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SUPPORTING STATEMENT

FOR PAPERWORK REDUCTION ACT SUBMISSION

Annual Client Assistance Program (CAP) Performance Report (Form RSA-227)

A. Justification

1. Explain the circumstances that make the collection of information necessary. 

Identify any legal or administrative requirements that necessitate the collection. 

Attach a hard copy of the appropriate section of each statute and regulation 

mandating or authorizing the collection of information, or you may provide a valid 

URL link or paste the applicable section. Specify the review type of the collection 

(new, revision, extension, reinstatement with change, reinstatement without change). 

If revised, briefly specify the changes. If a rulemaking is involved, make note of the 

sections or changed sections, if applicable.

The Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended (Rehabilitation Act), requires each state to 

have in effect a Client Assistance Program (CAP) in order to receive payments from its 

Section 110 allotments under the Rehabilitation Act. Section 112 of the Rehabilitation 

Act authorizes CAP grantees to provide information to individuals with disabilities 

regarding the services and benefits available under the Rehabilitation Act and the rights 

afforded them under Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act. In addition, CAP 

grantees are authorized to provide advocacy and legal representation to individuals 

seeking or receiving services under the Rehabilitation Act, in order to resolve disputes 

with programs providing such services, including vocational rehabilitation services. 

The current version of the Annual CAP Performance Report (Form RSA-227) is 

scheduled to expire on June 30, 2014. The Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) 

is requesting a three-year extension of the existing form through June 30, 2017. RSA has 

made changes to the form to better align its organization and content with the other 

protection and advocacy program reports administered by RSA, specifically those 

submitted by the Protection and Advocacy of Individual Rights and Protection and 

Advocacy for Assistive Technology programs (Forms RSA - 509 and 661, respectively). 

No new data is being requested through the revised RSA - 227. See the response to 

Question No. 15 for a detailed description of the changes to the form.
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2. Indicate how, by whom, and for what purpose the information is to be used. Except 

for a new collection, indicate the actual use the agency has made of the information 

received from the current collection.

Form RSA-227 is the instrument RSA uses to monitor and evaluate the program of each 

designated CAP agency to ensure compliance with all federal requirements. Subsection 

112(b) requires the Secretary to ensure compliance with Subsections 112(a) and (c) 

before allocating funds under the Rehabilitation Act, including funds under the VR 

Program, to any state. Data from the form have been used to evaluate the effectiveness of 

eligible systems within individual programs. These data also have been used to indicate 

trends in the provision of services from year to year. Form RSA-227 also has enabled 

RSA to furnish the President and Congress with data on the provision of advocacy

services and has helped to establish a sound basis for future funding requests. 

3. Describe whether, and to what extent, the collection of information involves the use 

of automated, electronic, mechanical, or other technological collection techniques or 

other forms of information technology, e.g., permitting electronic submission of 

responses, and the basis for the decision for adopting this means of collection. Also, 

describe any consideration of using information technology to reduce burden. 

RSA has developed an electronic management information system through which CAPs 

can access and submit data online at RSA’s website (rsa.ed.gov). Since fiscal year 2009, 

all CAP agencies have used this method to submit their reports.

4. Describe efforts to identify duplication. Show specifically why any similar 

information already available cannot be used or modified for use for the purposes 

described in item 2 above.

Form RSA-227 provides information on the individuals with disabilities served by CAP 

grantees and the services they received pursuant to Section 112(a) of the Rehabilitation 

Act. No similar information is available.

5. If the collection of information impacts small businesses or other small entities, 

describe any methods used to minimize burden. A small entity may be (1) a small 

business which is deemed to be one that is independently owned and operated and 

that is not dominant in its field of operation; (2) a small organization that is any notfor-profit enterprise that is independently owned and operated and is not dominant 

in its field; or (3) a small government jurisdiction, which is a government of a city, 

county, town, township, school district, or special district with a population of less 

than 50,000.
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The collection of this information does not involve small businesses or other small 

entities. Respondents are not-for-profit organizations or State agencies. RSA included 

the respondents and the national organization that represents them in the initial 

development of the RSA – 227, as well as the proposed modifications contained in this 

version, to ensure that the information requested could be provided with minimal burden 

to the respondents.

6. Describe the consequence to Federal program or policy activities if the collection is 

not conducted or is conducted less frequently, as well as any technical or legal 

obstacles to reducing burden.

