```

[Federal Register Volume 89, Number 235 (Friday, December 6, 2024)]
[Notices]
[Pages 96965-96968]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2024-28581]

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION

Agency Information Collection Activities: Existing Collection

AGENCY: Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

ACTION: Notice of information collection--proposed revision of 
Elementary-Secondary Staff Information Report (EEO-5).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

SUMMARY: In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), the 
Equal Employment Opportunity

[[Page 96966]]

Commission (EEOC or Commission) announces that it has submitted to the 
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) a request for a three-year PRA 
approval of revisions to the currently approved Elementary-Secondary 
Staff Information Report (EEO-5).

DATES: Written comments on this notice must be submitted on or before 
January 6, 2025.

ADDRESSES: Written comments should be sent within 30 days of 
publication of this final notice to www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain. 
Find this information collection by selecting ``Currently under 
Review--Open for Public Comments'' or by using the search function.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Paul Guerino, Director, Data 
Development and Information Products Division, Office of Enterprise 
Data and Analytics (OEDA), Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 131 
M Street NE, Washington, DC 20507; (202) 921-2928 (voice), (800) 669-
6820 (TTY) or email at [email protected]. Requests for this notice in an 
alternative format should be made to the EEOC's Office of 
Communications and Legislative Affairs at (202) 921-3191 (voice), (800) 
669-6820 (TTY), or (844) 234-5122 (ASL Video Phone).

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: A notice that the EEOC would be submitting 
this request was published in the Federal Register on August 16, 2024, 
allowing for a 60-day public comment period which ended on October 15, 
2024.\1\ The EEOC received no comments during the public comment 
period.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \1\ See Notice of Information Collection 89 FR 66716 August 16, 
2024) at https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/08/16/2024-18421/agency-information-collection-activities-existing-collection.
    \2\ Available at https://www.regulations.gov/docket/EEOC-2024-0007.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

I. Background

A. The EEO-5 Report

    Since 1973, the EEOC has required EEO-5 filers to submit workforce 
demographic data. All public elementary and secondary school systems 
and districts that are covered by title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 
1964, as amended (title VII) \3\ and that have 100 or more employees 
are required to file the workforce demographic data.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \3\ 42 U.S.C. 2000e, et seq.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

B. The 60-Day Notice: Request for Three-Year PRA Approval of Revisions 
to the EEO-5

    Pursuant to the PRA and OMB regulations found at 5 CFR 
1320.8(d)(1), the Commission published a Notice in the Federal Register 
on August 16, 2024, soliciting public comments during a 60-day period 
(``60-day Notice'') on the Commission's intent to seek a three-year OMB 
approval of revisions to the currently approved EEO-5. In particular, 
in its 60-day Notice, the EEOC sought comments to: (1) Evaluate whether 
the proposed collection of information is necessary for the proper 
performance of the Commission's functions, including whether the 
information will have practical utility; (2) Evaluate the accuracy of 
the Commission's estimate of the burden of the proposed collection of 
information, including the validity of the methodology and assumptions 
used; (3) Enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information 
to be collected; and (4) Minimize the burden of the collection of 
information on those who are to respond, including the use of 
appropriate automated, electronic, mechanical, or other technological 
collection techniques or other forms of information technology, e.g., 
permitting electronic submission of responses. The 60-day Notice 
comment period ended on October 15, 2024.
    Based on data from the most recent EEO-5 data collection reporting 
year (i.e., 2022), as well as ongoing updates by the EEOC to the EEO-5 
frame (i.e., filer roster or master list), the EEOC anticipates the 
total number of filers submitting an EEO-5 report may increase to 
10,500 per biennial collection. Accordingly, the burden estimates in 
this Notice are based on this revised estimate of the number of filers.

