12648 Federal Register / Vol. 60, No. 44 / Tuesday, March 7, 1995 / Rules and Regulations

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

34 CFR Part 75

Direct Grant Programs

AGENCY: Department of Education.

ACTION: Optional procedure for

conducting fiscal year 1995 grant

competitions under the Improving

America’s Schools Act of 1994.

SUMMARY: The Secretary establishes an

optional procedure for conducting fiscal

year (FY) 1995 grant competitions under

the Improving America’s Schools Act of

1994. The Secretary takes this action to

reduce the need for Federal regulations,

to ensure timely award of grants in FY

1995, and to provide an additional

mechanism for awarding grants that

addresses Congress’ intent in enacting

the affected program authorities.

EFFECTIVE DATE: This procedure takes

effect April 6, 1995.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Steven N. Schatken, Office of the

General Counsel, U.S. Department of

Education, 600 Independence Avenue

SW., Room 5100, FB10–B, Washington,

D.C. 20202–2241. Telephone: (202) 401–

8300. Individuals who use a

telecommunications device for the deaf

(TDD) may call the Federal Information

Relay Service (FIRS) at 1–800–877–8339

between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., Eastern time,

Monday through Friday.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The

Improving America’s Schools Act of

1994 (IASA) was enacted on October 20,

1994 (Pub. L. 103–382). The IASA

authorizes numerous discretionary grant

programs under which the Secretary

will be conducting competitions in FY

1995. The Secretary wishes to conduct

these grant competitions as quickly as

possible so that grantees will have

adequate time for planning and

preparation before the next school year

begins. The Secretary also intends to

keep Federal regulation to a minimum

under the IASA in order to provide

flexibility to State and local

governments and other eligible

applicants in designing effective

programs to serve the intended

beneficiaries of these programs.

The Secretary will be using several

techniques to meet the goals of fewer

regulations and expedited grant awards,

including, for some programs, using

procedures currently in the Education

Department General Administrative

Regulations (EDGAR) for programs that

do not have regulations. For these

programs, EDGAR provides selection

criteria for choosing among competing

grant applications (34 CFR 75.210).

However, the EDGAR selection criteria

are necessarily very general, and for

some programs the EDGAR criteria may

not adequately focus grant applications

on specific provisions that are contained

in the program statutes that govern the

competitions. Therefore, the Secretary

establishes the following procedure that

may be used to create more targeted

selection criteria in appropriate

situations. The Secretary will soon

publish a separate notice of proposed

rulemaking in the Federal Register to

amend EDGAR and make this a

permanent option in future fiscal years

for all of the Department’s discretionary

grant programs.

Procedure for Establishing Statutory

Selection Criteria

Under this procedure, the Secretary

may establish selection criteria for

evaluating applications by assigning

points to particular statutory provisions,

such as allowable activities, application

content requirements, or other preaward and post-award conditions.

Applications would be evaluated based

on how well the applicants address each

of those statutory provisions. The

Secretary may also include any of the

selection criteria in EDGAR (34 CFR

75.210), but the EDGAR criteria would

not otherwise apply.

Each of the criteria, whether based on

a statutory provision or taken from

EDGAR, would be assigned a maximum

number of points that an applicant

could score under that criterion. The

selection criteria would be included in

the application package that the

Department provides to all applicants.

This procedure applies only to fiscal

year 1995 grant competitions under

programs that were newly enacted in, or

substantially revised by, the IASA. To

the extent that any regulations in

EDGAR are inconsistent with this

procedure, those regulations would not

apply if this procedure is used.

Example: A hypothetical program

statute creates a discretionary grant

program for support of innovative

secondary school programs. Among

other requirements, the statute provides

that each application must describe how

the applicant for a grant will address the

needs of limited English proficient

children.

Under this procedure, the Secretary

would create a full set of selection

criteria for the fiscal year 1995 grant

competition from the statute and

EDGAR, with a total maximum score for

all of the criteria determined by the

Secretary. (Usually, the Department’s

grant competitions are based on

selection criteria that have a total

maximum score of 100.) As one of the

criteria, the Secretary could evaluate

applications based on how well the

applicant proposes to meet the needs of

limited English proficient children. The

Secretary might decide to award up to

10 points for this criterion. Applicants

who best addressed the needs of limited

English proficient children would score

the highest number of points under this

criterion.

Waiver of Public Comment

It is the practice of the Secretary to

ask for public comment. However, in

accordance with section 437(d)(1) of the

General Education Provisions Act (20

U.S.C. 1232(d)(1)), the Secretary has

determined that, in order to make timely

grant awards in fiscal year 1995 under

the IASA, it is necessary to waive public

comment on this procedure. The

Secretary will request public comment

on this procedure for future fiscal years

in a separate notice of proposed

rulemaking.

Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980

This procedure has been examined

under the Paperwork Reduction Act of

1980 and has been found to contain no

information collection requirements.

Authority: Improving America’s Schools

Act of 1994 (Pub. L. 103–382).

(Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance

Number does not apply)

Dated: February 28, 1995.

Richard W. Riley,

Secretary of Education.

[FR Doc. 95–5450 Filed 3–6–95; 8:45 am]

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