Because RSA uses the information obtained by this collection in preparing its annual 

report to the President and Congress, current data on the advocacy services provided by

CAPs must be made available by eligible programs each year.

7. Explain any special circumstance that would cause an information collection to be 

conducted in a manner: 

o requiring respondents to report information to the 

agency more often than quarterly;

o requiring respondents to prepare a written response to

a collection of information in fewer than 30 days after receipt of it;

o requiring respondents to submit more than an original

and two copies of any document;

o requiring respondents to retain records, other than

health, medical, government contract, grant-in-aid, or

tax records for more than three years;

o in connection with a statistical survey, that is not 

designed to produce valid and reliable results that can

be generalized to the universe of study;

o requiring the use of a statistical data classification

that has not been reviewed and approved by OMB;

o that includes a pledge of confidentiality that is not

supported by authority established in statute or

regulation, that is not supported by disclosure and

data security policies that are consistent with the
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pledge, or which unnecessarily impedes sharing of data

with other agencies for compatible confidential use; or

o requiring respondents to submit proprietary trade

secret, or other confidential information unless the

agency can demonstrate that it has instituted

procedures to protect the information's confidentiality

to the extent permitted by law.

There are no special circumstances that would require this information to be collected in a 

different manner than set forth in the Rehabilitation Act.

8. If applicable, provide a copy and identify the date and page number of publication 

in the Federal Register of the agency's notice, required by 5 CFR 1320.8(d), 

soliciting comments on the information collection prior to submission to OMB. 

Summarize public comments received in response to that notice and describe actions 

taken by the agency in response to these comments. Specifically address comments 

received on cost and hour burden.

Describe efforts to consult with persons out-side the agency to obtain their views on 

the availability of data, frequency of collection, the clarity of instruction and record 

keeping, disclosure, or reporting format (if any), and on the data elements to be 

recorded, disclosed, or reported.

Consultation with representatives of those from whom information is to be obtained 

or those who must compile records should occur at least once every 3 years - even if 

the collection of information activity is the same as in prior periods. There may be 

circumstances that may preclude consultation in a specific situation. These 

circumstances should be explained.

RSA received recommendations on the initial development of the RSA - 227, including 

the frequency of reporting, from the National Disability Rights Network (NDRN), CAPs, 

and other advocacy groups. Prior to submission of this revised version, RSA consulted

with, and received recommendations from, NDRN, the national membership organization

for CAPs, on the revised format of the form. RSA implemented these recommendations 

in this version submitted for approval. In addition, a 60-day and a 30-day notice will be 

published in the Federal Register to solicit public comment.
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9. Explain any decision to provide any payment or gift to respondents, other than 

remuneration of contractors or grantees.

There is no payment or gift to respondents.

10. Describe any assurance of confidentiality provided to respondents and the basis for 

the assurance in statute, regulation, or agency policy. If personally identifiable 

information (PII) is being collected, a Privacy Act statement should be included on 

the instrument. Please provide a citation for the Systems of Record Notice and the 

date a Privacy Impact Assessment was completed as indicated on the IC Data Form. 

A confidentiality statement with a legal citation that authorizes the pledge of 

confidentiality should be provided. If the collection is subject to the Privacy Act, the 

Privacy Act statement is deemed sufficient with respect to confidentiality. If there is 

no expectation of confidentiality, simply state that the Department makes no pledge 

about the confidentiality of the data.

Confidentiality is assured because Form RSA-227 is an aggregate report.

11. Provide additional justification for any questions of a sensitive nature, such as 

sexual behavior and attitudes, religious beliefs, and other matters that are 

commonly considered private. This justification should include the reasons why the 

agency considers the questions necessary; the specific uses to be made of the 

information, the explanation to be given to persons from whom the information is 

requested, and any steps to be taken to obtain their consent. 

This data collection instrument does not contain any questions of a sensitive nature.

12. Provide estimates of the hour burden of the collection of information. The 

statement should:

 Indicate the number of respondents by affected public type (federal government, 

individuals or households, private sector – businesses or other for-profit, private 

sector – not-for-profit institutions, farms, state, local or tribal governments),

frequency of response, annual hour burden, and an explanation of how the 

burden was estimated, including identification of burden type: recordkeeping, 

reporting or third party disclosure. All narrative should be included in item 12. 

