[Federal Register Volume 79, Number 78 (Wednesday, April 23, 2014)]
[Notices]
[Pages 22752-22756]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2014-09218]


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SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION


Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Request and 
Comment Request

    The Social Security Administration (SSA) publishes a list of 
information collection packages requiring clearance by the Office of 
Management and Budget (OMB) in compliance with Public Law (Pub. L.) 
104-13, the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, effective October 1, 1995. 
This notice includes revisions of OMB-approved information collections 
and one new information collection.
    SSA is soliciting comments on the accuracy of the agency's burden 
estimate; the need for the information; its practical utility; ways to 
enhance its quality, utility, and clarity; and ways to minimize burden 
on respondents, including the use of automated collection techniques or 
other forms of information technology. Mail, email, or fax your 
comments and recommendations on the information collection(s) to the 
OMB Desk Officer and SSA Reports Clearance Officer at the following 
addresses or fax numbers.

(OMB)
Office of Management and Budget,
Attn: Desk Officer for SSA,
Fax: 202-395-6974,
Email address: [email protected].

(SSA)
Social Security Administration, OLCA,
Attn: Reports Clearance Director,
3100 West High Rise,
6401 Security Blvd.,
Baltimore, MD 21235,
Fax: 410-966-2830,
Email address: [email protected].

    I. The information collections below are pending at SSA. SSA will 
submit them to OMB within 60 days from the date of this notice. To be 
sure we consider your comments, we must

[[Page 22753]]

receive them no later than June 23, 2014. Individuals can obtain copies 
of the collection instruments by writing to the above email address.
    1. Farm Arrangement Questionnaire--20 CFR 404.1082(c)--0960-0064. 
When self-employed workers submit earnings data to SSA, they cannot 
count rental income from a farm unless they demonstrate ``material 
participation'' in the farm's operation. A material participation 
arrangement means the farm owners must perform a combination of 
physical duties, management decisions, and capital investment in the 
farm they are renting out. SSA uses Form SSA-7157, the Farm Arrangement 
Questionnaire, to document material participation. The respondents are 
workers who are renting farmland to others; are involved in the 
operation of the farm; and want to claim countable income from work 
they perform relating to the farm.
    Type of Request: Revision of an OMB-approved information 
collection.

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                                                                                 Average burden  Estimated total
           Modality of completion                Number of       Frequency of     per response    annual burden
                                                respondents        response        (minutes)         (hours)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SSA-7157....................................          38,000                1               30           19,000
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    2. Plan for Achieving Self-Support (PASS)--20 CFR 416.110(e), 
416.1180-1182, 416.1225-1227--0960-0559. The Supplemental Security 
Income (SSI) program encourages recipients to return to work. One of 
the program's objectives is to provide incentives and opportunities 
that help recipients work toward employment. The PASS provision allows 
individuals to use available income or resources (such as business 
equipment, education, or specialized training) to enter or re-enter the 
workforce and become self-supporting. In turn, SSA does not count the 
income or resources recipients use to fund a PASS when determining an 
individual's SSI eligibility or payment amount. An SSI recipient who 
wants to use available income and resources to obtain education or 
training to become self-supporting completes Form SSA-545. SSA uses the 
information from the SSA-545 to evaluate the recipient's PASS, and to 
determine eligibility under the provisions of the SSI program. The 
respondents are SSI recipients who are blind or disabled and want to 
develop a return-to-work plan.
    Type of Request: Revision of an OMB-approved information 
collection.

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                                                                                 Average burden  Estimated total
           Modality of completion                Number of       Frequency of     per response    annual burden
                                                respondents        response        (minutes)         (hours)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SSA-545.....................................           7,000                1              120           14,000
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    3. Help America Vote Act--0960-0706. H.R. 3295, the Help America 
Vote Act of 2002, mandates that States verify the identities of newly 
registered voters. When newly registered voters do not have drivers' 
licenses or State-issued ID cards, they must supply the last four 
digits of their Social Security Number to their local State election 
agencies for verification. The election agencies forward this 
information to their State Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA), which 
inputs the data into the American Association of MVAs, a central 
consolidation system that routes the voter data to SSA's Help America 
Vote Verification (HAVV) system. Once SSA's HAVV system confirms the 
identity of the voter, the information returns along the same route in 
reverse until it reaches the State election agency. The official 
respondents for this collection are the State MVAs.
    Type of Request: Revision of an OMB-approved information 
collection.

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                                                                                 Average burden  Estimated total
           Modality of completion                Number of       Frequency of     per response    annual burden
                                                respondents        response        (minutes)         (hours)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HAVV........................................       2,352,204                1                2           78,407
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    II. SSA submitted the information collections below to OMB for 
clearance. Your comments regarding the information collections would be 
most useful if OMB and SSA receive them 30 days from the date of this 
publication. To be sure we consider your comments, we must receive them 
no later than May 23, 2014. Individuals can obtain copies of the OMB 
clearance packages by writing to [email protected].

