52186 Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 217 / Monday, November 13, 2017 / Rules and Regulations 

Dated: November 6, 2017. 

Linda E. McMahon, 

Administrator. 

[FR Doc. 2017–24535 Filed 11–9–17; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 8025–01–P 

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR 

Veterans’ Employment and Training 

Service 

20 CFR Part 1011 

[Docket No. VETS–2017–0001] 

RIN 1293–AA21 

HIRE Vets Medallion Program 

AGENCY: Veterans’ Employment and 

Training Service (VETS), Labor. 

ACTION: Final rule. 

SUMMARY: VETS published a proposed 

rule implementing the Honoring 

Investments in Recruiting and 

Employing (HIRE) American Military 

Veterans Act of 2017 (HIRE Vets Act or 

Act). The HIRE Vets Act requires the 

Department of Labor (DOL or 

Department) to establish by rule a HIRE 

Vets Medallion Program (Medallion 

Program) and annually solicit and 

accept voluntary information from 

employers for consideration of 

employers to receive a HIRE Vets 

Medallion Award (the award). Under 

the Program, VETS will review 

applications and notify recipients of 

their awards, and announce their names 

at a time that coincides with Veterans 

Day. This final rule sets out the criteria 

for the different categories and levels of 

HIRE Vets Medallion Awards, the award 

application process, and the award fees. 

VETS invited written comments on the 

proposed rule, and any specific issues 

related to the proposal, from members of 

the public. 

DATES: This rule is effective on January 

12, 2018. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Randall Smith, Veterans’ Employment 

and Training Service, U.S. Department 

of Labor, Room S–1325, 200 

Constitution Avenue NW., Washington, 

DC 20210, email: HIREVETS@dol.gov, 

telephone: (202) 693–4700 or TTY (877) 

889–5627 (these are not toll-free 

numbers). For press inquiries, contact 

Joe Versen, Office of Public Affairs, U.S. 

Department of Labor, 200 Constitution 

Avenue NW., Room S–1032, 

Washington, DC 20210, email: 

versen.joseph.h@dol.gov, telephone: 

(202) 693–4696 (this is not a toll-free 

number). 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Background 

The HIRE Vets Act was enacted on 

May 5, 2017, as Division O of the 

Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2017, 

Public Law 115–31. The purpose of the 

Act is to create a voluntary program for 

recognizing efforts by employers to 

recruit, employ, and retain veterans 

through a HIRE Vets Medallion Award. 

The Act requires the Department to 

issue regulations establishing the HIRE 

Vets Medallion Program. 

In preparation for drafting a rule to 

implement the Act, VETS conducted 

three stakeholder sessions during the 

week of June 5, 2017. During these 

stakeholder sessions, VETS obtained 

input from large, medium, and small 

employers, veterans service 

organizations, military service 

organizations, and other interested 

parties. 

On August 18, 2017, VETS published 

a notice of proposed rulemaking 

(NPRM) to implement the HIRE Vets Act 

(82 FR 39371). VETS invited public 

comment on the proposed regulations, 

and included questions about specific 

issues. The comment period closed on 

September 18, 2017, and VETS has 

considered all timely comments 

received in response to the proposed 

regulations. 

VETS received 18 comments from a 

wide variety of sources. Commenters 

included: Veterans, employers, a 

national organization representing 

service providers, an employer 

association, and members of the public. 

While a few of the comments were 

general comments related to the benefit 

of the program or to veterans issues, the 

majority of comments specifically 

addressed issues contained in VETS’ 

proposed rule. 

Section-by-Section Summary of the 

Final Rule and Discussion of Comments 

This preamble summarizes the final 

rule, section by section, and evaluates 

and responds to the public comments 

received. The subparts of the preamble 

generally follow the subparts of the final 

rule. Within each subpart of the 

preamble, VETS addresses those public 

comments related to regulatory sections 

within that subpart of the rule. If a 

proposed regulatory section is not 

addressed in the discussion below, it is 

because the public comments submitted 

in response to the NPRM did not 

substantively address that specific 

section and no changes have been made 

to the regulatory text. Further, VETS has 

made a number of non-substantive 

changes to improve the readability and 

conform the document stylistically that 

are not discussed in the analysis below. 

Before beginning the section-bysection analysis, however, VETS 

acknowledges and responds to 

comments that did not correspond to 

specific sections of the rule. 

Comments: Several commenters 

expressed general support for the HIRE 

Vets Medallion Program and the 

proposed rule. 

Response: VETS looks forward to 

honoring employers who make it a 

priority to invest in recruiting, 

employing, and retaining veterans. The 

HIRE Vets Medallion Award is based on 

transparent criteria and aims to honor 

all employers, from the smallest to the 

largest, who meet these standards. The 

example set by recipients of this award 

will serve as models for other employers 

committed to hiring and retaining 

veterans. 

Comments: Conversely, several 

commenters expressed skepticism as to 

the utility of the proposed program and 

whether the costs of the proposed 

program outweighed the program’s 

benefits. 

Response: No one is required to apply 

for a HIRE Vets Medallion Award. If the 

costs for an employer exceed the 

benefits, they need not apply. 

Nevertheless, VETS is of the opinion 

that some employers will find that the 

benefits of the award exceed the costs of 

applying. Congress determined that the 

HIRE Vets Medallion Program is a 

constructive way for the Federal 

Government to recognize companies 

that have made significant efforts to hire 

and retain veterans. The HIRE Vets 

Medallion Program will allow VETS to 

further leverage its existing Veteran 

Employment Outreach Program (VEOP) 

that directly supports efforts to assist 

employers in recruiting and employing 

veterans, along with existing 

partnerships with agencies such as the 

Small Business Administration (SBA) 

and State workforce agencies. This 

Program allows VETS to highlight and 

model employer efforts that can assist 

employers nationwide to develop 

veteran employment efforts further. 

Comment: Finally, one commenter 

questioned why the HIRE Vets 

Medallion Program is not administered 

by the U.S. Department of Veterans 

Affairs. 

Response: Under 38 U.S.C. 

4102A(a)(1), the Assistant Secretary of 

Labor for VETS is responsible for all 

DOL employment and training programs 

that to the extent that they affect 

veterans. VETS’ mission is to prepare 

America’s veterans, service members, 

and their spouses for rewarding careers, 

provide them with employment 

resources and expertise, protect their 

employment rights, and promote their 


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employment opportunities. Consistent 

with that responsibility, Congress 

specifically assigned administration of 

the HIRE Vets Medallion Award to the 

Secretary of Labor (Secretary). VETS 

supports workforce resources for 

employers to develop a globally 

competitive workforce and the public 

workforce system is a valuable resource 

to support human capital development 

of workers across the country. The 

system offers essential tools to 

employers to help transform the 

workforce to meet the changing 

demands of the 21st-century economy, 

and to become more competitive. 

Subpart A—Introduction to the 

Regulations for the HIRE Vets Act 

Sections 1011.000 through 1011.015 

detail the program’s purpose, scope, 

definitions, and award types. VETS 

received several comments on the 

definitions at § 1011.005 and on the 

employer size categories at § 1011.015. 

Definition of Veteran 

Comment: One commenter questioned 

the use of the definition of ‘‘veteran’’ at 

38 U.S.C. 101. The commenter 

expressed a desire for VETS to 

incorporate National Guard members 

mobilized under U.S.C. title 32 into the 

definition of ‘‘veteran’’ as it implements 

the statute into final regulatory text. 

Response: Section 8(c) of the Act 

states that the term ‘‘veteran’’ has the 

meaning given such term under 38 

U.S.C. 101. Incorporating all 

mobilization under Title 32 would be 

inconsistent with the meaning of section 

8(c) of the Act. Consequently, VETS 

declines to make this change. However, 

as we stated in the NPRM, VETS 

recognizes that most employers 

determine which employees are 

veterans according to the employee’s 

self-identification. VETS does not 

expect employers to change these 

practices in order to guarantee that 

every employee who self-identifies as a 

veteran meets the definition of veteran 

set out in the Act. VETS’ primary 

concern is that an employer applying for 

an award reports as accurately as it is 

reasonably able. VETS retains the 

language as proposed. 

Employer Size Categories 

Comments: Two commenters 

requested a change to the employer 

award size categories, expressing that it 

might be difficult for companies with 

more than 500 employees but fewer 

than 10,000 employees to compete with 

those employers that have more than 

10,000 employees. One commenter 

questioned if perhaps revenue would be 

a better standard by which to categorize 

employers, while another recommended 

defining large employers as those with 

10,000 or more employees. 

Response: VETS retains the rule 

language as proposed because the 

employer category sizes are established 

by statute in section 3(b) of the Act. 

Consequently, VETS does not have the 

discretion to make this change. 

Subpart B—Award Criteria 

Sections 1011.100 through 1011.120 

enumerate the award criteria for the 

various award categories and levels. 

VETS received a few comments 

suggesting additional criteria or 

requesting clarification on criteria. 

VETS also received several comments 

on the violation of labor law provision 

at § 1011.120. Because many of these 

comments apply across sections, this 

preamble first addresses comments that 

touch on multiple sections, then 

addresses comments on § 1011.120, and 

finally addresses comments suggesting 

new criteria. 

Comments on Proposed Criteria 

Comment: One commenter suggested 

that the same criteria should apply to all 

employers regardless of size. 

Response: For the sake of simplicity, 

VETS retained consistency across 

awards to the extent possible. However, 

to recognize that employers of different 

sizes will likely have different 

resources, VETS proposed that small 

employers need not satisfy as many 

criteria as medium employers and that 

medium employers need not satisfy as 

many criteria as large employers. VETS 

concludes that the proposed language 

strikes the best balance between these 

two interests and retains the language as 

proposed. 

Comment: A commenter requested 

that VETS ensure that there is a 

meaningful retention requirement. The 

commenter also suggested companies 

that hire veterans in order to meet 

award requirements and subsequently 

lay off those veterans be made to return 

any award they receive. 

Response: VETS agrees that retention 

is a very important issue for veteran 

employees. Consequently, every award 

has a retention criterion. As to the 

commenter’s concern about employers 

hiring veterans and then laying them 

off, these awards recognize actions 

taken and VETS will not revoke an 

award if an employer legitimately 

qualified for the award in the previous 

year. However, VETS can revoke an 

award for the reasons described in 

§ 1011.230, including if the employer 

falsely attested to its retention numbers. 

Moreover, § 1011.225 allows VETS to 

review an application, if at any time 

VETS becomes aware of facts that 

indicate information provided by an 

employer may be incorrect, and 

§ 1011.600 requires the employer to 

retain the information supporting its 

application for 2 years. VETS retains the 

language as proposed. 

Comment: One commenter stated that 

for some industries, retention numbers 

are proprietary information and asked 

how employers could ensure that 

information used for judging the award 

would not be released to the public or 

their competitors. 

Response: VETS cannot ensure that 

information submitted for evaluating an 

application will not be released to the 

public. Therefore, information 

submitted by an applicant may become 

available to the public. The HIRE Vets 

Medallion Program is a voluntary 

program. In order to ensure 

reviewability, all applicants must 

provide the required information in 

order to qualify for an award. VETS 

retains the language as proposed. 

Comment: One commenter stated that 

the retained percentage should be 

compared to the number of actual hires 

and that employers should present the 

number of hires along with the number 

of veterans retained within a given 

timeframe. 

Response: VETS agrees that the 

awards should include both hiring and 

retention and such criteria are included. 

Comment: A commenter requested 

that VETS merge the requirements that 

employers establish internal 

organizations (such as the veteran 

organization or resource group) with the 

requirement that employers establish an 

assistance or training program. This 

commenter also suggested that the 

percentage of veteran employees 

enrolled in the veteran organization or 

resource group could be an additional 

weighted criterion. 

Response: VETS retains the language 

as proposed. Section 3(b)(1) of the Act 

establishes these criteria as separate 

criteria intended to serve separate 

purposes. Veteran organizations or 

resource groups are support networks 

for veteran employees while the 

‘‘assistance or training program’’ focuses 

on the provision of post-secondary 

education to veteran employees. 

However, there can be overlap in how 

the employer satisfies its criteria. For 

instance, a large employer’s human 

resources professional might run the 

employee veteran organization or 

resource group. Similarly, the tuition 

assistance program for post-secondary 

education might overlap with the 

programs established to enhance the 

leadership skills of veteran employees. 

As for the suggestion that the percentage 


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of veteran employees enrolled in the 

veteran organization or resource group 

be an additional criterion, VETS 

declines to make this change because it 

would create an additional reporting 

burden for employers. 

Comment: One commenter stated, in 

regard to the dedicated human resources 

professional criterion, that large 

employers might have hiring, training, 

and retention responsibilities spread 

across multiple departments. 