Unless directed to do so, agencies should not conduct special surveys to obtain 

information on which to base hour burden estimates. Consultation with a 

sample (fewer than 10) of potential respondents is desirable. If the hour burden 

on respondents is expected to vary widely because of differences in activity, size, 

or complexity, show the range of estimated hour burden, and explain the reasons 
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for the variance. Generally, estimates should not include burden hours for 

customary and usual business practices.

 If this request for approval covers more than one form, provide separate hour 

burden estimates for each form and aggregate the hour burdens in the ROCIS 

IC Burden Analysis Table. (The table should at minimum include Respondent 

types, IC activity, Respondent and Responses, Hours/Response, and Total 

Hours)

 Provide estimates of annualized cost to respondents of the hour burdens for 

collections of information, identifying and using appropriate wage rate 

categories. The cost of contracting out or paying outside parties for information 

collection activities should not be included here. Instead, this cost should be 

included in Item 14.

Annual Burden

Number of respondents 56

Frequency of response 1

Total annual responses 56

Hours per response 16.0

Total hours 896

Cost per hour $33

Total cost $29,568

RSA has estimated the time required for each respondent to complete the form, so 

that the estimate is consistent with that used in connection with similar reporting 

instruments used by RSA, in particular, the Annual Protection and Advocacy for 

Assistive Technology (PAAT) Performance Report. RSA conducted a field test of 

nine respondents to the Annual PAAT Performance Report during its development 

and found that on average respondents completed the form within 16 hours. RSA 

believes that the Form RSA-227, as modified, can be completed by CAP grantees in 

an equal amount of time. In addition, RSA now estimates the hourly cost to 

respondents to be $33 reflecting increases in wages caused by the increased cost in 

living.

13. Provide an estimate of the total annual cost burden to respondents or record 

keepers resulting from the collection of information. (Do not include the cost of any 

hour burden shown in items 12 and 14.)

o The cost estimate should be split into two components: (a) the total capital 

and start-up cost component (annualized over its expected useful life); and 
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(b) a total operation and maintenance and purchase of services component. 

The estimates should take into account costs associated with generating, 

maintaining, and disclosing or providing the information. Include 

descriptions of methods used to estimate major cost factors including system 

and technology acquisition, expected useful life of capital equipment, the 

discount rate(s), and the time period over which costs will be incurred. 

Capital and start-up costs include, among other items, preparations for 

collecting information such as purchasing computers and software; 

monitoring, sampling, drilling and testing equipment; and record storage 

facilities:

o If cost estimates are expected to vary widely, agencies should present ranges 

of cost burdens and explain the reasons for the variance. The cost of 

purchasing of contracting out information collection services should be a 

part of this cost burden estimate. In developing cost burden estimates, 

agencies may consult with a sample of respondents (fewer than 10), utilize 

the 60-day pre-OMB submission public comment process and use existing 

economic or regulatory impact analysis associated with the rulemaking 

containing the information collection, as appropriate.

o Generally, estimates should not include purchases of equipment or services, 

or portions thereof, made: (1) prior to October 1, 1995, (2) to achieve 

regulatory compliance with requirements not associated with the information 

collection, (3) for reasons other than to provide information or keep records 

for the government, or (4) as part of customary and usual business or private 

practices. Also, these estimates should not include the hourly costs (i.e., the 

monetization of the hours) captured above in Item 12.

Total Annualized Capital/Startup Cost: N/A

Total Annual Costs (O&M): N/A

____________________

Total Annualized Costs Requested: N/A

States and territories incur no cost burden in addition to that stated in item 12 above. 

14. Provide estimates of annualized cost to the Federal government. Also, provide a 

description of the method used to estimate cost, which should include quantification 

of hours, operational expenses (such as equipment, overhead, printing, and support 

staff), and any other expense that would not have been incurred without this 

collection of information. Agencies also may aggregate cost estimates from items 12, 

13, and 14 in a single table. 
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a. Review of each written request --1.5 hour

b. Number of written requests to review --56

c. Total time to review written requests --84 hours

d. Federal hourly rate of salary --$49.00

e. Salary cost (c x d) --$4,116.00

f. Annual federal computer costs --$ 500.00

g. Total cost to federal government (e + f) --$4,616.00

15. Explain the reasons for any program changes or adjustments. Generally, 

adjustments in burden result from re-estimating burden and/or from economic 

phenomenon outside of an agency’s control (e.g., correcting a burden estimate or an 

organic increase in the size of the reporting universe). Program changes result from 

a deliberate action that materially changes a collection of information and generally 

are result of new statute or an agency action (e.g., changing a form, revising 

regulations, redefining the respondent universe, etc.). Burden changes should be 

disaggregated by type of change (i.e., adjustment, program change due to new 

statute, and/or program change due to agency discretion), type of collection (new, 

revision, extension, reinstatement with change, reinstatement without change) and 

include totals for changes in burden hours, responses and costs (if applicable).