II. The Public Comments on the 60-Day Notice

    The 60-day Notice was published in the Federal Register on August 
16, 2024.\4\ The EEOC received no comments during the public comment 
period.\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \4\ Available at https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/08/16/2024-18421/agency-information-collection-activities-existing-collection.
    \5\ Available at https://www.regulations.gov/docket/EEOC-2024-0007.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

III. Commission Decisions and Final EEOC Proposals to OMB

    The EEOC Will Seek Three-Year Approval of Revisions to the 
Currently Approved EEO-5 Elementary-Secondary Staff Information Report
    The Commission has decided it will seek a three-year approval by 
OMB of revisions to the EEO-5 Elementary-Secondary Staff Information 
Report as described in this Notice.

IV. Formal Paperwork Reduction Act Statement

A. Overview of Information Collection

    Collection Title: Elementary-Secondary Staff Information Report 
(EEO-5).
    OMB Number: 3046-0003.
    Frequency of Report: Biennial.
    Type of Respondent: Public elementary and secondary school systems 
and districts that have 100 or more employees and meet certain 
criteria.
    Description of Affected Public: Public elementary and secondary 
school systems and districts that have 100 or more employees and meet 
certain criteria.
    Reporting Hours: 17,927 hours per biennial collection.
    Respondent Burden Hour Cost: $597,472.29 per biennial collection.
    Federal Cost: $492,635 per biennial collection.
    Number of Filers: 10,500 per biennial collection.\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \6\ This figure is based on the expanded frame of potentially 
eligible respondents and the response rate for the most recently 
completed EEO-5 data collection (the 2022 EEO-5 data collection).
    \7\ 42 U.S.C. 2000e-8(c).
    \8\ The EEOC's EEO-5 regulation is at 29 CFR part 1602 Subparts 
L and M. The EEOC is responsible for obtaining OMB's PRA approval 
for the EEO-5 report.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Number of Responses: 10,500 per biennial collection.
    Number of Forms: 1.
    Form Number: EEOC Form 168A.
    Abstract: Section 709(c) of title VII requires employers to make 
and keep records relevant to the determination of whether unlawful 
employment practices have been or are being committed, to preserve such 
records, and to produce reports as the Commission prescribes by 
regulation or order.\7\ Pursuant to this statutory authority, the EEOC 
issued regulations prescribing the reporting and related record 
retention requirements for public elementary and secondary school 
systems and districts.\8\ The regulations require school systems or 
districts to make or keep all records necessary for completion of an 
EEO-5 submission and retain those records for three years, and require 
EEO-5 filers to retain a copy of each filed EEO-5 report for three 
years. These recordkeeping requirements are part of standard 
administrative practices, and as a result, the EEOC believes that any 
impact on burden would be negligible and nearly impossible to quantify. 
Additionally, the regulations require public elementary and secondary 
school systems and districts to file executed copies of the EEO-5 in 
conformity with

[[Page 96967]]

the directions set forth in the form and accompanying instructions. 
Under this authority, public elementary and secondary school systems 
and districts with 100 or more employees are required to report 
biennially \9\ the number of individuals they employ by activity 
assignment classification (i.e., job category) and by sex and race or 
ethnicity.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \9\ Beginning in 1982, the EEO-5 report has been collected 
biennially in even-numbered years. Prior to 1982, the EEO-5 report 
was collected annually.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Please note that on March 28, 2024, OMB published revisions, the 
first since 1997, to its Statistical Policy Directive No. 15: Standards 
for Maintaining, Collecting, and Presenting Federal Data on Race and 
Ethnicity.'' See https://spd15revision.gov/. The revisions include, for 
example, using a single combined race and ethnicity question and adding 
Middle Eastern or North African (MENA) as a new minimum reporting 
category. Federal agencies, including the EEOC, are required to bring 
their data collections into compliance with these standards by March 
28, 2029. Because the EEOC's current EEO-5 PRA clearance expires 
January 31, 2025, the agency is not proposing updates to its collection 
of race and ethnicity data under this Notice in order to provide filers 
with sufficient notice of the revised standards and to give the EEOC 
sufficient time to implement the revisions across its EEO collections.