Response: Large employers can have 

veteran hiring, training, and retention 

responsibilities spread across multiple 

departments and still meet the criterion 

at § 1011.100(b)(7). Large employers 

with more than 5,000 employees need to 

have at least one dedicated human 

resources professional per the 

requirements of section 3(b)(1)(C)(iv) of 

the Act, but the definition of Dedicated 

Human Resources Professional in 

§ 1011.005 states that these duties can 

be split amongst multiple people so long 

as the time spent supporting the hiring, 

training, and retention of veteran 

employees is the equivalent of one fulltime professional. Additionally, large 

employers that employ 5,000 or fewer 

employees need not have a dedicated 

human resources professional but may 

instead satisfy this criterion by having at 

least one human resources professional 

whose regular work duties include 

supporting the hiring, training, and 

retention of veteran employees. The 

proposed language is consistent with 

the Act and does not prohibit large 

employers from having veteran hiring, 

training, and retention responsibilities 

spread across multiple departments. 

VETS retains the language as proposed. 

Comment: One commenter expressed 

concern that the pay differential 

criterion was too vague, as it did not 

define the types of deployment to which 

the pay differential criterion applied. 

The commenter also questioned the 

length of time an employer would need 

to offer the pay differential in order to 

satisfy the criterion and whether small 

and medium employers would be able 

to afford the pay differential for more 

than a year. 

Response: The definition of Active 

Duty in the United States National 

Guard or Reserve at § 1011.005 defines 

the types of deployment to which the 

pay differential criterion applies by 

reference to the definition of active duty 

in 10 U.S.C. 101(d)(1). Because this 

definition is well-established and 

sufficiently clear, VETS retains the 

proposed language without change. 

Additionally, VETS appreciates the 

commenter’s concern that the pay 

differential applies for as long as the 

employee is on active duty. However, 

the pay differential is only included as 

part of the platinum award criteria and 

is only required for the large employer 

platinum award. Consequently, 

employers could receive all awards 

except the large employer platinum 

award without satisfying this criterion. 

VETS concludes that inclusion of the 

provision of pay differential for as long 

as the employee is on active duty is 

consistent with the higher standard 

expected of platinum awardees. 

Consequently, VETS retains the 

language as proposed. 

Comment: One commenter requested 

an explicit list as to which programs 

constitute ‘‘assistance’’ or ‘‘training’’ 

programs. 

Response: VETS retains the language 

as proposed in order to retain flexibility 

for employers to provide integration 

assistance that best suits their 

workforce. However, VETS agrees that a 

non-exhaustive list of examples of postsecondary education programs that 

would satisfy the tuition assistance 

program criterion would be useful for 

employers. Examples of post-secondary 

programs and courses for which 

employers may provide tuition 

assistance include: 

b Correspondence training 

b Cooperative training 

b Entrepreneurship training 

b Flight training 

b Independent and distance learning 

b Undergraduate and graduate degrees 

b Licensing and certification 

reimbursement 

b Vocational/technical training and 

non-college degree programs 

b National testing reimbursement 

b On-the-job training and 

apprenticeships 

b Tutorial assistance 

Also, as the proposed rule explained, 

the assistance provided through an 

employer’s tuition assistance program 

may take many forms, including 

financial assistance, leave assistance, or 

discounts on post-secondary education. 

VETS will continue to offer technical 

assistance on the types of activities and 

programs that satisfy the other 

integration assistance criteria. 

Comments on Veteran-Specific Labor 

Violations Criterion at § 1011.120 

Section 1011.120 outlines the 

circumstances that would disqualify or 

delay an employer from receiving a 

HIRE Vets Medallion Award for 

violations incurred under labor laws 

protecting veterans as administered by, 

or in conjunction with, VETS and the 

Office of Federal Contract Compliance 

Programs (OFCCP). Commenters 

supported: The premise that an 

employer that does not take its 

obligations under the Uniformed 

Services Employment and 

Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 

(USERRA) and the Vietnam Era 

Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act 

of 1974 (VEVRAA) seriously is 

undeserving of an award; limiting the 

covered laws to USERRA and VEVRAA; 

and retaining discretion to delay an 

award if VETS has credible information 

suggesting that a significant violation 

may have occurred. A commenter also 

stated that no additional disqualifying 

events should be added to the list. 

Comment: One commenter stated that 

while most of the regulation tracks the 

Act, the Act contained no corresponding 

section to the violation of labor law 

provision proposed at § 1011.120. 

Response: Section 3(b)(1)(E) of the Act 

grants VETS authority to establish 

additional criteria for each level of 

award. VETS used this authority to 

establish the criterion described in 

§ 1011.120. VETS chose to include this 

criterion because employers that have 

been proven to have violated, or have 

explicitly admitted violating the rights 

of their veteran employees should not 

receive an award from VETS for their 

veteran employment practices. VETS 

retains the language as proposed. 

Comment: One commenter suggested 

that ‘‘technical or minor’’ violations of 

USERRA or VEVRAA should not be 

disqualifying. The commenter asserted 

that this provision in the proposed rule 

was similar to provisions in the 

guidance implementing the now 

rescinded Executive Order 13673, and 

that the effect could be employers being 

disqualified for the award for issues 

unrelated to the recruitment, 

employment, and retention of veterans. 

Response: The disqualification 

standard proposed in § 1011.120 is far 

narrower than the one used in the 

implementation of now rescinded 

Executive Order (E.O.) 13673. The E.O. 

covered numerous additional labor 

statutes (instead of just the veteran 

employment protections covered here) 

and would disqualify an employer for 

violation determinations made by the 

agency before judicial enforcement 

proceedings began. Since fairness 

requires that all applicants be subject to 

a clear and consistent standard, the final 

rule will retain the bright line standard 

instead of adopting a flexible standard. 

Additionally, VETS declines to revise 

the regulatory text to distinguish 

between purportedly major and minor 

violations for the purposes of this rule. 

Comment: One commenter questioned 

whether one of the proposed 

disqualifying events, a settlement 

agreement in which the employer 


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admits a violation of either USERRA or 

VEVRAA, should be included given the 

varying reasons that employers enter 

into settlement agreements. If VETS 

were to keep this provision, the 

commenter opined that it should not be 

expanded, so as to avoid creating a 

disincentive for settling allegations. 

Response: VETS retains the language 

as proposed. The rule would only 

disqualify employers with settlement 

agreements in which the employer 

specifically admits to violating USERRA 

or VEVRAA, two laws closely related to 

veteran employment. If the employer 

has violated these laws and admits to 

doing so in a settlement agreement, 

VETS has concluded that this is as 

serious as the judgment of a court or 

tribunal and, thus, considers it a 

disqualifying event. Settlement 

agreements in which the employer does 

not admit liability for violations of these 

statutes would not disqualify an 

employer from consideration. 

Comment: One commenter suggested 

that the regulation more explicitly 

reference the VEVRAA requirement that 

covered Federal Government contractors 

and subcontractors follow mandatory 

job listing requirements. 

Response: VETS retains the language 

as proposed because the fact that VETS 

has incorporated USERRA or VEVRAA 

into the rule should serve to highlight 

all USERRA and VEVRAA requirements 

for covered employers. Additionally, it 

is not appropriate to elevate this single 

aspect of the VEVRAA requirements 

when covered employers must comply 

with all requirements. 

Comment: One commenter raised the 

specific concern that Federal contractors 

attempting to comply with the 

mandatory job listing requirement set 

forth in the VEVRAA statute and 

regulations may nevertheless have 

violations alleged against them, which 

could result in their disqualification 

from receiving an award. The 

commenter expressed concern over an 

employer not being able to qualify for an 

award because, although the employer 

provides job vacancies to a State or local 

employment service as required by law, 

the employment service fails to post the 

vacancies. 

Response: This concern is misplaced. 

First of all, the specific situation 

described by the commenter, in which 

a contractor provides the required job 

vacancy information to the employment 

service delivery system (ESDS) location 

and the ESDS does not post it, does not 

constitute a violation of VEVRAA. Per 

the relevant VEVRAA regulations, so 

long as the contractor provides the job 

vacancy information ‘‘in any manner 

and format permitted’’ by the 

appropriate ESDS, it has satisfied its 

obligation under the regulations, and 

would not be disqualified from 

receiving an award as a result. See 41 

CFR 60–300.5(a)(2). Second, an 

‘‘alleged’’ violation of VEVRAA’s 

mandatory job listing requirement 

would not alone trigger disqualification. 

As this final rule makes clear, only a 

decision of an administrative law judge 

that is not appealed and becomes the 

final agency action, or a settlement 

agreement in which the employer 

explicitly admits that it violated 

VEVRAA, could result in 

disqualification. 

Suggested New Criteria 

Comment: One commenter requested 

that VETS create an alternative criterion 

to the veteran employee percentage 

criterion that weighs the number of 

veterans who are applying for 

employment, potentially tracking 

progress for employers with nascent 

veteran hiring programs. The 

commenter expressed concern that the 

alternative veteran employee percentage 

criterion does not always correlate with 

the effort that employers put into a 

veterans hiring initiative, favoring 

employers with already established 

programs. 

Response: The number of veteran 

applications, while an integral part of 

recruitment, does not necessarily equate 

to hiring or retention, the focus of the 

Act. Therefore, in order to best reflect 

the focus of the Act and to retain 

simplicity, VETS retains the language as 

proposed instead of adding an 

additional alternative criterion. 

Comment: One commenter requested 

that a portion of the application allow 

employers to outline military/veteranfriendly initiatives or awards that the 

employers have received. 

Response: The application form 

contains an optional item that allows 

employers to describe efforts to support 

the veteran and military community. 

However, this item is not a criterion for 

recognition and will not factor into 

whether an employer receives an award. 

It will instead be used to facilitate the 

sharing of good practices for veteran 

hiring and retention. The HIRE Vets 

Medallion Program is a recognition 

program to honor employer 

commitment to, and investment in, 

veteran recruiting and employment. 

Therefore, VETS declines to establish a 

criterion for the HIRE Vets Medallion 

Program related to other military/ 

veteran-friendly initiatives and awards. 

Comment: A commenter requested 

inclusion of an additional criterion 

more specifically targeting community 

and charitable services provided by 

employers to the veteran community. 

Response: Section 2(a) of the Act 

states that the purpose of the Act is to 

recognize efforts by employers to 

recruit, employ, and retain veterans and 

to provide community and charitable 

services supporting the veteran 

community. VETS agrees that 

community and charitable services are 

an integral part of supporting the 

veteran community. However, VETS 

declines to establish an additional 

criterion related to community and 

charitable services because these 

services are already integrated 

throughout the large employer criteria 

that serve as the basis for the small and 

medium employer criteria. 

Consequently, VETS retains the 

language as proposed. 

Comment: One commenter suggested 

an additional criterion that employers 

use the workforce development system 

to list their job openings, either directly 

with State job banks or through the 

National Labor Exchange (NLx). The 

commenter expressed concern that if 

such a criterion is not established, then 

the high-quality jobs offered by 

employers applying for the award might 

not reach the veterans, transitioning 

service members, and spouses served by 

the Department. 

Response: NLx is recognized as a 

workforce system tool that collects and 

disseminates job postings, including 

through State job banks. VETS 

encourages employers to use State job 

banks as a resource to help with the 

recruitment of veteran employees. 

Although VETS encourages the use of 

State job banks, it declines to add a 

related criterion in order to retain 

flexibility for employers in structuring 

how they satisfy the award criteria. 

Comment: One commenter also 

suggested an additional criterion 

requiring engagement with the 

workforce development system or that, 

at the very least, additional 

consideration be provided to 

applications that reflect collaboration 

with the workforce development 

system. The commenter stated that 

employers could use the workforce 

development system to screen job 

applicants and facilitate participation in 

career and hiring events, as well as for 

help with many other activities. The 

commenter noted that these services 

might be particularly critical for small 

employers who lack a human resources 

professional. The commenter also noted 

that employers can serve on State and 

Local Workforce Development Boards 

where they can participate in the design 

and operation of services in their area. 


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Response: The public workforce 

system includes a nationwide network 

of over 2,400 American Job Centers 

(AJCs), a network operated in 

partnership by Local Workforce 

Development Boards, State Workforce 

Agencies, and DOL. VETS will continue 

to work closely with Federal and State 

partners to provide coordinated 

information and services to job seekers 

and employers while continually 

facilitating and developing meaningful 

employment and training opportunities 

for transitioning service members, 

veterans, and military families. 

VETERANS.GOV enables employers to 

directly contact VETS’ VEOP to request 

assistance in hiring veterans. Although, 

as with the comment on including a 

State job bank or NLx criterion, VETS 

encourages employers to take advantage 

of the public workforce system, it 

declines to add a related criterion in 

order to retain flexibility for employers. 

