly, a consolidated respondent burden table 
is included adding the respondent burden for recordkeeping historically 
associated specifically with the regulation.
    Sections 1921 through 1935 of the Public Health Services Act 
(U.S.C. 300x-21 to 300x-35) provide for annual allotments to assist 
States to plan, carry out and evaluate activities to prevent and treat 
substance abuse and for related activities. Under the provisions of the 
law, States may receive allotments only after an application is 
submitted and approved by the Secretary, DHHS. For the Federal fiscal 
year 2008-2010 SAPT block Grant application cycles, the Substance Abuse 
and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) will provide States 
with revised application guidance and instructions to implement changes 
made in accordance with the recommendations of the Office of Management 
and Budget's Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) analysis. In 
addition, SAMHSA has incorporated recommendations from the National 
Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors and their member 
States in the revisions and clarification of data reporting 
requirements and instructions.
    During negotiations with the States resulting in agreement on the 
National Outcome Measures for substance abuse treatment and prevention, 
SAMHSA pledged to the States to:
    1. Reduce respondent burden;
    2. Work with the States to improve performance management of the 
SAPT Block Grant;
    3. Improve the availability, timeliness, and quality of data 
available to Federal, State, and provider administrators of block grant 
funded programs.
    This revision of the Uniform Application and Regulation for the 
SAPT Block Grant takes initial steps toward implementing these 
commitments. Individual States may reduce their respondent burden by 
selecting the option of using SAMHSA pre-populated tables for Section 
IVa and b. The data for these tables would be drawn from SAMHSA data 
sets known as DASIS and NSDUH by SAMHSA and provided to the States. 
SAMHSA is providing the States with the option of reporting on 
prevention expenditures utilizing the six prevention strategies or 
utilizing the IOM classification of Universal, Selective or Indicated 
and is seeking comment regarding the most useful manner to convey and 
collect the primary prevention expenditure data. SAMHSA has designed 
the State Prevention Framework State Incentive Grant (SPF SIG) 
competitive program and funded contracts in States without a SPF SIG to 
support data driven prevention planning by Substance Abuse State 
Agencies. This application has been modified to encourage the States to 
use the State level data collected with support from these programs in 
the planning in section III of this SAPT Block grant application. The 
addition of on-going provider performance monitoring (page 90-7) and 
the narratives describing State Performance Management and Leadership 
(p. 93) begin the process of aligning the application with the 
performance management criteria embodied in the OMB PART program.
    In the coming twelve months, SAMHSA will continue to work with the 
States to assess the feasibility and usefulness of pre-populating the 
following sections of the application with data extracted from SAMHSA 
data sets to further reduce respondent burden:

Form 6--Entity Inventory.....  NSSATS data set.
Form 7a & b--Treatment         DASIS/TEDS/SOMMS.
 Utilization Matrix.
Form 8--Treatment Needs        NSDUH, State, and sub-State.
 Assessment.
Forms T1-T7--Treatment         DASIS/SOMMS.
 Performance Measures.
Form P1-P15--Prevention        NSDUH.
 Performance Measures.
 


[[Page 13809]]