    These data are currently collected electronically by the EEOC 
through a web-based data collection application (i.e., portal) referred 
to as the EEO-5 Online Filing System (OFS).\10\ Filers must submit 
their data electronically to the web-based portal by either manual 
entry or by uploading a data file. The individual EEO-5 reports are 
confidential.\11\ EEO-5 data are used by the EEOC to investigate 
charges of employment discrimination against public elementary and 
secondary school systems and districts and to publish periodic reports 
on workforce demographics.\12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \10\ EEO-5 filers may access the EEO-5 Online Filing System 
(OFS) through the EEOC's dedicated EEO-5 website at 
www.eeocdata.org/eeo5.
    \11\ All reports and any information from individual reports are 
subject to the confidentiality provisions of Section 709(e) of title 
VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000e-8(e), as 
amended (title VII) and may not be made public by the EEOC prior to 
the institution of any proceeding under title VII involving the EEO-
5 data. Any EEOC employee who violates this prohibition may be found 
guilty of a criminal misdemeanor and could be fined or imprisoned. 
The confidentiality requirements allow the EEOC to publish only 
aggregated data, and only in a manner that does not identify any 
particular filer or reveal any individual employee's personal 
information. With respect to other Federal agencies with a 
legitimate law enforcement purpose, the EEOC gives access to 
information collected under title VII only if the agencies agree in 
writing to comply with the confidentiality provisions of title VII. 
In addition, section 709(d) of title VII (42 U.S.C. 2000e-8(d)) 
provides that the EEOC shall furnish upon request and without cost 
to State or local civil rights agencies information about employers 
in their jurisdiction on the condition that they not make it public 
prior to starting a proceeding under State or local law involving 
such information. The EEOC shares EEO-5 data with Fair Employment 
Practices Agencies (FEPAs) pursuant to Worksharing Agreements that 
impose obligations on the contracted FEPA with respect to 
confidentiality, privacy, and data security. On a case-by-case 
basis, the EEOC may share EEO-5 data with a FEPA that does not have 
a Worksharing Agreement, but only if that FEPA agrees to comply with 
confidentiality, privacy, and data security obligations similar to 
those imposed on FEPAs with Worksharing Agreements.
    \12\ Any reports the EEOC publishes based on EEO-5 data include 
only aggregated data that protect the confidentiality of each 
employer's information, as well as the privacy of each employee's 
personal information.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

B. Burden Statement

    The EEOC's Office of Enterprise Data and Analytics (OEDA) 
administers the agency's data collections, including the EEO-5. Since 
OEDA's creation in 2018, the EEOC has undertaken several efforts to 
modernize the agency's data collections and improve the quality of data 
collected. OEDA has also streamlined functions, such as providing 
additional self-service options, resource materials, and an online 
support message center.
    As part of these ongoing modernization efforts, OEDA has undertaken 
measures to enhance the agency's EEO-5 data frame of potentially 
eligible filers as well as changes that make the EEO-5 filing process 
more user-friendly and less burdensome. By comparing the EEOC's 2022 
EEO-5 frame to the U.S. Department of Education's publicly available 
Common Core of Data (CCD) database,\13\ OEDA identified approximately 
4,000 additional public elementary and secondary school systems and 
districts that may be eligible to file during the next biennial data 
collection. With the addition of these filers to the EEO-5 frame and 
considering response rates during the 2022 EEO-5 data collection, OEDA 
now estimates 10,500 potential respondents (a 47% increase) to the 
agency's next EEO-5 data collection.\14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \13\ According to the U.S. Department of Education, the CCD is 
the department's primary database on public elementary and secondary 
education in the United States. The CCD serves as a ``comprehensive, 
annual, national database'' of all public elementary and secondary 
schools and school districts. See https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/.