Comment: One commenter suggested 

adding a criterion for procedural 

descriptions of a 6-month onboarding 

process for veteran employees. 

Response: Although VETS agrees that 

effective onboarding of veteran 

employees is important to the 

establishment of a successful working 

environment for veteran employees, the 

final rule retains the language as 

proposed because the various forms of 

integration assistance covered by the 

proposed criteria already answer the 

purpose of this request. For example, 

the veteran organization or resource 

group criterion requires that the 

organization or resource group assist 

‘‘new veteran employees’’ (emphasis 

added). 

Subpart C—Application Process 

Subpart C sets out the application 

process for the HIRE Vets Medallion 

Award. VETS received two comments 

on subpart C. 

Comment: A commenter asked that 

VETS reconsider § 1101.210 and that 

employers be allowed to win an award 

every year. 

Response: The requirement at 

§ 1011.210 is a requirement of the Act. 

Section 2(d) of the Act states that ‘‘[a]n 

employer who receives a HIRE Vets 

Medallion Award for one calendar year 

is not eligible to receive a HIRE Vets 

Medallion Award for the subsequent 

calendar year.’’ Consequently, VETS 

does not have discretion to make this 

change. However, for purposes of 

clarity, VETS has amended proposed 

§ 1011.210 to reference section 2(d) of 

the HIRE Vets Act. 

Comment: A commenter also asked 

VETS to clarify who will be reviewing 

applications for the medallion awards. 

Response: VETS is responsible for the 

application review and award 

determination for the HIRE Vets 

Medallion Program. 

VETS also made a nonsubstantive 

change to § 1011.230(a), clarifying that 

VETS can deny an award if an employer 

fails to satisfy all application 

requirements. This is not a substantive 

change; this requirement was already 

included in § 1011.010. However, VETS 

has added it to the language of 

§ 1011.230 for additional clarity. 

Subpart D—Fees and Caps 

Subpart D sets out the fees for the 

HIRE Vets Program and the application 

caps that VETS can utilize. 

Comment: One commenter requested 

clarity as to whether it is VETS’ 

understanding that the fee authorized by 

section 5(b) of the Act can only be 

collected if a future appropriations 

action triggers the fee collection. 

Response: Section 5(b) of the Act 

grants VETS authority to collect fees 

and states that VETS ‘‘shall establish the 

amount of the fee such that the amounts 

collected as fees and deposited into the 

[HIRE Vets Medallion Award] Fund are 

sufficient to cover the costs associated 

with carrying out this division.’’ 

Therefore, the Act grants VETS 

authority to collect fees and does not 

require a future appropriations action to 

trigger this authority. 

Comment: One commenter expressed 

concern about the accountability of the 

award fund and asked what safeguards 

would be in place to protect money in 

the fund. 

Response: Funds contained in the 

HIRE Vets Medallion Award Fund will 

be subject to the same protections and 

safeguards that are applied to all Federal 

Government funds. 

Subpart E—Design and Display 

VETS received no comments on 

subpart E. 

Subpart F—Requests for 

Reconsideration 

VETS received no comments on 

subpart F. 

Subpart G—Record Retention 

VETS received no comments on 

subpart G. 

Procedural Determinations 

Executive Orders 12866 and 13563: 

Regulatory Planning and Review 

Introduction 

Executive Order 13563 directs 

agencies to propose or adopt a 

regulation only upon a reasoned 

determination that its benefits justify its 

costs; tailor the regulation to impose the 

least burden on society, consistent with 

achieving the regulatory objectives; and 

in choosing among alternative 

regulatory approaches, select those 

approaches that maximize net benefits. 

Executive Order 13563 recognizes that 

some benefits are difficult to quantify 

and provides that, where appropriate 

and permitted by law, agencies may 

consider and discuss qualitative values 

that are difficult or impossible to 

quantify, including equity, human 

dignity, fairness, and distributive 

impacts. 

Under Executive Order 12866, the 

Office of Management and Budget 

(OMB) must determine whether a 

regulatory action is significant and 

therefore subject to the requirements of 

that Executive Order and to review by 

OMB (58 FR 51735). Section 3(f) of 

Executive Order 12866 defines a 

‘‘significant regulatory action’’ as an 

action that is likely to result in a rule 

that: (1) Has an annual effect on the 

economy of $100 million or more, or 

adversely affects in a material way a 

sector of the economy, productivity, 

competition, jobs, the environment, 

public health or safety, or State, local, 

or Tribal governments or communities 

(also referred to as economically 

significant); (2) creates serious 

inconsistency or otherwise interferes 

with an action taken or planned by 

another agency; (3) materially alters the 

budgetary impacts of entitlement grants, 

user fees, or loan programs, or the rights 

and obligations of recipients thereof; or 

(4) raises novel legal or policy issues 

arising out of legal mandates, the 

President’s priorities, or the principles 

set forth in Executive Order 12866. Id. 

VETS has determined that this rule is 

not an economically significant 

regulation—neither the costs nor the 

benefits exceed $100 million dollars in 

any given year. VETS has determined 

that this rule is not a ‘‘significant 

regulatory action’’ under section 3(f) of 

Executive Order 12866. VETS analyzed 

costs and benefits of this rule using 

2016 employment and wage data from 

the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The 

cost analysis uses a 10-year time 

horizon. The benefits analysis is 

qualitative and appears at the end of 

this section. Since the benefits analysis 

is qualitative, there will be no analysis 

of net benefits (benefits minus costs). 

VETS’ estimates of costs are presented 

as follows: 

• Veteran employment and potential 

eligibility for the award—Estimates how 

many employers may meet the 

application requirements of the award. 


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Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 217 / Monday, November 13, 2017 / Rules and Regulations 52191 

1BLS, DOL, Current Population Survey, 2016. 2Watson, Ben, (2014) Veteran Unemployment 

Rate Drops, But Still Outpaces the Rest of the 

Country. www.defenseone.com, May 2, 2014. 

Retrieved from: http://www.defenseone.com/news/ 

2014/05/D1-Watson-veteran-unemployment-ratedrops-still-outpaces-rest-country/83692/. 

• Unit costs—Estimates the unit costs 

of complying with the application 

requirements of the award. 

• Participation rates—Estimates how 

many eligible employers will potentially 

choose to apply for the award. 

• Government costs—Estimates the 

costs to the Government for processing 

the applications and the costs to 

develop the system to support the 

review and approval process. 

• Total annualized costs—Estimates 

the total annualized private and 

Government costs of the program. 

Costs for this regulation are uncertain, 

due partly to the program being entirely 

new with no obvious equivalents; VETS 

cannot anticipate the number of 

employers that will choose to 

participate in the program. For this 

reason, this analysis contains estimates 

that are based on very limited data. This 

is the first veteran hiring award 

established by VETS to recognize 

employers for their accomplishments in 

recruiting, retaining, and hiring 

veterans. 

Introduction 

The methodology for these estimates 

will remain the same as those presented 

in the NPRM. No public comments were 

received addressing the methodology for 

estimating costs of the regulation. VETS 

did receive public comments related to 

some aspects of the analysis, as well as 

comments on the benefits to employers 

and veteran employees. VETS responds 

to these comments in the remainder of 

this section. 

Veteran Employment and Potential 

Eligibility for the Award 

As of 2016 there were 20.9 million 

veterans,1 making up 10 percent of the 

civilian non-institutionalized 

population over the age of 18. While the 

total number of veterans varies over 

time, there are between 240,000 and 

360,000 service members who leave 

military service each year, according to 

a 2013 White House report.2 In 2016 

there were 10 million veterans 

employed according to data collected 

from the Current Population Survey and 

reported by BLS, making up close to 7 

percent of the U.S. employed 

population. 

The three leading industry sectors for 

veteran employment are manufacturing 

(North American Industry Classification 

System (NAICS) code 31–33), with, 1.3 

million veterans; wholesale and retail 

trade (NAICS code 42, 44–45) with 1.1 

million veterans; and professional and 

business services (NAICS code 54–56) 

with 1.1 million veterans. Evaluating 

veteran employment as a percentage of 

total employment by industry highlights 

the various industries where veterans 

make up more than 7 percent of the 

employed population. Based on the 

data, it appears there are many 

industries where a typical employer can 

readily meet the basic criteria of hiring 

7 percent or more veteran employees, 

while it may be more difficult in other 

industries. 

Veteran employment levels at the 3- 

digit NAICS level (industry subsectors) 

were mapped to BLS data from the 

Current Employment Statistics survey to 

derive veteran employment as a 

percentage of total employees by NAICS 

code. The results of this comparison are 

presented in Table 1. A majority of 

private industry subsectors have veteran 

employment of 7 percent or higher; the 

industries with the highest percentages 

were the Petroleum and coal products 

industry with 22.4 percent veteran 

employment, followed by Utilities with 

20.5 percent veteran employment. The 

two industries with the lowest 

percentage of veteran employment are: 

Management of companies and 

enterprises with 0.5 percent and 

Internet publishing and broadcasting 

and Web search portals with 1.0 percent 

veteran employment. Other industry 

sectors where the percentage of veterans 

employed is lower than the national 

average are the healthcare and social 

assistance sector with 3.5 percent, and 

the accommodations and food services 

sector with 1.6 percent veteran 

employment. The concentration of 

veteran employment in utilities and 

manufacturing industries is a reflection 

of the type of military experience many 

veterans offer when seeking jobs that 

match their skill set. 

TABLE 1—VETERAN EMPLOYMENT IN 2016 

Industry 

Veteran 

employment 1

(in thousands) 

Total 

employment 2

(in thousands) 

Percent of 

veterans 

employed 

Total Employment ........................................................................................................................ 10,129 151,423 6.7 

Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas ............................................................................................ 92 626 14.7 

Construction ................................................................................................................................. 588 6,711 8.8 

Manufacturing .............................................................................................................................. 1,285 12,348 10.4 

Durable Goods Manufacturing ..................................................................................................... 898 7,719 11.6 

Nonmetallic Mineral Products ............................................................................................... 39 408 9.6 

Primary Metals and Fabricated Metal Products ................................................................... 156 1,763 8.8 

Machinery Manufacturing ..................................................................................................... 125 1,080 11.6 

Computers and Electronic Products ..................................................................................... 113 1,048 10.8 

Electrical equipment and Appliances ................................................................................... 30 383 7.8 

Transportation Equipment .................................................................................................... 269 1,625 16.6 

Wood Products ..................................................................................................................... 34 392 8.7 

Furniture and Fixtures .......................................................................................................... 28 389 7.2 

Miscellaneous Manufacturing ............................................................................................... 103 591 17.4 

Nondurable Goods Manufacturing ............................................................................................... 387 4,629 8.4 

Food Manufacturing .............................................................................................................. 92 1,554 5.9 

Beverage and Tobacco Products ......................................................................................... 26 233 11.2 

Textiles, Apparel, and Leather ............................................................................................. 23 371 6.2 

Paper and Printing ................................................................................................................ 76 818 9.3 

Petroleum and Coal Products .............................................................................................. 25 112 22.4 

Chemicals ............................................................................................................................. 106 811 13.1 

Plastics and Rubber Products .............................................................................................. 38 699 5.4 

Wholesale and Retail Trade ........................................................................................................ 1,090 21,687 5.0 

Wholesale Trade .......................................................................................................................... 260 5,867 4.4 


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52192 Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 217 / Monday, November 13, 2017 / Rules and Regulations 

3Culbertson, Daniel, (2016) A Deep Look at the 

Data: How Are Veterans Doing in Today’s 

Workforce? Indeed blog, November 10, 2016. 

Retrieved from: http://blog.indeed.com/2016/11/10/ 

veterans-employment/. 

4U.S. Census Bureau, 2014. SUSB Annual 

Datasets by Establishment Industry: U.S. & States, 

NAICS, detailed employment sizes. Accessed on 

6/15/2017 at: https://www.census.gov/data/ 

datasets/2014/econ/susb/2014-susb.html. Eligibility 

estimates by VETS. See text and spreadsheets 

(Docket No. VETS–2017–0001–0002). 