    In addition, NSDUH estimates of persons (1) needed, (2) needing and 
seeking, and (3) needing, seeking and not receiving treatment will be 
examined for application to the planning requirements of PART 
requirements.
    SAMHSA will also code all application content against PART 
requirements to insure that all requirements are appropriately 
addressed by applicants and Federal staff.
    In December 2004, SAMHSA and the States agreed on the goal of 
having all States reporting the NOMs measures as defined at the meeting 
by the end of a 3-year implementation period starting in FFY 2005 and 
concluding at the end of FFY 2007. By January 2006, supportive 
technical assistance on information technology design and payment for 
data submitted became available by the SAMHSA State Outcomes Monitoring 
and Management System Programs. States who have participated in the 
State Outcomes Monitoring and Management System NOMs subcontract may 
choose to have their data pre-populated which would significantly 
reduce their reporting burden for this application. During the next 
twelve months SAMHSA in partnership with the States and all other SAPT 
Block Grant stakeholders, will develop standards for analyzing and 
responding to the results of NOMs data appropriate to each level of 
block grant fund administration including Federal, State, and Provider 
roles and responsibilities.
    Revisions to the previously-approved application resulting from 
such stakeholder input reflect the following changes: (1) In Section I, 
Form 2, ``Table of Contents,'' was revised to appropriately enumerate 
the specific items within each section; (2) In Section II, the 
Narrative description of certain maintenance of effort and expenditure 
base calculations was simplified to require submission of such 
information only if it represented a revision from previous years' 
submissions. This section was also moved to its more appropriate place 
in the application immediately preceding reporting on maintenance of 
efforts; (3) In Section II, Form 4, ``Substance Abuse State Agency 
Spending Report,'' was amended to use consistent language for services 
expenditure reporting and planning across Form 4, 6, and 11. On Form 4 
and Form 11, Row 1, the activity to be reported on is entitled: SAPT 
Block Grant funds for Substance Abuse Prevention (other than primary 
prevention) and Treatment Services to be consistent with the 
terminology used in Form 6, Column 5; (4) In Section II, Form 6, Entity 
Inventory, instructions were clarified to communicate that information 
on all substances abuse prevention and treatment service providers 
funded through the SSA was sought; (5) In section II, Form 7A, 
``Treatment Utilization Matrix'' instructions were clarified to 
communicate that information on persons admitted and served within the 
specific reporting period wa sought to enable the SAPTBG Program to 
address the recommendations of the FY 2003 OMB Program Assessment 
Rating Tool (PART) analysis; (6) In Section II, Form 7B, ``Number Of 
Persons Served (Unduplicated Count) For Alcohol And Other Drug Use In 
State Funded Services,'' instructions were clarified in a similar 
manner as Form 7a and a separate data cell was added to accommodate 
States' desires to report on clients admitted in a prior reporting 
period but also continuing to be served with the current reporting 
period; (7) In Section II, Table I (Maintenance), ``Single State Agency 
(SSA) Expenditures for Substances Abuse'' was amended to reflect the 
appropriate State fiscal year and the corresponding instructions were 
amended; (8) In Section II, Table II (Maintenance), ``Statewide Non-
Federal Expenditures for Tuberculosis Services to Substance Abusers in 
Treatment,'' was amended to reflect the appropriate State fiscal year 
and the corresponding instructions were amended; (9) In Section II, 
Table III (Maintenance), ``Statewide Non-Federal Expenditures for HIV 
Early Intervention Services to Substance Abusers in Treatment,'' was 
amended to allow States to enter the appropriate State fiscal year and 
the corresponding instruction were amended; (10) In Section II, Table 
IV (Maintenance), ``SSA Expenditures for Women's Services,'' was 
amended to reflect the appropriate fiscal year and the corresponding 
instructions were amended; (11) In Section III, Form 11, ``Intended Use 
Plan,'' was amended to use consistent language for services expenditure 
reporting and planning; (12) In Section IV, subparts IV-A and IV-B, 
``Voluntary Treatment Performance Measures'' and ``Voluntary Prevention 
Performance Measures'' all references to the term Voluntary are deleted 
as reporting on these measures will no longer be voluntary; (13) In 
Section IV-A, ``Treatment Performance Measures,'' the general 
instructions were amended to implement mandatory reporting on 
performance measures forms T1-T7 and a narrative requirement is 
proposed to collect information on States internal practices to use 
performance measure data to manage their systems; (14) In Section IV-A, 
``Treatment Performance Measures'' Forms T1-T7 data specifications 
replaced State detail sheet narrative requirements for forms T1-T7 to 
reduce the burden of reporting and improve the uniformity of data 
quality information being collected; (15) The Section IV-A, ``Treatment 
Performance Measures,'' T6 on infectious disease control efforts was 
deleted because it was determined to be duplicative of information 
requirements in Section II of the application; (16) In Section IV, 
subpart IV-B, ``Prevention Performance Measures,'' Forms P5 and P6 were 
removed, P1-P15 were substituted for the previous Form P1-P4 and the 
instructions were amended to address pre-population of prevention 
performance data.
    The total annual reporting burden estimate is shown below:

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                                                     Number of    Responses  per   Number hours
                                                    respondents      respondent    per response     Total hours
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sections I-III--States and Territories..........              60               1             470          28,200
Section IV-A....................................              60               1              40           2,400
Section IV-B....................................              60               1           42.75           2,565
Recordkeeping...................................              60               1              18             960
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    Total.......................................              60  ..............  ..............          34,125
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    Send comments to Summer King, SAMHSA Reports Clearance Officer, 
Room 7-1044, One Choke Cherry Road, Rockville, MD 20857. Written 
comments should be received within 60 days of this notice.


[[Page 13810]]


    Dated: March 19, 2007.
Elaine Parry,
Acting Director, Office of Program Services.
[FR Doc. 07-1445 Filed 3-22-07; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4162-20-M