    \14\ This estimate covers public elementary and secondary school 
systems or districts with 100 or more employees within the 50 United 
States and the District of Columbia as well as the Commonwealth of 
Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the U.S. Possessions of 
American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, and Wake Island. 
Please note that 10,500 respondents may ultimately turn out to be an 
overestimate. Following the initial enhancement of the EEO-5 frame, 
collection data may yield an unknown number of ineligible filers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The EEOC has also updated its methodology for calculating the 
biennial burden of the EEO-5 to better reflect the types of personnel 
responsible for preparing and filing these reports on behalf of their 
employers. Based upon job titles provided during the 2022 EEO-5 data 
collection by individuals completing the report within the EEO-5 Online 
Filing System (OFS), the EEOC has identified six specific job 
categories which account for the largest amount of time spent 
biennially on EEO-5 reporting. These job categories include: (1) Human 
Resource Specialists; (2) Executive-Level Staff; (3) Secretaries and 
Administrative Assistants; (4) Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing 
Clerks; (5) Administrative Services and Facilities Managers; and (6) 
Database Administrators and Architects.\15\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \15\ Hourly wage rates for these six job categories were 
obtained from the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor 
Statistics (BLS) Occupational Outlook Handbook. See https://www.bls.gov/ooh/. Please note that the actual job titles reported 
during the 2022 EEO-5 data collection were collapsed into these six 
BLS occupational categories.
    \16\ The time estimates are based on the average time elapsed 
among filers who completed their reports during the same calendar 
day within the EEO-5 OFS. This methodology was chosen because a 
single-session submission would also approximate the completion time 
over several, multi-day sessions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Additionally, the EEO-5 OFS captures detailed information on when 
each filer starts and certifies its report. The EEOC used this 
information from the most recent EEO-5 data collection to calculate 
more precise burden hour estimates.\16\ In Table 1 below, the estimated 
average hour burden per report is 1.7 hours. The total estimated 
biennial respondent burden for all filers is 17,927 hours. The 
estimated average burden hour cost per report is $56.90, and the 
estimated total burden hour cost for all filers per biennial collection 
is $597,472.29.

[[Page 96968]]

                                            Table 1--Projected Burden for Each EEO-5 Biennial Reporting Year
                                                                       [N=10,500]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                          Percent in job   Median hourly     Hours per     Total burden      Cost per      Total burden
                   Staff job category                        category        wage rate        report           hours          report         hour cost
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Human Resource Specialists..............................            39.1          $30.88             1.9           7,807          $58.67     $241,078.65
Executive-Level Staff...................................            15.9           48.12             1.7           2,829           81.80      136,153.91
Secretaries and Administrative Assistants...............            14.1           21.19             1.8           2,674           38.14       56,659.49
Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks............            14.0           22.05             1.3           1,904           28.67       41,993.03
Administrative Services and Facilities Managers.........             7.7           48.98             1.4           1,137           68.57       55,707.84
Database Administrators and Architects..................             3.0           53.91             1.3             414           70.08       22,301.40
Other \a\...............................................             6.1           37.52             1.8           1,161           67.54       43,577.97
                                                         -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Average.............................................  ..............  ..............             1.7  ..............           56.90  ..............
        Total \b\.......................................           100.0  ..............  ..............          17,927  ..............      597,472.29
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\a\ The average hourly wage rate for the ``Other'' category was derived by taking the weighted mean average of the hourly wage rates of the six BLS job
  categories listed in the above table.
\b\ These estimates are based upon filers' use of the EEO-5 Online Filing System (OFS) to submit reports electronically because paper submissions are no
  longer accepted. Electronic filing remains the most efficient, accurate, and secure means of reporting for respondents required to submit EEO-5 data.

    Dated: December 2, 2024.

    For the Commission.
Charlotte A. Burrows,
Chair.
[FR Doc. 2024-28581 Filed 12-5-24; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6570-01-P
```