TABLE 1—VETERAN EMPLOYMENT IN 2016—Continued 

Industry 

Veteran 

employment 1

(in thousands) 

Total 

employment 2

(in thousands) 

Percent of 

veterans 

employed 

Retail Trade ................................................................................................................................. 830 15,820 5.2 

Transportation and Utilities .......................................................................................................... 753 5,546 13.6 

Transportation and Warehousing ................................................................................................ 638 4,989 12.8 

Utilities ......................................................................................................................................... 114 556 20.5 

Information ................................................................................................................................... 180 2,772 6.5 

Publishing, Except Internet .......................................................................................................... 15 730 2.1 

Motion Pictures and Sound Recording Industries ....................................................................... 13 420 3.1 

Radio and TV Broadcasting and Cable Subscriptions Programming ......................................... 42 269 15.6 

Internet Publishing and Broadcasting and Web Search Portals ................................................. 2 201 1.0 

Telecommunications .................................................................................................................... 96 795 12.1

Data Processing, Hosting, and Related Services ....................................................................... 10 300 3.3 

Libraries, Archives, and Other Information Services ................................................................... 2 59 3.4 

Financial Activities ....................................................................................................................... 496 8,285 6.0 

Finance and Insurance ................................................................................................................ 309 6,142 5.0 

Finance ................................................................................................................................. 174 3,559 4.9 

Insurance .............................................................................................................................. 135 2,583 5.2 

Real Estate and Rental and Leasing .......................................................................................... 187 2,143 8.7 

Real Estate ........................................................................................................................... 146 1,559 9.4 

Rental and Leasing Services ............................................................................................... 41 583 7.0 

Professional and Business Services ........................................................................................... 1,092 20,136 5.4 

Professional and Technical Services .......................................................................................... 658 8,877 7.4 

Management, Administrative, and Waste Services ..................................................................... 433 11,259 3.8 

Management of Companies and Enterprises ....................................................................... 11 2,241 0.5 

Administrative and Support Services ................................................................................... 384 8,613 4.5 

Waste Management and Remediation Services .................................................................. 38 405 9.4 

Education and Health Services ................................................................................................... 826 22,616 3.7 

Educational Services ................................................................................................................... 161 3,560 4.5 

Health Care and Social Assistance ............................................................................................. 664 19,056 3.5 

Hospitals ............................................................................................................................... 266 5,025 5.3 

Health Services, Except Hospitals ....................................................................................... 322 10,396 3.1 

Social Assistance ................................................................................................................. 76 3,636 2.1 

Leisure and Hospitality ................................................................................................................ 344 15,620 2.2 

Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation ........................................................................................... 128 2,235 5.7 

Accommodation and Food Services ............................................................................................ 216 13,386 1.6 

Accommodation .................................................................................................................... 49 1,947 2.5 

Food Services and Drinking Places ..................................................................................... 167 11,439 1.5 

Other Services ............................................................................................................................. 351 5,685 6.2 

Other Services, Except Private Households ............................................................................... 337 4,961 6.8 

Repair and Maintenance ...................................................................................................... 150 1,289 11.6 

Personal and Laundry Services ........................................................................................... 68 1,445 4.7 

Membership Associations and Organizations ...................................................................... 119 2,950 4.0 

Government—Local 3 ................................................................................................................... 708 14,339 4.9 

Source: 

1BLS, Current Population Survey, 2016. 

2BLS, Current Employment Statistics survey, 2016. 

3 U.S. Census of Governments, 2012. 

(See Spreadsheets, Docket No. VETS–2017–0001–0002 for all sources and derivation). 

The job posting site, Indeed.com, 

identified five occupational categories 

where veterans have the highest levels 

of employment: Transportation and 

material moving, installation 

maintenance and repair, protective 

service, management, and construction 

and extraction. Many veterans find the 

skills and experience they developed 

while in the military align better with 

these occupations than with others, 

making the transition to a civilian job 

easier.3

Due to the fact the award program 

requires a fee, it was determined that 

employers with fewer than five 

employees are relatively unlikely to 

participate in the program (although 

they are still eligible to apply for the 

award if they choose). Very small 

employers with fewer than five 

employees will most likely not hire 

often or may not choose to invest 

resources in actions that would qualify 

them for the award program, thus this 

analysis contains three groupings of 

employer size: Small employers with 5 

to 49 employees; medium employers 

with 50 to 499 employees; and large 

employers with 500 or more employees. 

These groupings were based on the 

availability of data in the U.S. Census 

Bureau 2014 Statistics of U.S. 

Businesses (SUSB),4 which closely 

approximates the definition of small, 

medium and large employers in the 

statute. The SUSB data show a total of 

2,379,033 employers with more than 

four employees. However, knowing the 

percentage of veterans in an industry’s 

workforce does not indicate how many 

employers in that industry can meet the 

quantitative criteria for receiving the 


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Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 217 / Monday, November 13, 2017 / Rules and Regulations 52193 

5BLS Job Openings And Labor Turnover (2017). 

News Release; For release 10 a.m. (EDT), July 11, 

2017, https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ 

jolts.pdf. 

6U.S. Census Bureau, 2014. SUSB Annual 

Datasets by Establishment Industry: U.S. & States, 

NAICS, detailed employment sizes. Accessed on 

6/15/2017 at https://www.census.gov/data/datasets/ 

2014/econ/susb/2014-susb.html. Eligibility 

estimates by VETS. See text and spreadsheets 

(Docket No. VETS–2017–0001–0002). 

award. For example, if 7 percent of an 

industry’s workforce is veterans, there 

will be many employers that are above 

and below this average in any given 

year’s hiring. In order to estimate the 

number of potentially eligible 

employers (those meeting the 

quantitative criteria) in an industry, we 

need to be able to estimate the effects of 

turnover on the ability to meet retention 

criteria, the percentage of employers 

that hire veterans as 7 percent or more 

of their total number of new hires for 

the applicable time period, and the 

percentage with 7 percent veterans in 

their current workforces. The effects of 

turnover on the ability to meet retention 

criteria may be the most difficult 

quantitative criteria to estimate. Average 

separation rates across all industries are 

such that, if veterans’ rates are equal to 

the typical rates of all workers 

considered together, a 75 percent 

retention rate would be difficult to 

meet.5 However, published separation 

rates include seasonal and temporary 

employments, which are excluded 

under the definition of ‘‘employee’’ and 

subsequently from the calculation of 

retention rates in this final rule. Absent 

comments on the methodology and 

more detailed data, VETS retains its 

assumption from the NPRM that half of 

the employers able to meet a 7 percent 

hiring rate will not be able to meet a 

requirement for 75 percent retention. 

For this analysis, if we make the 

simplifying assumptions that the 

percentage of veterans currently in the 

workforce are typical of available new 

hires in an industry, and that each new 

hire and each employee have an equal 

chance of being a veteran, then we can 

use the binomial distribution to estimate 

the probability that an employer has 

more than 7 percent veterans among 

new hires or more than 7 percent 

veterans among existing employees. The 

binomial distribution used here is 

designed to calculate the probability 

that 7 percent or more employees in a 

set of employees are veterans given the 

probability of an event (whether a given 

new hire or employee is a veteran). The 

application of the binomial distribution 

requires estimates of the number of new 

hires per year and the number of 

employees. For this purpose, VETS used 

2014 SUSB6 data on the number of 

employers and employees for small 

employers, medium employers and 

large employers. These averages of new 

hires were 13 employees per employer 

for small employers, 123 employees per 

employer for medium employers and 

3,000 employees per employer for large 

employers. VETS estimated that these 

employers would hire 25 percent of 

their workforce in any given year. Of the 

2,379,033 employers with more than 

four employees, VETS estimates that 

424,952, or 18 percent of all employers 

in the three size ranges, would be 

potentially eligible for the program. 

The complete formulas for the 

probability calculations are given in the 

supplemental spreadsheets (Docket No. 

VETS–2017–0001–0002). There are four 

probabilities needed for these 

calculations: 

PH = the probability that more than 7 

percent of new hires are veterans; 

PE = the probability that more than 7 

percent of employees are veterans; 

PR = the probability that 75 percent of 

veteran hires are retained 

(estimated to be 0.5 in all cases); 

and 

PLYH = the probability that an 

employer hired at least one veteran 

in the year prior to the current year. 

Given these probabilities the formula 

used in the calculations for small and 

medium employers is: 

Total probability = PH + (1¥PH) * PE 

* PLYH * PR 

For large employers, the formula is 

somewhat simpler: 

Total Probability = PH + (1¥PH) * 

PLYH * PR 

Table 2 shows the results for the 

estimate of potentially eligible 

employers by size class and industry. 

TABLE 2—ESTIMATE OF ELIGIBLE EMPLOYERS

Industry 

Total 

employers 

(5+) 

Potentially eligible employers 

Small 

employers 

(5–49) 

Medium 

employers 

(50–499) 

Large 

employers 

(500+) 

Total 

Forestry, Logging, Fishing, Hunting, and Trapping ............. 2,837 536 389 93 1,017 

Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction ................... 9,350 3,377 1,322 0 4,700 

Construction ......................................................................... 204,561 51,059 8,464 915 60,438 

Nonmetallic Mineral Products .............................................. 6,136 1,430 699 244 2,374 

Primary Metals and Fabricated Metal Products .................. 35,064 7,638 3,613 1,025 12,276 

Machinery Manufacturing ..................................................... 14,706 3,928 2,432 682 7,043 

Computers and Electronic Products .................................... 7,439 1,743 1,279 519 3,541 

Electrical Equipment and Appliances .................................. 3,359 553 398 210 1,161 

Transportation Equipment .................................................... 6,458 2,121 1,575 550 4,246 

Wood Products .................................................................... 7,325 1,588 705 165 2,457 

Furniture and Fixtures .......................................................... 7,641 1,417 456 84 1,958 

Miscellaneous Manufacturing .............................................. 11,429 5,057 1,344 340 6,741 

Food Manufacturing ............................................................. 13,073 1,812 722 59 2,593 

Beverage and Tobacco Products ........................................ 2,653 773 247 90 1,110 

Textiles, Apparel, and Leather ............................................. 6,238 998 264 24 1,286 

Paper and Printing ............................................................... 14,483 3,426 1,404 350 5,179 

Petroleum and Coal Products .............................................. 710 253 197 113 563 

Chemicals ............................................................................ 6,476 1,746 1,341 589 3,676 

Plastics and Rubber Products ............................................. 7,397 788 517 18 1,323 

Wholesale Trade .................................................................. 133,958 15,239 2,664 2 17,905 

Retail Trade ......................................................................... 258,174 37,563 4,402 42 42,007 

Transportation and Warehousing ........................................ 61,190 20,258 6,418 2,245 28,921 

Utilities .................................................................................. 2,837 1,185 640 194 2,019 

Publishing, Except Internet .................................................. 9,340 455 37 0 493 


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52194 Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 217 / Monday, November 13, 2017 / Rules and Regulations 

7The value of two is recommended by HHS in 

HHS, Guidelines for Regulatory Analysis, 2016, p. 

33. 

8BLS OES survey (2017). Fringe markup is from 

the following BLS release: Employee Costs for 

Employee Compensation news release text; For 

release 10:00 a.m. (EDT), June 9, 2017 https://

www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ecec.pdf. 

9Occupational Injury and Illness Recording and 

Reporting Requirements: North American Industry 

Classification System Update and Reporting 

Revisions (docket number: OSHA–2010–0019– 

0127). 

TABLE 2—ESTIMATE OF ELIGIBLE EMPLOYERS—Continued 

Industry 

Total 

employers 

(5+) 

Potentially eligible employers 

Small 

employers 

(5–49) 

Medium 

employers 

(50–499) 

Large 

employers 

(500+) 

Total 

Motion Pictures and Sound Recording Industries ............... 4,802 395 30 0 425 

Radio and TV Broadcasting and Cable Subscriptions Programming .......................................................................... 2,857 1,127 344 111 1,582 

Telecommunications ............................................................ 3,705 1,097 498 160 1,755 

Data Processing, Hosting, and Related Services ............... 4,885 334 88 0 422 

Libraries, Archives, and Other Information Services ........... 3,237 269 37 0 307 

Finance ................................................................................ 33,143 3,767 1,228 8 5,003 

Insurance ............................................................................. 33,515 4,844 476 14 5,334 

Real Estate .......................................................................... 47,711 12,428 2,509 778 15,714 

Rental and Leasing Services ............................................... 9,613 1,774 424 166 2,364 

Professional and Technical Services ................................... 205,067 42,079 7,476 2,116 51,670 

Management of Companies and Enterprises ...................... 23,944 66 6 0 72 

Administrative and Support Services ................................... 108,014 12,007 2,405 3 14,415 

Waste Management and Remediation Services ................. 8,782 2,240 570 168 2,977 

Educational Services ........................................................... 43,887 4,718 1,320 1 6,039 

Hospitals .............................................................................. 3,407 16 388 36 441 

Health Services, Except Hospitals ....................................... 247,348 20,285 1,726 0 22,011 

Social Assistance ................................................................. 67,460 3,486 270 0 3,756 

Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation ................................... 42,698 6,202 1,700 59 7,962 

Accommodation ................................................................... 29,467 1,935 130 0 2,065 

Food Services and Drinking Places .................................... 273,382 10,708 262 0 10,970 

Repair and Maintenance ...................................................... 61,091 20,895 1,820 610 23,325 

Personal and Laundry Services ........................................... 58,697 7,987 395 0 8,382 

Membership Associations and Organizations ..................... 121,174 13,647 1,017 0 14,664 

Government—Local ............................................................. 40,882 0 8,273 0 8,273 

Total .............................................................................. 2,311,602 337,247 74,922 12,784 424,952 

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2014. SUSB Annual Datasets by Establishment Industry: U.S. & States, NAICS, detailed employment sizes. 