Form RSA-227 has been modified to better align its organization and content with the 

other protection and advocacy program reports used by RSA, including the Annual 

Protection and Advocacy for Individual Rights (PAIR) Report (RSA-509) and the Annual

Protection and Advocacy for Assistive Technology (PAAT) Report (RSA-661). To

obtain consistency with the other protection and advocacy reports, RSA revised the RSA227 report by reorganizing its structure, consolidating narrative descriptions or converting

them into numeric fields, and by modifying many of the data fields to be consistent with 

the information collected through the other protection and advocacy program reports.

In particular, the current RSA-227 report requires a narrative description for “the type of 

agency used to administer CAP.” This data will be reported through the selection of one 

of five options under Part V, Section A. The narrative description for “alternative dispute 

resolutions” has been eliminated as this information is already collected under 

“Intervention strategies for closed cases” in Part II, Section C of the report. In addition, 

the narrative descriptions “summary of presentations made”, “involvement with advisory

boards” and “on-line information/outreach” are no longer needed as this information is 

captured under Part I, Section D, “Information disseminated to the public by your agency” 

and under Part I, Section E, “Information disseminated about your agency by an external 

media coverage.”

Consistent with the other protection and advocacy reports, the narrative descriptions, 

“outreach to unserved/underserved populations”, “number of person-years” employed by
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the CAP agency, and “interesting cases” remain as information collected in the revised 

RSA-227 report. The narrative descriptions for “sources of funds expended” and “budget 

for current and following fiscal years” are no longer required as this information is 

captured through the CAP agency’s annual submission of the SF-425 report. Finally, the 

narrative description “systemic advocacy” has been divided into two separate sections for 

the reporting of non-litigation systemic activities and systemic activities involving 

litigation. In addition, CAP agencies will report a numeric value for each type of 

systemic activity.

Along with these changes to the narrative fields, the RSA-227 report is restructured the 

organization of the data fields to be consistent with the format of the other protection and 

advocacy reports. CAP agencies will report all non-case services under Part I of the 

report, identify all individual services under Part II, provide the program data under Part 

III, describe systemic activities under Part IV, detail the agency information under Part V 

and provide case examples under Part VI. The disabling conditions options included 

under Section D of Part III have been modified to match those disability conditions 

currently collected in the other protection and advocacy program reports.

As stated in response #12, the burden for Form RSA-227 is estimated to be consistent 

with the Annual Protection and Advocacy for Assistive Technology (PAAT) Performance 

Report. RSA conducted a field test of nine respondents to the Annual PAAT 

Performance Report during its development and found that on average respondents 

completed the form within 16 hours. This is equal to the estimated burden for the current 

Form RSA-227. Therefore, the burden for the respondents for Form RSA-227 is not 

expected to increase or decrease.

16. For collections of information whose results will be published, outline plans for 

tabulation and publication. Address any complex analytical techniques that will be 

used. Provide the time schedule for the entire project, including beginning and 

ending dates of the collection of information, completion of report, publication 

dates, and other actions.

Reports are due to RSA within 90 days following the end of the fiscal year 

(approximately December 30 of each year). Data reported are evaluated and transmitted 

to the President and Congress in the Annual Report prepared by the RSA Commissioner.

17. If seeking approval to not display the expiration date for OMB approval of the 

information collection, explain the reason that display would be inappropriate. 

RSA is not seeking approval to not display the expiration date of the information 

collection.
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18. Explain each exception to the certification statement identified in, "Certification for 

Paperwork Reduction Act Submissions.”

This document meets each of the criteria outlined in the "Certification for Paperwork 

Reduction Act Submissions". There are no exceptions to the certification statement.

B. Collection of Information Employing Statistical Methods

This data collection instrument does not require the use of any statistical methods in 

obtaining information.