Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 143 / Thursday, July 29, 2021 / Notices 40849 

Response: ACL in coordination with 

ACL’s grantee, the National 

Ombudsman Resource Center (NORC) 

created in-depth training and training 

manuals on all aspects of NORS 

reporting, including examples of 

narratives for both complaint examples 

and systems issues and does not believe 

that additional guidance is necessary. 

See https://ltcombudsman.org/omb_

support/nors. 

The Maryland Ombudsman program 

also recommended the addition of a 

new complaint code in Facility Policies, 

Procedures and Practices (Code J) for 

emergency planning complaints. The 

Maryland Ombudsman program noted 

that there have been many instances of 

facilities needing to temporarily or 

permanently relocate residents for a 

variety of reasons from disasters to lack 

of appropriate staff in the building, 

facility closure, or the facility did not 

have an appropriate plan or did not 

have a plan at all. 

Response: ACL will not add a new 

complaint code, but will modify 

complaint code J01 ‘‘Administrative 

Oversight’’ to be inclusive of emergency 

planning. 

One recommendation was to include 

the addition of a county field (e.g., 

Federal Information Processing 

Standard code). The commenter noted 

that although looking at differences/ 

variation between states is important 

and valuable, having the ability to look 

at differences/variation within each 

state would be immensely beneficial for 

the conduct of ACL’s functions and 

would allow for analytics to be shared 

with state ombudsmen and other 

programs nationwide. 

Response: ACL does not accept this 

recommendation because of the level of 

burden necessary to gather and report 

this level of data. 

NASOP made recommendations to 

broaden the types of activities reported 

on systems issues work performed by 

the State Long-Term Ombudsman, the 

Office and local Ombudsman entities. 

NASOP asserts that this reporting 

element would provide needed depth 

and clarity about whether a State LongTerm Care Ombudsman has the 

necessary independence and resources 

to perform systems advocacy as required 

by the Older Americans Act. NASOP 

proposes that data collected as narrative 

examples of Systems Issues is 

insufficient and does not have practical 

utility without additional data 

collection to explain the scope of a 

state’s work on systems advocacy. ‘‘By 

only collecting two examples of a 

systems issue from each state, ACL has 

no objective means of determining a 

state’s compliance with the Act nor the 

independence of the Office. With our 

proposed addition data collection in 

Table 3, ACL will collect and provide 

the public with a more accurate picture 

of whether a state program is fulfilling 

the requirements of the Act.’’ 

Response: ACL does not agree with 

NASOP’s assessment of the current data 

collection on systems advocacy for 

several reasons. First, the FY 2020 data 

is not yet final and ACL has not been 

able to share systems advocacy data. 

Additionally, while NORS is one part of 

measuring program effectiveness it is 

not the only way that ACL determines 

compliance with the Older Americans 

Act. ACL provides continuous technical 

assistance on matters of compliance, 

conducted in-depth review of states 

compliance with the Ombudsman 

program regulation, and worked with 

states to develop compliance plans. ACL 

also has an on-going project to evaluate 

the effectiveness of the Ombudsman 

program and has gathered in-depth data 

on both state and local level 

Ombudsman program’s ability to 

conduct systemic advocacy. See https:// 

acl.gov/programs/program-evaluationsand-reports. In addition, the proposed 

data collection would be very 

burdensome on state and local programs 

to collect and report because the two 

recommended data elements include a 

sub-set of 10 possible elements to select 

and to keep track of the number of 

instances of each sub-set ultimately 

resulting in 20 new data elements. This 

type of data would not add meaningful 

information that would benefit ACL 

considering the level of effort required 

of states to train on this type of data 

collection, adapt software and report. 

Estimated Program Burden 

ACL estimates the burden associated 

with this collection of information as 

follows: Approximately 11,154 hours, 

with 52 state Ombudsman programs 

responding annually. 

Respondent/data collection activity Number of 

respondents 

Responses 

per 

respondent 

Hours per 

response 

Annual 

burden hours 

Total ................................................................................................................. 52 1 214.5 11,154 

Dated: July 23, 2021. 

Alison Barkoff, 

Acting Administrator and Assistant Secretary 

for Aging. 

[FR Doc. 2021–16132 Filed 7–28–21; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4154–01–P 

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND 

HUMAN SERVICES 

Administration for Community Living 

Notice of Federal Review of the 

Missouri Protection and Advocacy 

System (P&A) 

AGENCY: Administration for Community 

Living, HHS. 

ACTION: Notice. 

SUMMARY: Representatives of the 

Administration on Disabilities (AoD), 

Administration for Community Living 

(ACL), will be conducting a federal 

review of the Missouri Protection and 

Advocacy System (P&A) on September 

13–17, 2021. AoD is soliciting 

comments from interested parties on 

your experiences with the program, and 

strategies employed by P&A in meeting 

the needs of individuals with 

developmental disabilities and their 

families in Missouri. You are 

encouraged to share your experiences by 

way of email or telephone. 

DATES: Comments must be submitted 

electronically or via telephone by 

September 22, 2021, 11:59 p.m. (EST) in 

order to be included in the final report. 

Email: Katherine.Cargill-Willis@

acl.hhs.gov. 

Telephone: 202–795–7322. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Katherine Cargill-Willis, Administration 

for Community Living, Administration 

on Disabilities, 330 C Street SW, 1st 

Floor, Washington, DC 20201, 202–795– 

7322. 

Dated: July 23, 2021. 

Alison Barkoff, 

Acting Administrator & Assistant Secretary 

for Aging. 

[FR Doc. 2021–16131 Filed 7–28–21; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4154–01–P 


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