Accessed on 6/15/2017 at https://www.census.gov/data/datasets/2014/econ/susb/2014-susb.html. 

U.S. Census Bureau, 2012. Government Organization Summary Report: 2012. Accessed on 7/21/2017 at https://www2.census.gov/govs/cog/ 

g12_org.pdf. 

Eligibility estimates by VETS. 

See text and spreadsheets (Docket No. VETS–2017–0001–0002). 

In the NPRM, data from BLS on 

veteran employment were presented as 

a key input for estimating the number of 

eligible employers. VETS did not 

receive comments on the use of BLS 

data for estimating the number of 

employers meeting the criterion of 7 

percent veteran employment. The 

methodology presented in the NPRM to 

estimate the number of eligible 

employers has not been modified, 

although there were various 

commenters who recommended changes 

to the regulation that could have 

impacts on the eligibility estimates. For 

reasons explained in the responses to 

public comments above, VETS did not 

make changes to the rule in response to 

public comments. Therefore, no changes 

were made to the employer eligibility 

estimates used in the NPRM. 

Unit Cost 

Using the information provided in the 

stakeholder meetings, as well as 

estimates from similar analysis done by 

other DOL agencies, burden costs were 

estimated by employer size for each 

aspect of the application process, 

including rule familiarization, 

collection, filling out the form, and 

follow-up/requests for reconsideration. 

VETS used the data from the May 2016 

BLS Occupational Employment 

Statistics (OES) survey. For the 

purposes of this analysis, VETS 

estimates a fully loaded wage rate to 

include fringe benefits and overhead, 

resulting in a doubling of the OES wage 

rate.7 8

Rule familiarization costs are 

estimated to take 1 hour for all 

employers regardless of size; this is 

based on the Occupational Safety and 

Health Administration’s (OSHA’s) 

recordkeeping rule updated in 2014.9

This activity would typically be 

performed by a human resources 

manager at a large or medium employer 

or by a person with equivalent 

responsibilities at a small employer. 

Using the data from the OES survey, the 

mean hourly wage of the human 

resources manager is $57.79. Adding 

overhead and fringe benefits, the fully 

loaded hourly wage rate being used to 

estimate the cost of familiarization is 

$115.58. The regulation is structured by 

employer size, which would not require 

employers to consider all aspects of 

eligibility, but only those that pertain to 

their size. For these reasons, 1 hour was 

estimated for rule familiarization of the 

award program requirements of 

eligibility and the application form 

instructions. 

The eligibility requirements for the 

award program require that all 

employers compile information needed 

to fill out the application form and 

retain the information for 2 years. VETS 

estimated this would require 5 hours for 

large employers and 3 hours for medium 

and small employers. Each criterion for 

eligibility will have an entry in the 

application form. Information requested 

will include the following: Employer 

address and other identifying 


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Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 217 / Monday, November 13, 2017 / Rules and Regulations 52195 

10The ESGR Freedom Award is given to 

employers who are nominated to recognize those 

that support their employees who serve in the 

United States National Guard or Reserve. There are 

up to 15 awards presented each year by firm size 

and to the public sector. http://

www.freedomaward.mil/. 

11BLS OES (2017). Fringe markup is from the 

following BLS release: Employee Costs for 

Employee Compensation news release text; For 

release 10:00 a.m. (EDT), June 9, 2017 https://

www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ecec.pdf. 

information, veteran employment data, 

descriptions of the relevant veteran 

programs, and descriptions of the 

benefits offered to veterans. These 

estimates are an average for the gold and 

platinum award requirements. This 

activity will likely be performed by 

human resources specialists for a large 

or medium employer. Using the data 

from the May 2016 BLS OES survey, the 

mean hourly wage of the human 

resources specialist is $31.20. Adding 

overhead and fringe benefits, the fully 

loaded hourly wage rate used to 

estimate the collection of information is 

$62.40. For a small employer, this 

activity is anticipated to be done by a 

payroll and timekeeping clerk, the mean 

hourly wage for this position as reported 

by BLS is $20.95, and adding the fringe 

benefits and overhead results in an 

hourly wage of $41.90. 

Three hours of labor were estimated 

by VETS for medium and small 

employers to compile information for 

the form; this was determined based on 

the number of award criteria, and due 

to human resources staff in medium and 

small employers being more familiar 

with the day-to-day management of an 

employer. At the stakeholder meetings 

held the week of June 5, 2017, smaller 

employers stated all the information 

needed to apply would come directly 

from the owner and would be easily 

obtained. VETS estimated 5 hours for 

large employers due to the additional 

information required to match the 

criteria for eligibility and the time for a 

human resources manager to determine 

if the programs offered by the employer 

meet the regulation criteria. Larger 

employers at the stakeholder meetings 

provided a range of 1 to 4 days, based 

on their past experience in applying for 

other award programs such as the 

Employer Support of the Guard and 

Reserve (ESGR) Freedom Award.10 The 

application form for VETS’ award 

program requires employers to provide 

employment and descriptive 

information for as many as seven fields 

to as few as one field depending on the 

size of the employer and the award 

level. This is less time consuming than 

the information requested for the ESGR 

Freedom Award. For these reasons, an 

average of 5 hours was estimated for 

large employers, and an average of 3 

hours for medium and small employers, 

to collect and retain needed 

information. 

Large and medium employers are 

expected to incur the cost for running a 

query to identify the number of veterans 

hired and veterans retained for the years 

requested on the application form. The 

majority of large and medium employers 

will have a database system for 

managing their workforce; this system 

typically includes the hire date and 

various demographic information about 

their employees. Running a query 

specifically for this application form is 

estimated to take 2 hours by a database 

administrator at a large or medium 

employer according to comments 

received from the stakeholder meeting 

in early June of 2017. Using the data 

from the May 2016 BLS OES Survey, the 

mean wage of the database 

administrator is $41.89. Adding 

overhead and fringe benefits,11 the total 

wage used to estimate the cost of this 

task is $83.78. Small employers with 50 

or fewer employees typically do not 

manage their workforce using a 

database, and due to the closer 

interactions among employees at small 

employers, the payroll clerk would 

know most of the employees 

individually. Thus, a small employer 

would not have a need to run a query. 

Once the information has been 

gathered by an employer, applicants 

will need to enter the information in the 

form and enter the payment information 

needed on www.pay.gov; this was 

estimated to take 2 hours for a large 

employer, 1.5 hours for a medium 

employer, and 1 hour for a small 

employer. These burden estimates are 

an average for the gold and platinum 

award requirements. A large employer is 

expected to take 2 hours due to the 

additional criteria required to be eligible 

for the award; this activity would be 

done by a human resources specialist. A 

medium employer is expected to take 

1.5 hours because there are fewer 

criteria than for a large employer; this 

activity would be done by a human 

resources specialist. Using the data from 

the May 2016 BLS OES survey, the 

mean wage of a human resources 

specialist is $31.20. Adding overhead 

and fringe benefits, the total wage used 

to estimate the cost of this task is 

$62.40. A small employer is estimated 

to take 1 hour because there are fewer 

criteria than for a medium employer. 

For a small employer, a payroll and 

timekeeping clerk would most likely 

perform this task, with a mean hourly 

wage of $20.95 as reported in the BLS 

2016 OES survey; with added fringe 

benefits and overhead, this results in an 

hourly wage of $41.90. 

The form requires the attestation of an 

executive (chief executive officer, chief 

human resources officer, or equivalent 

official) that the information on the form 

is accurate and true. It is expected that 

this would take 15 minutes for all 

employers applying for the award and 

would most likely require the executive 

to take the time to review the form. For 

a large or medium employer, this 

activity will be performed by an 

executive with a mean hourly wage of 

$93.44 as reported in the BLS 2016 OES 

survey; adding fringe benefits and 

overhead, the hourly wage for this task 

would be $186.88. At a small employer 

where the executive positions may not 

exist, this task may be done by someone 

with equivalent responsibilities and 

duties, such as the owner. For the 

purposes of estimating the cost of 

attestation for small employers we are 

using the wage rate of a human 

resources manager with a mean hourly 

wage of $57.79 as reported in the BLS 

2016 OES survey; adding fringe benefits 

and overhead results in a fully loaded 

wage for this task of $115.58. 

Following up on incomplete 

applications is estimated to take 30 

minutes for 5 percent of employers 

applying, and a request for 

reconsideration would take 30 minutes 

for 1 percent of employers applying. At 

a large or medium employer, following 

up on an application would be done by 

the human resources specialist with an 

hourly wage of $62.40 (including fringe 

benefits and overhead), and a request for 

reconsideration would be handled by a 

human resources manager with an 

hourly wage of $115.58 (including 

fringe benefits and overhead). At a small 

employer, the payroll clerk may likely 

follow up on an application, with an 

hourly wage of $41.90 (including fringe 

benefits and overhead), and the human 

resources manager equivalent would be 

involved in a request for reconsideration 

of a denied application, with an hourly 

wage of $115.58 (including fringe 

benefits and overhead). The majority of 

large and medium employers have 

human resources staff that manage 

different aspects of the workforce, or 

outsource the managing of the database 

for tracking the employer’s workforce 

over time. As a result, large and medium 

employers are expected to have the 

same occupations involved in the 

process of applying for the award, while 

a different set of occupations were 

identified for small employers, which 

typically do not have dedicated human 


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12OPM https://www.opm.gov/policy-dataoversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/

pdf/2017/DCB_h.pdf. 

resources staff or a database 

administrator. 

TABLE 3—BURDEN COSTS BY EMPLOYER SIZE * 

Tasks by employer size Resource Wage Hours Cost 

Large Employer Activities: 

Rule familiarization ............................................. HR manager ......................................... $116 1.0 $116 

Data collection large employers ........................ HR specialists ...................................... 62 5.0 310 

Query report large employers ............................ DB Administrators ................................ 84 2.0 168 

Filling form, large employers ............................. HR specialists ...................................... 62 2.0 125 

Executive signature ............................................ Executive .............................................. 187 0.25 47 

Follow up (assume 5 percent) ........................... HR specialists ...................................... 62 0.5 31 

Reconsideration if denied award (1 percent) .... HR manager ......................................... 116 0.5 58 

Average unit cost per employer ................. .............................................................. ........................ ........................ 855 

Medium Employer Activities: 

Rule familiarization ............................................. HR manager ......................................... 116 1.0 116

Data collection medium employers .................... HR specialists ...................................... 62 3.0 186 

Query report medium employers ....................... DB Administrators ................................ 84 2.0 168 

Filling form medium employers .......................... HR specialists ...................................... 62 1.5 93 

Executive signature ............................................ Executive .............................................. 187 0.25 47 

Follow up (assume 5 percent) ........................... HR specialists ...................................... 62 0.5 31 

Reconsideration if denied award (1 percent) .... HR manager ......................................... 116 0.5 58 

Average unit cost per employer ................. .............................................................. ........................ ........................ 699 

Small Employer Activities: 

Rule familiarization ............................................. HR manager ......................................... 116 1.0 116

Data collection small employers ........................ Payroll and timekeeping clerks ............ 42 3.0 126 

Filling form, small employers ............................. Payroll and timekeeping clerks ............ 42 1.0 42 

Executive signature ............................................ HR manager ......................................... 116 0.25 29 

Follow up (assume 5 percent) ........................... Payroll and timekeeping clerks ............ 42 0.5 21 

Reconsideration if denied award (1 percent) .... HR manager ......................................... 116 0.5 58 

Average unit cost per employer ................. .............................................................. ........................ ........................ 392 

Source: BLS, OES 2016. 

* Wages and costs are rounded values. 

(See Spreadsheets, Docket No. VETS–2017–0001–0002 for all sources and derivation). 

The burden estimates were mainly 

driven by the duration of time expected 

for each aspect of the application 

process, and the type of occupation 

identified as performing the various 

activities for the employer size. 

The rulemaking docket includes a 

spreadsheet used to estimate the unit 

costs to employers who apply for the 

award. The unit costs in the spreadsheet 

included burden costs by employer size 

for each aspect of the application 

process, including rule familiarization, 

collection, filling out the form, and 

follow-up/requests for reconsideration. 

VETS received a few public comments 

related to these aspects of the cost 

estimation. For example, a commenter 

stated that there are ‘‘small employer[s] 

who may lack a dedicated Human 

Resources professional, and rel[y] on the 

AJC staff for many hiring functions.’’ 