1. Promoting Readiness of Minors in SSI (PROMISE) Evaluation--0960-NEW.

Background

    The Promoting Readiness of Minors in SSI (PROMISE) demonstration 
pursues positive outcomes for children with disabilities who receive 
SSI and their families by reducing dependency on SSI. The Department of 
Education (ED) awarded six cooperative agreements to states to improve 
the provision and coordination of services and support for children 
with disabilities who receive SSI and their families to achieve 
improved education and employment outcomes. ED awarded PROMISE funds to 
five single-state projects, and to one six-state consortium.\1\
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    \1\ The six-state consortium project goes by the name Achieving 
Success by Promoting Readiness for Education and Employment (ASPIRE) 
rather than by PROMISE.
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    With support from the Department of Labor (DOL) and the Department 
of Health and Human Services (HHS), SSA will evaluate the six PROMISE 
projects.

[[Page 22754]]

SSA contracted with Mathematica Policy Research to conduct the 
evaluation.
    Under PROMISE, targeted outcomes for youth include an enhanced 
sense of self-determination; achievement of secondary and post-
secondary educational credentials; an attainment of early work 
experiences culminating with competitive employment in an integrated 
setting; and long-term reduction in reliance on SSI. Outcomes of 
interest for families include heightened expectations for and support 
of the long-term self-sufficiency of their youth; parent or guardian 
attainment of education and training credentials; and increases in 
earnings and total income. To achieve these outcomes, we expect the 
PROMISE projects to make better use of existing resources by improving 
service coordination among multiple state and local agencies and 
programs.
    ED, SSA, DOL, and HHS intend the PROMISE projects to address key 
limitations in the existing service system for youth with disabilities. 
By intervening early in the lives of these young people, at ages 14-16, 
the projects will engage the youth and their families well before 
critical decisions regarding the age 18 redetermination are upon them. 
We expect the required partnerships among the various state and Federal 
agencies that serve youth with disabilities to result in improved 
integration of services and fewer dropped handoffs as youth move from 
one agency to another. By requiring the programs to engage and serve 
families and provide youth with paid work experiences, the initiative 
is mandating the adoption of critical best practices in promoting the 
independence of youth with disabilities.

Project Description

    SSA is requesting clearance for the collection of data needed to 
implement and evaluate PROMISE. The evaluation will provide empirical 
evidence on the impact of the intervention for youth and their families 
in several critical areas, including: (1) Improved educational 
attainment; (2) increased employment skills, experience, and earnings; 
and (3) long-term reduction in use of public benefits. We will base the 
PROMISE evaluation on a rigorous design that will entail the random 
assignment of approximately 2,000 youth in each of the six projects to 
treatment or control groups (12,000 total). Youth in the treatment 
groups will be eligible for enhanced services from the demonstration 
programs, whereas youth in the control groups will be eligible only for 
those services already available in their communities independent of 
the interventions.
    The evaluation will assess the effect of PROMISE services on 
educational attainment, employment, earnings, and reduced receipt of 
disability payments. The three components of this evaluation include:
     The process analysis, which will document program models, 
assess the relationships among the partner organizations, document 
whether the programs are implemented as planned, identify features of 
the programs that may account for their impacts on youth and families, 
and identify lessons for future programs with similar objectives.
     The impact analysis, which will determine whether youth 
and families in the treatment groups receive more services than their 
counterparts in the control groups. It will also determine whether 
treatment group members have better results than control group members 
with respect to the targeted outcomes noted above.
     The cost-benefit analysis, which will assess whether the 
benefits of PROMISE, including increases in employment and reductions 
in benefit receipt, are large enough to justify its costs. We will 
conduct this assessment from a range of perspectives, including those 
of the participants, state and Federal governments, SSA, and society as 
a whole.
    SSA planned several data collection efforts for the evaluation. 
These include: (1) Follow-up interviews with youth and their parent or 
guardian 18 months and 5 years after enrollment; (2) phone and in-
person interviews with local program administrators, program 
supervisors, and service delivery staff at two points in time over the 
course of the demonstration; (3) two rounds of focus groups with 
participating youth in the treatment group; (4) two rounds of focus 
groups with parents or guardians of participating youth; and (5) 
collection of administrative data.
    At this time, SSA requests clearance only for the interviews we 
will conduct with program staff and the focus group discussions we will 
conduct with youth and parents or guardians. We will conduct these 
interviews and group discussions twice: Once in 2014, and once in 2016. 
SSA will request clearance for the 18-month and 5-year survey 
interviews in a future submission. The respondents are PROMISE program 
staff, the youth participants in the PROMISE program, and the parents 
or guardians of the youth participants.