VETS agrees that smaller employers 

often will not employ the same type of 

human resources professionals as 

medium or larger employers do, and 

this is reflected in the cost estimates and 

criteria for applying. Other commenters 

suggested changes in certain program 

criteria, which, if adopted by VETS, 

could have impacted unit costs 

associated with filling out the forms. 

However, as explained in the responses 

to public comments above, VETS did 

not make any changes to the award 

criteria in response to public comments. 

Therefore, no changes were made to the 

unit cost estimates used in the NPRM. 

In the NPRM, estimates for cost and 

burden were based on comments 

received from stakeholder meetings and 

OSHA’s recordkeeping rule update in 

2014. 

Government Costs 

The cost to the Government involves 

the intake, review, verification, and 

processing of the applications, and 

notification/distribution of the award. 

To efficiently process applications, 

VETS will develop and maintain a 

system to electronically receive 

applications, review applications to 

determine eligibility, and issue the 

awards. The cost for such a system 

would include IT hardware and 

software, IT maintenance, helpdesk 

costs, and VETS program management 

personnel costs. VETS has estimated 

lifecycle costs. The estimated cost of 

creating an application system and form 

is approximately $933,100, which 

annualized over 10 years at a 3 percent 

discount rate results in a cost of 

$109,388 per year. 

The business process for the intake, 

review, and processing of applications 

was estimated using average wage data 

from BLS occupation codes for each 

phase, including solicitation, 

application processing, application 

review, award notification, and 

reporting to Congress. The cost to the 

Government for processing is estimated 

to be $2.5 million dollars per year based 

on 10,000 applications being processed 

per year. 

As part of the business process there 

will be costs associated with program 

outreach, messaging, and notification of 

award winners. This is estimated to cost 

$245,086 annually. An outreach 

specialist is estimated to spend 1,140 

hours involved in these tasks. The mean 

hourly wage rate for an outreach 

specialist is $45.42, as reported by the 

Office of Personnel Management (OPM) 

for a General Schedule (GS)–13 (Step 1) 

in 2017; 12 plus fringe benefits and 


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13BLS OES occupation code 11–2031 Public 

Relations and Fundraising Managers. 

14BLS OES occupation code 15–0000 Computer 

and Mathematical Occupations. 

15BLS OES occupation code 11–1021 General 

and Operations Managers. 

16BLS OES occupation code 13–1199 Business 

Operations Specialists. 

17BLS OES occupation code 15–0000 Computer 

and Mathematical Occupations. 

18BLS OES occupation code 11–1021 General 

and Operations Managers. 

overhead, the hourly wage for this task 

would be $90.84. These tasks will also 

involve a program manager spending 

1,000 hours with an hourly wage rate of 

$53.67 (GS–14 Step 1); plus fringe 

benefits and overhead, the hourly wage 

would be $107.36. An IT specialist (GS– 

12 Step 1) would also be involved in 

supporting tasks with messaging and 

recognition of award winners, spending 

100 hours, with an hourly wage of 

$38.20; plus fringe benefits and 

overhead, the hourly wage would be 

$76.40. 

The application process will require 

support from contractors to set up the 

process, the receipt of the forms and the 

processing of the applications; this is 

estimated to cost $1,896,940 annually. A 

program specialist will spend 200 hours 

annually with a mean hourly wage rate 

of $59.31 as reported in the BLS 2016 

OES survey; 13 plus fringe benefits and 

overhead, the hourly wage rate would 

be $118.62. An IT specialist will spend 

40 hours to support these activities with 

an hourly wage rate of $42.25; 14 plus 

fringe benefits and overhead, the hourly 

wage is $84.50. The program manager 15

is estimated to spend 151 hours 

processing applications, with an hourly 

wage rate of $58.70; plus fringe benefits 

and overhead, the hourly wage is 

$117.40. A program specialist 16 will 

perform the bulk of the application 

review tasks, totaling 18,569 hours with 

an hourly wage rate of $35.99; plus 

fringe benefits and overhead, the hourly 

wage will be $71.98. 

As part of the review process of the 

applications, VETS will need to verify 

applicants do not have adverse labor 

law decisions, stipulated agreements, 

contract debarments, or contract 

terminations against them under 

USERRA; or the VEVRAA. This 

verification process will involve VETS 

and OFCCP checking their databases for 

award applicants. VETS estimates it will 

take each agency, OFCCP and VETS, an 

average of 15 minutes per application 

for this review. A GS–13 would perform 

the check with a loaded hourly wage of 

$90.84 and spend 13 minutes per 

employer on the list, and a GS–15 with 

a loaded hourly wage of $126.28 would 

spend 2 minutes per employer on the 

list verifying the findings in the initial 

check. The IT process developed to 

support this review will be maintained 

by a contractor 17 spending 240 hours, 

with a loaded hourly wage of $84.50 

(hourly mean wage from BLS without 

fringe benefits or overhead is $42.25). 

The notification of the award will also 

be executed by a contractor, and it will 

involve 50 hours of a program 

manager’s 18 time, with a loaded hourly 

wage of $117.40, and 40 hours of a 

program specialist’s 16 time, with a 

loaded hourly wage of $71.98. 

The oversight of the contract for the 

application processing will be done by 

VETS personnel. This will take 312 

hours of a program manager’s time (GS– 

14), with a loaded hourly wage of 

$107.36, and 120 hours of a program 

specialist’s time (GS–13), with a loaded 

hourly wage of $90.84. 

The statute requires a report to 

Congress; this will be done by VETS 

personnel, and it will cost a total of 

$10,406 dollars annually. This task will 

take a program manager (GS–14), 80 

hours with a loaded hourly wage of 

$107.36, and another 20 hours of time 

for a program specialist’s time (GS–13), 

with a loaded hourly wage of $90.84. 

The cost to the Government was 

estimated in two parts: The costs to 

efficiently process applications and the 

costs of creating the application system. 

VETS solicited comments on the costs 

to the Government to develop a system 

to accept and review applications but 

none were received. 

The supplemental spreadsheet in the 

docket includes the methodology used 

in the NPRM to estimate the costs to the 

Government to process the application 

and the creation of the application 

system; no changes are being made to 

the Government cost calculations. 

Application Fee 

The HIRE Vets Act provides that the 

Secretary may assess a reasonable fee on 

employers that apply for receipt of a 

HIRE Vets Medallion Award and that 

the amount of the fee must be sufficient 

to cover the costs associated with 

carrying out the HIRE Vets Act. The fee 

will cover the costs of solicitation of 

applications, processing applications, 

vetting applicants for labor law 

violations, and award notifications, as 

well as the maintenance cost of the IT 

system used in the processing of 

applications. 

In processing the applications, VETS 

will need to verify the information on 

the form being submitted by employers. 

Given that the number of criteria varies 

by employer size, and will consequently 

require additional review by VETS, the 

fee will vary by employer size to reflect 

the cost of reviewing additional criteria. 

For example, the large employer 

platinum award requires the applicant 

to provide information about five types 

of integration assistance. However, the 

small employer platinum award only 

requires that the applicant provide 

information about two types of 

integration assistance. Consequently, 

the large employer award will take 

longer to review than the small 

employer award will. 

In recognition of these differences in 

the number of criteria and the amount 

of information needing to be reviewed 

and verified as part of processing 

awards, the fees will be graduated to 

reflect the differences in the amount of 

review VETS would need to perform for 

large, medium, and small employers. 

The fee for large employers is $495 per 

applicant, the fee for medium employers 

is $190 per applicant, and the fee for 

small employers is $90 per applicant, 

which covers the anticipated cost to 

VETS for processing 4,152 applications 

in the first year. The fees were estimated 

by taking the average cost to VETS of 

$300 per application, and multiplying it 

using factors of time that reflect the 

information needed to be reviewed. 

Large employers would take VETS 1.6 

times longer than the estimated average 

cost to process the application; for 

medium employers it would be 0.6 

times the average cost, and for small 

employers it would be 0.3 times the 

average cost. 

TABLE 4—GOVERNMENT COSTS

Application processing 

Employers 

4,152 6,228 10,728 

Solicitation .................................................................................................................................... $245,086 $245,086 $245,086 

Receipt and Processing ............................................................................................................... 565,828 823,693 1,382,564 

Violation Vetting by VETS and OFCCP ...................................................................................... 200,119 299,335 514,376 


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TABLE 4—GOVERNMENT COSTS—Continued 

Application processing 

Employers 

4,152 6,228 10,728 

Award Notification ........................................................................................................................ 160,333 236,118 400,366 

Contract Oversight ....................................................................................................................... 44,397 44,397 44,397 

IT Support and Maintenance ....................................................................................................... 20,280 20,280 20,280 

Report to Congress ..................................................................................................................... 10,406 10,406 10,406 

Total Processing Cost .......................................................................................................... 1,246,449 1,679,315 2,617,473 

Average Government Cost per Application ................................................................................. 300 270 244 

Sunk Development Costs: 

Development of Application System .................................................................................... ........................ ........................ 98,625 

Application Form Development ............................................................................................ ........................ ........................ 834,474 

Total Development Costs .............................................................................................. ........................ ........................ 933,099 

Source: OSHA, Directorate of Standards and Guidance, Office of Regulatory Analysis. 

(See Spreadsheets, Docket No. VETS–2017–0001–0002 for all sources and derivation). 

Average cost per application = total processing cost/# of employers. 

The proposed fee in the NPRM was 

estimated to cover the cost to the 

Government, which includes 

solicitation of applications, processing 

applications, vetting applicants for labor 

law violations, and award notifications, 

as well as the maintenance cost of the 

IT system used in the processing of 

applications. VETS did not receive 

comment on the cost estimates for the 

Government, nor the estimated 

graduated fee by employer size. 

The same calculation found in the 

spreadsheet and discussed in the NPRM 

is used to derive a graduated application 

fee by employer size. 

Participation and Costs per Year 

VETS based its estimates of the level 

of participation partly on the CBO 

estimate of 4,000 employers in the first 

year and on the impact the criteria 

would have on the participation levels. 

There were no comments on the 

estimated level of participation; these 

estimates will stay the same. As 

indicated in the Summary and 

Explanation section of this document, 

some commenters expressed doubt that 

employers would be interested in 

participating in the HIRE Vets 

Medallion Program but no commenter 

provided specific data or evidence 

regarding how this supposition would 

impact the participation rates estimated 

in the NPRM. 

CBO originally developed an estimate 

that 4,000 employers would participate 

in the program in the first year. This 

estimate was based on the assumption 

that only 2 percent of employers would 

be potentially eligible and 25 percent of 

medium and large employers potentially 

eligible would apply for the program. In 

CBO’s estimate, small employers were 

excluded from being able to apply based 

on an earlier version of the HIRE Vets 

bill. If CBO had included small 

employers in their estimate using the 

same methodology, the number of 

employers applying would increase to 

close to 50,000 employers. 

As noted above, VETS, making use of 

BLS veterans’ labor force participation 

rate data, estimates that far more than 2 

percent of employers that are eligible 

may choose to participate. Due to the 

lack of data for more accurate 

participation rates, VETS assumes that 

approximately 4,152 employers will 

apply in the first year, but that this 

would increase to 6,228 employers in 

the second year and to 10,728 per year 

in succeeding years. Table 5 shows the 

estimated participation rates by 

employer size class for each year and 

the resulting estimated costs of 

applications. 

TABLE 5—ESTIMATED PARTICIPATION RATES AND NUMBERS OF APPLICANTS BY YEAR

Size class 

1st year 

participation 

rate 

(%) 

1st year 

number of 

applicants 

2nd year 

participation 

rate 

(%) 

2nd year 

number of 

applicants 

3rd year 

participation 

rate 

(%) 

3rd year 

number of 

applicants 

Small ........................................................ 0.1 304 0.2 674 0.6 2,023 

Medium .................................................... 3.0 2,248 4.0 2,997 6.5 4,870 

Large ........................................................ 12.5 1,601 20.0 2,557 30.0 3,835 

Total .................................................. N/A 4,152 N/A 6,228 N/A 10,728 

VETS Estimates (See Spreadsheets, Docket No. VETS–2017–0001–0002 for all sources and derivation). 

Table 6 shows the results of 

multiplying the employer unit costs of 

applying for the award, developed in 

the previous Unit Cost section, by the 

number of anticipated participants to 

obtain the costs by size class and total 

application costs for each year. These 

costs reflect the time and resources 

incurred by the employer when 

applying for the award program; this 

includes all the tasks discussed in the 

previous Unit Cost section. 

TABLE 6—EMPLOYER APPLICATION COSTS BY YEAR

Size class 1st year costs 2nd year costs 3rd year costs 

Small ............................................................................................................................................ $95,215 $211,589 $634,767 


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TABLE 6—EMPLOYER APPLICATION COSTS BY YEAR—Continued 

Size class 1st year costs 2nd year costs 3rd year costs 

Medium ........................................................................................................................................ 1,377,355 1,836,473 2,984,269 

Large ............................................................................................................................................ 1,230,468 1,965,603 2,948,405 

Total ...................................................................................................................................... 2,703,038 4,013,665 6,567,441 

VETS Estimates (See Spreadsheets, Docket No. VETS–2017–0001–0002 for all sources and derivation). 

There are multiple factors that would 

contribute to the participation rate of 

large, medium, and small employers, 

such as the application fee, amount of 

outreach by VETS, and the potential 

benefits gained by the employers 

receiving the award. The problem here 

is a classically difficult one in 

economics—that of estimating demand 

for new products. In this case, we have 

little data and few comparable products 

on which to base an estimate. VETS is 

aware that the total costs are dependent 

on the number of employers that apply 

and the number could be much lower or 

higher than VETS’ baseline estimates. 

At the stakeholder meetings, some 

representatives from larger employers 

stated their willingness to pay up to 

several thousand dollars, while 

representatives for smaller employers 

didn’t specify a fee amount they would 

be willing to pay. It would seem 

reasonable to assume a fee of more than 

several hundred dollars would 

discourage many small employers from 

applying. The total cost, burden plus 

fees, is estimated to range from $404 for 

small employers to $1,264 for large 

employers. Depending on the success of 

outreach and other messaging, these 

efforts could attract more applicants 

than CBO’s estimate. Over the long 

term, employers will want to apply if 

there are quantifiable benefits in the 

form of increased revenue if this award 

attracts more customers, and by 

increasing the pool of veteran applicants 

when they are hiring. These factors have 

the potential to increase the number of 

participating employers to close to 

50,000. Higher participation would 

result in increased costs relative to the 

overall cost burden and overall 

Government cost. However, considering 

all costs, the program will most likely 

not have costs in excess of $100 million 

per year. Such costs would only occur 

if 100 percent of potentially eligible 

medium and large employers and 25 

percent of potentially eligible small 

employers apply every year. 

Total Annualized Costs 

VETS estimated annualized costs to 

employers for participation in this 

award program over a 10-year period 

using 3 percent and 7 percent discount 

rates based on the costs of application 

and costs to the Government developed 

above. These total costs are provided in 

Table 7. 

TABLE 7—TOTAL ANNUALIZED COSTS OF THE FINAL RULE

Cost element Annualized 

costs at 3% 

Annualized 

costs at 7% 

First year 

costs (if 

different from 

annualized 

costs) 

Costs for Preparing Applications ................................................................................................. $5,845,415 $5,735,649 $2,703,038 

Costs to Government of Processing Application (to be reimbursed through fees) .................... 2,357,854 2,318,462 1,246,449 

Total Private Sector Costs, Including Fees for Government Processing ................................... 8,203,269 8,054,111 3,949,487 

Costs to Government for Developing System (not reimbursed by fees) .................................... 109,388 132,852 933,099 

Total ...................................................................................................................................... 8,312,657 8,186,963 4,882,586 

VETS Estimates (See Spreadsheets, Docket No. VETS–2017–0001–0002 for details). 

Alternatives 

VETS considered alternative 

quantitative criteria for small and 

medium employers. One alternative 

would have been to change the 

proposed criteria for small and medium 

employers that require applicants to 

have both a retention rate of 75 percent 

(for gold)/85 percent (for platinum) and 

a veteran employee percentage of 7 

percent (for gold)/10 percent (for 

platinum). Instead, this first proposed 

alternative criterion would have 

dropped the veteran employee 

percentage requirement. Keeping all the 

participation rates the same, VETS 

estimates that this change would have 

increased the number of potentially 

eligible employers by 38 percent, 

increased participation in the program 

by 19 percent, and increased annualized 

costs from approximately $8 million per 

year to $11.9 million a year. This 

alternative had the disadvantage that it 

would have allowed employers who had 

not recently achieved a 7 percent hiring 

goal to win the award. 

VETS also considered an option in 

which small and medium employers 

could have qualified if they met either 

of the following: (1) 7 percent of the 

employer’s new hires during the 

previous year were veterans, or (2) 7 

percent of the employees it hired over 

the last 2 years were veterans and the 

employer retained 75 percent of those 

veterans hired in the first year of that 

timeframe (previous year of the previous 

year). This alternative would have 

broadened the hiring eligibility 

timeframe. This option would have also 

slightly increased program eligibility, 

but it would have done so by 

significantly increasing small employer 

eligibility while lowering eligibility for 

medium employers. VETS concluded 

that this was not a useful effect given 

that medium employers are more likely 

to participate in the program than small 

employers are. 

VETS also examined an option in 

which the only hiring and retention 

criteria for small and medium 

employers would have been that 7 

percent of new hires over the last 2 

years were veterans along with a 75 

percent retention criterion from the first 

of the 2 years (previous year of the 

previous year). Under this option, 

employers would no longer have been 


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52200 Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 217 / Monday, November 13, 2017 / Rules and Regulations 

19Strauss, Karsten, (2016) How Veterans Adjust 

To The Civilian Workforce, November 11th, 2016. 

Retrieved from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ 

karstenstrauss/2016/11/11/how-veterans-adjust-tothe-civilian-workforce/2/#2d316ff8395d. 

20Military & Defense team, (2016) 10 Reasons 

Companies Should Hire Military Veterans, 

November 11, 2016. Retrieved from: http://

www.businessinsider.com/reasons-companiesshould-hire-military-veterans-2016-11. 

21Mulhere, Kaitlin, (2016) Paying Their Workers’ 

College Tuition Can Pay Off for Companies. April 

25, 2016. Retrieved from: http://time.com/money/ 

4305549/paying-their-workers-college-tuition-canpay-off-for-companies/. 22Altman, Jack, (2017) How Much Does 

Employee Turnover Really cost? January 18th, 2017. 

Retrieved from: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/ 

entry/how-much-does-employee-turnover-reallycost_us_587fbaf9e4b0474ad4874fb7. 23Narayanan, Sukruti, (2017) The 5 Benefits of 

Receiving Corporate Awards. January 15, 2017. 

Retrieved from: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5- 

benefits-receiving-corporate-awards-sukrutinarayanan. 

able to satisfy the hiring and retention 

criteria solely by having 7 percent of 

their new hires in the previous year be 

veterans. This approach also would 

have increased small employer 

eligibility at the expense of decreasing 

medium employers’ eligibility. Again, 

because of expected high participation 

rates by medium employers relative to 

small employers, VETS decided not to 

adopt this alternative. 

None of these estimates take into 

account the cost savings to both the 

private sector and the Government of 

these alternatives. 

VETS solicited comments on these 

proposed alternatives for medium and 

small employers but did not receive any 

specific comments to the alternatives 

proposed. Therefore, the criteria 

presented in the NPRM will not change 

for the final rule and VETS will not 

adopt the alternatives discussed here. 

Benefits 

VETS expects that employers will 

want to apply for the award if there are 

quantifiable benefits in the form of 

increased revenue generated by 

attracting more or repeat customers, or 

a better pool of veteran applicants for 

jobs. 

The unemployment rate of veterans 

trends lower than the civilian 

unemployment rate, but regionally, the 

unemployment rate for veterans can 

vary from a low of 1.8 percent in 

Indiana to a high of 7.6 percent in the 

District of Columbia, as reported in the 

March 2016 Employment Situation of 

Veterans release by BLS. The higher 

unemployment rate for veterans in the 

District of Columbia can be attributed to 

the labor market there, which is mostly 

composed of professional and service 

industry occupations where historically 

there are lower employment rates for 

veteran workers. These veterans are 

experienced, mission-focused, 

responsible, independent, and capable 

workers who often face difficulties 

finding jobs that match their skills. In a 

2016 Forbes article 19 highlighting 

veterans’ issues as they adjusted to the 

civilian workforce, the top challenges 

reported for veterans are a lack of 

training or education for the work, lack 

of advancement opportunities, and 

employers undervaluing their military 

experience. 

Many employers who seek out 

veterans to hire have stated there are 

many benefits in attracting veterans, 

such as the experience they bring, more 

focused attention, and the ability to 

work independently.20 Employers who 

attain the award will be able to market 

themselves as a veteran friendly 

employer and be able to attract more 

veterans for job openings. 

VETS received some comments 

regarding the benefits described in the 

NPRM. The purpose of the HIRE Vets 

Medallion Award is to recognize 

employers who have recruited and 

retained veterans, as well as the efforts 

by these employers to establish 

employee development programs for 

veterans and to offer veteran specific 

benefits to improve retention. Those 

employers who meet the criteria to 

receive the award most likely recognize 

the benefits of employing veterans and 

would want to attract more veteran 

employees in the future. A recipient of 

this award would have the opportunity 

to utilize the medallion in the marketing 

of their firm when hiring, as well as to 

attract additional business. One 

commenter stated that employers 

already have a means to ‘‘advertise that 

they hire vets,’’ concluding that this 

award would not result in new added 

benefits to employers. In addition, a 

couple commenters questioned if 

employers would be interested in 

applying given the burden of applying 

and the lack of quantifiable benefits. 

While benefits were not quantified, the 

employers in the stakeholder meetings 

and in the 2016 Forbes article 19

discussed above both asserted that there 

are benefits employers receive from 

hiring veterans, and this award will 

enable employers to attract more 

veterans to their job openings. 

Other comments supported the idea 

that a HIRE Vets Medallion Award 

would yield tangible benefits to 

employers. For example, a commenter 

expressed that ‘‘[o]nce employers who 

participate in this program start hiring 

more veterans, other companies will see 

the positive impact it has on business 

and hopefully will follow in the same 

direction’’ (VETS–2017–0001–0018). 

This award program was mandated by 

an act of Congress to recognize those 

employers who currently meet those 

criteria in hiring, retaining, and 

supporting veteran employees. These 

employers have engaged with veteran 

employees because there are benefits 

gained, but as stated above, these 

benefits are not easily quantified. A 

Time article from April 25, 2016, 

‘‘Paying Their Workers’ College Tuition 

Can Pay Off for Companies,’’ stated that 

tuition reimbursement, ‘‘reduced 

employee turnover and lower[ed] 

recruiting costs,’’ demonstrating the 

financial benefit these programs can 

have to employers’ bottom lines.21

Employee resources groups, leadership 

training, differential pay, and tuition 

reimbursement have all been shown to 

reduce turnover.22 In an article from the 

Huffington Post, ‘‘How Much Does 

Employee Turnover Really Cost,’’ 

posted on January 19, 2017, the author 

found that ‘‘the cost of losing an 

employee can range from tens of 

thousands of dollars to 1.5–2.0x the 

employee’s annual salary.’’ As these 

articles demonstrate, employers 

applying for a HIRE Vets Medallion 

Award are reaping many benefits, and 

this award will allow them to maximize 

the return on their investment in the 

employee programs they offer. 

Attaining awards can also result in 

benefits to businesses in the form of 

increased marketing potential, improved 

standing in their industry, recognition 

as a leader, and improved employee 

engagement.23 These benefits discussed 

are all reasons that businesses 

participate in awards and offer 

employee development programs. 

Regulatory Flexibility Certification 

For regulatory flexibility purposes for 

this rule, economic impacts are 

considered significant in any given 

sector if costs are greater than 1 percent 

of revenues or 5 percent of profits. For 

the purpose of determining impacts on 

small employers, VETS considered costs 

as a percentage of revenues and profits 

by industry sector for employers with 5 

to 500 employees. (Note that this 

definition of ‘‘small employers’’ is 

consistent with SBA’s definition and 

differs from that established by Congress 

for purposes of the HIRE Vets Medallion 

Program.) Table 8 shows the minimum 

and maximum impacts for each 3-digit 

subsector within the 2-digit sector 

shown. (Full impacts and derivation are 

given in the supplemental spreadsheets, 

Docket No. VETS–2017–0001–0002.) 

Table 8 shows that no industry sector 

has costs in excess of 1 percent of 

revenues or 5 percent of profits. 