    Note:  This is a correction notice. When we previously published 
this information on February 10, 2014, at 79 FR 7736, we 
inadvertently neglected to publish the cost burden on the 
respondents. We are correcting that oversight here.

    Type of Request: This is a new information collection.

Time Burden on Respondents

                                   2014 Interviews and Focus Group Discussions
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                                                                                      Average        Estimated
                                                     Number of     Frequency of     burden per     total annual
             Modality of completion                  responses       response        response         burden
                                                                                     (minutes)        (hours)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Staff Interviews with Administrators or                       75               1              66              83
 Directors......................................
Staff Interviews with PROMISE Project Staff.....             145               1              66             160
Youth Focus Groups--Non-participants............             320               1               5              27
Youth Focus Groups--Participants................              80               1             100             133
Parents or Guardian Focus Groups--Non-                       320               1               5              27
 participants...................................
Parents or Guardian Focus Groups--Participants..              80               1             100             133
                                                 ---------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals......................................           1,020  ..............  ..............             563
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[[Page 22755]]


                                   2016 Interviews and Focus Group Discussions
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                                                                                      Average        Estimated
                                                     Number of     Frequency of     burden per     total annual
             Modality of completion                  responses       response        response         burden
                                                                                     (minutes)        (hours)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Staff Interviews with Administrators or                       75               1              66              83
 Directors......................................
Staff Interviews with PROMISE Project Staff.....             145               1              66             160
Youth Focus Groups--Non-participants............             320               1               5              27
Youth Focus Groups--Participants................              80               1             100             133
Parents or Guardian Focus Groups--Non-                       320               1               5              27
 participants...................................
Parents or Guardian Focus Groups--Participants..              80               1             100             133
                                                 ---------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals......................................           1,020  ..............  ..............             563
                                                 ===============================================================
    Grand Total.................................           2,040  ..............  ..............           1,126
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Cost Burden on Respondents

                                         2014 Annual Cost to Respondents
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                                                                      Average
                                     Number of     Frequency  of    burden per    Median  hourly       Total
         Respondent type            respondents      response        response        wage rate      respondent
                                                                     (minutes)       (dollars)    cost (dollars)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Parent or Guardian Focus Group--             320               1               5           $7.38         $196.01
 Non-Participants...............
Parent or Guardian Focus Group--              80               1             100            7.38          984.20
 Participants...................
                                 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Total.......................             400  ..............  ..............  ..............        1,180.21
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                                         2016 Annual Cost to Respondents
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                      Average                          Total
                                     Number of     Frequency  of    burden per    Median  hourly    respondent
         Respondent type            respondents      response        response        wage rate         cost
                                                                     (minutes)       (dollars)       (dollars)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Parent or Guardian Focus Group--             320               1               5           $7.38         $196.01
 Non-Participants...............
Parent or Guardian Focus Group--              80               1             100            7.38          984.20
 Participants...................
                                 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Total.......................             400  ..............  ..............  ..............        1,180.21
                                 ===============================================================================
    Grand Total.................             800  ..............  ..............  ..............        2,360.42
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    2. Request for Medical Treatment in an SSA Employee Health 
Facility: Patient Self-Administered or Staff Administered Care--0960-
0772. SSA operates onsite Employee Health Clinics (EHC) in eight 
different States. These clinics provide health care for all SSA 
employees including treatments of personal medical conditions when 
authorized through a physician. Form SSA-5072 is the employee's 
personal physician's order form. The information we collect on Form 
SSA-5072 gives the nurses the guidance they need by law to perform 
certain medical procedures and to administer prescription medications 
such as allergy immunotherapy. In addition, the information allows the 
SSA medical officer to determine whether the treatment can be 
administered safely and appropriately in the SSA EHCs. Respondents are 
physicians of SSA employees who need to have medical treatment in an 
SSA EHC.
    Type of Request: Revision of an OMB-approved information 
collection.

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                                                                                      Average        Estimated
                                     Number of     Frequency  of     Number of      burden per     total  annual
     Modality of  completion        respondents      response        responses       response         burden
                                                                                     (minutes)        (hours)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SSA-5072 Annually...............              25               1              25               5               2
SSA-5072 Bi-Annually............              75               2             150               5              13
                                 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals......................             100  ..............             175  ..............              15
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[[Page 22756]]

    Dated: April 18, 2014.
Faye Lipsky,
Reports Clearance Director, Social Security Administration.
[FR Doc. 2014-09218 Filed 4-22-14; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4191-02-P