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Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 217 / Monday, November 13, 2017 / Rules and Regulations 52201 

TABLE 8—ECONOMIC IMPACTS

NAICS Title 

Average 

revenue per 

establishment 

Average cost 

to revenues 

Average cost 

to profits 

Minimum 

(%) 

Maximum 

(%) 

Minimum 

(%) 

Maximum 

(%) 

11 ................... Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing, and Hunting.4,244,996 0.009 0.026 0.176 0.844 

21 ................... Mining ...................................................... 13,371,157 0.002 0.009 0.068 0.068 

22 ................... Utilities ..................................................... 21,521,736 0.003 0.003 ¥0.220 * ¥0.220 * 

31–33 ............. Manufacturing .......................................... 10,225,679 0.002 0.021 0.030 0.485 

42 ................... Wholesale Trade ..................................... 20,024,426 0.002 0.006 0.014 0.203 

44–45 ............. Retail Trade ............................................. 3,928,643 0.005 0.042 0.243 0.243 

48–49 ............. Transportation ......................................... 5,700,083 0.004 0.039 0.051 4.545 

51 ................... Information ............................................... 4,990,489 0.009 0.020 ¥0.165* 0.192 

52 ................... Finance and Insurance ............................ 5,367,956 0.007 0.019 0.015 0.314 

53 ................... Real Estate .............................................. 4,371,291 0.007 0.025 0.038 0.566 

54 ................... Professional, Scientific, and Technical 

Services.

2,986,458 0.020 0.020 0.517 0.517 

55 ................... Management ............................................ 2,306,072 0.026 0.026 0.131 0.131 

56 ................... Administrative and Support, Waste Management and Remediation Services.2,727,336 0.018 0.030 0.426 0.765 

61 ................... Educational Services ............................... 2,514,535 0.024 0.024 0.522 0.522 

62 ................... Health Care ............................................. 8,435,099 0.003 0.051 0.052 0.964 

71 ................... Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation ....... 2,963,512 0.014 0.039 0.236 2.414 

72 ................... Accommodation and Food Services ....... 1,381,321 0.033 0.065 0.505 1.224 

81 ................... Other Services ......................................... 1,319,709 0.030 0.094 1.222 2.905 

Source: VETS based on data from IRS (U.S. Internal Revenue Service), 2013. Corporation Source Book, 2013. https://www.irs.gov/statistics/ 

soi-tax-stats-corporation-source-book-us-total-and-sectors-listing, Accessed by Eastern Resource Group, Inc., 2016. 

U.S. Census Bureau, 2012. SUSB Employment and Payroll Summary: 2012-Data by enterprise employment size, Accessed on 7/11/2017 at 

https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2012/econ/susb/2012-susb-annual.html. 

See Spreadsheets, Docket No. VETS–2017–0001–0002, for full derivation. 

*Negative profit rates reported for these industries. 

As a result of these considerations, 

per section 605 of the Regulatory 

Flexibility Act (RFA), VETS certifies 

that this final rule will not have a 

significant economic impact on a 

substantial number of small entities. 

VETS did not receive comments on 

this certification. Further, it should be 

noted that small employers are only 

subject to this rule if they choose to 

apply for the award. Thus, no small 

business needs to incur the costs unless 

they find that the benefits exceed the 

costs for them. 

References 

Altman, 2017. How Much Does Employee 

Turnover Really cost? 

Huffingtonpost.com January 18, 2017. 

From: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/

entry/how-much-does-employeeturnover-really-cost_us_

587fbaf9e4b0474ad4874fb7. 

BLS, 2016. Current Population Survey. 

Available at www.bls.gov/cps. 

BLS, 2017. Job Openings And Labor 

Turnover—July 11, 2017. Available at 

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ 

jolts.pdf. 

BLS, 2017. OES. Fringe markup is from the 

following BLS release: Employee Costs 

for Employee Compensation—June 9, 

2017. Available at https://www.bls.gov/

news.release/pdf/ecec.pdf. 

Culbertson, 2016. A Deep Look at the Data: 

How Are Veterans Doing in Today’s 

Workforce?. Indeed blog, November 10, 

2016. From: http://blog.indeed.com/

2016/11/10/veterans-employment/. 

VETS based on data from IRS (U.S. Internal 

Revenue Service), 2013. Corporation 

SourceBook, 2013. https://www.irs.gov/

statistics/soi-tax-stats-corporationsource-book-us-total-and-sectors-listing, 

Accessed by ERG, 2016. 

Fleishman, 2014. Hilton Helping Veterans 

with Jobs, Free Hotel Stays. G.I. Money, 

January 16, 2016. From: http://

gimoney.com/hilton-helping-veteransjobs-free-hotel-stays/. 

HHS, 2016. Guidelines for Regulatory 

Analysis. Page 33, available at https://

aspe.hhs.gov/system/files/pdf/242926/

HHS_RIAGuidance.pdf. 

Military & Defense team, 2016. 10 Reasons 

Companies Should Hire Military 

Veterans, November 11, 2016. From: 

http://www.businessinsider.com/

reasons-companies-should-hire-militaryveterans-2016-11. 

Occupational Injury and Illness Recording 

and Reporting Requirements: North 

American Industry Classification System 

Update and Reporting Revisions (Docket 

No. OSHA–2010–0019–0127). 

Strauss, 2016. How Veterans Adjust To The 

Civilian Workforce, November 11, 2016. 

From: https://www.forbes.com/sites/

karstenstrauss/2016/11/11/howveterans-adjust-to-the-civilianworkforce/2/#2d316ff8395d. 

Watson, 2014. Veteran Unemployment Rate 

Drops, But Still Outpaces the Rest of the 

Country. www.defenceone.com, May 2, 

2014. From: http://

www.defenseone.com/news/2014/05/D1- 

Watson-veteran-unemployment-ratedrops-still-outpaces-rest-country/83692/. 

U.S. Census Bureau, 2014. SUSB Annual 

Datasets by Establishment Industry: U.S. 

& States, NAICS, detailed employment 

sizes. Accessed on 6/15/2017 at https:// 

www.census.gov/data/datasets/2014/ 

econ/susb/2014-susb.html. Eligibility 

estimates by VETS. See text and 

spreadsheets (Docket No. VETS–2017– 

0001–0002). 

Paperwork Reduction Act 

Overview 

The final HIRE Vets Medallion Award 

regulations contain collections of 

information (paperwork) requirements 

that are subject to review by OMB. The 

Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 

(PRA), 44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq., and its 

implementing regulations, 5 CFR part 

1320, require that the Department 

consider the impact of paperwork and 

other information collection burdens 

imposed on the public. A Federal 

agency generally cannot conduct or 

sponsor a collection of information, and 

the public is generally not required to 

respond to an information collection, 

unless it is approved by OMB under the 

PRA and displays a currently valid 

OMB Control Number. In addition, 

notwithstanding any other provisions of 

law, no person may generally be subject 

to penalty for failing to comply with a 

collection of information that does not 


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52202 Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 217 / Monday, November 13, 2017 / Rules and Regulations 

display a valid OMB Control Number. 

See 5 CFR 1320.5(a) and 1320.6. 

Solicitation of Comments 

On August 18, 2017, VETS published 

two separate Federal Register Notices 

that allowed the public an opportunity 

to comment on the proposed 

Information Collection Request (ICR) 

containing the collections of 

information contained in the proposed 

regulations and the HIRE Vets 

Medallion Award application and 

forms. First, in accordance with the PRA 

(44 U.S.C. 3507), the HIRE Vets 

Medallion Program NPRM provided 30 

days for the public to comment on the 

ICR (82 FR 39390). However, the PRA 

requires that agencies provide a 60-day 

public comment period on the 

collections of information in accordance 

with 44 U.S.C. 3506(c). As a result, 

VETS published a second companion 

notice to the NPRM (82 FR 39460) 

allowing the public the full 60 days to 

comment on the collections of 

information contained in the proposal. 

On August 18, 2017, VETS submitted an 

ICR for the proposed rule to OMB for 

review in accordance with 44 U.S.C. 

3507(d). 

On October 25, 2017, OMB issued a 

Notice of Action (NOA) commenting on 

the proposal’s ICR. OMB commented 

that the NOA is not an approval to 

conduct or sponsor the collections of 

information contained in the proposal. 

OMB noted that this action has no effect 

on any current approvals and assigned 

the ICR control number 1293–0015 to be 

used in future ICR submissions. Also, 

OMB instructed the Agency to resubmit 

this ICR when the final rule is issued. 

Collection of Information Requirements 

VETS received comments addressing 

the collections of information and the 

burden hour cost analysis. Responses to 

these comments are found in the 

Section-by-Section Summary of the 

Final Rule and Discussion of Comments 

and Executive Orders 12866 and 13563: 

Regulatory Planning and Review 

Introduction sections of the preamble. 

As related to this rulemaking, VETS 

submitted the final ICR, containing the 

full analysis and description of the 

burden hours and costs associated with 

the final rule, to OMB on the date of 

publication for approval. A copy of this 

ICR is available at https://

www.reginfo.gov/public/do/

PRAOMBHistory?ombControl

Number=1293-0015 (this link will 

become active on the day following 

publication of the final rule). This 

request also seeks authority for VETS to 

engage in a demonstration of the 

information collection and award in 

2018, before the implementation of this 

rule; this demonstration would not 

involve the collection of application 

fees. 

The regulations implementing the 

HIRE Vets Act require the Secretary 

annually to solicit and accept voluntary 

information from employers for 

consideration of employers to receive a 

HIRE Vets Medallion Award. The Act 

establishes specific criteria at two 

levels, ‘‘Gold’’ and ‘‘Platinum,’’ for large 

employers (those with 500 or more 

employees) and allows the Secretary 

discretion in establishing criteria for 

small and medium employers to qualify 

for similar awards. 

The final rule includes the 

application process and criteria VETS 

will use to receive, review, and process 

applications; verify the information 

provided; and award the HIRE Vets 

Medallion Award to those employers 

meeting the criteria. VETS developed 

the HIRE Vets application forms [VETS– 

1011LP, VETS–1011LG, VETS–1011MP, 

VETS–1011MG, VETS–1011SP, VETS– 

1011SG] for employers to complete and 

submit to VETS to fulfill the regulatory 

requirements to receive an award. The 

Act establishes a fund, designated as the 

‘‘Hire Vets Medallion Award Fund,’’ 

and allows the Secretary to assess a 

reasonable fee from the applicants to 

cover the costs associated with carrying 

out the HIRE Vets Medallion Program. 

The final rule provides the fee amount 

and how to submit the fee. 

The final rule, like the proposed rule, 

provides specific award criteria for large 

employers to qualify for the gold and 

platinum awards. Although the number 

of criteria an employer is required to 

satisfy in the final rule differs by award, 

the large employer criteria established 

by statute are generally incorporated 

across the large employer, medium 

employer, and small employer awards. 

The applications require employers to 

provide information to meet award 

criteria dependent upon the size of the 

employer and the level of award the 

employer is requesting, gold or 

platinum. The following table provides 

the corresponding regulatory citation for 

each award type. In addition, employers 

must maintain documentation of the 

information relied upon to complete the 

application for 2 years after the 

application is submitted to VETS 

(§ 1011.600). 

FINAL REGULATORY PROVISION

Employer 

size Gold award Platinum award 

Large ......... § 1011.100(a) § 1011.100(b) 

Medium ..... § 1011.105(a) § 1011.105(b) 

FINAL REGULATORY PROVISION— 

Continued 

Employer 

size Gold award Platinum award 

Small ......... § 1011.110(a) § 1011.110(b) 

The applications solicit information 

that VETS will review and evaluate to 

determine if an employer will receive an 

award. Employers are required to 

maintain information relied upon to 

complete their application for 2 years, 

as previously noted. VETS may request 

this information if additional 

verification is needed, or in case VETS 

becomes aware of facts that may 

indicate information submitted on the 

application may be incorrect. 

Title of Collection: Honoring 

Investments in Recruiting and 

Employing American Military Veterans 

Act. 

OMB Control Number: 1293–0015. 

Total Estimated Number of 

Respondents: 7,036. 

Total Estimated Number of 

Responses: 34,245. 

Total Estimated Annual Time Burden 

Hours: 58,716. 

Total Estimated Annual Other Costs 

Burden: $1,847,746. 

Small Business Regulatory Enforcement 

Fairness Act of 1996 

VETS has determined that this final 

rule does not impose a significant 

economic impact on a substantial 

number of small entities under the RFA; 

therefore, VETS is not required to 

produce any Compliance Guides for 

Small Entities, as mandated by the 

Small Business Regulatory Enforcement 

Fairness Act for rules with such 

impacts. 

Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 

1995 

For purposes of the Unfunded 

Mandates Reform Act of 1995, 2 U.S.C. 

1532, this final rule does not include 

any Federal mandate that may result in 

excess of $100 million in expenditures 

by State, local, and Tribal governments 

in the aggregate or by the private sector. 

Executive Order 13132 (Federalism) 

VETS has reviewed this final rule in 

accordance with Executive Order 13132 

regarding federalism and has 

determined that it does not have 

‘‘federalism implications.’’ This rule 

will not ‘‘have substantial direct effects 

on the States, on the relationship 

between the national government and 

the States, or on the distribution of 

power and responsibilities among the 

various levels of government.’’ 


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Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 217 / Monday, November 13, 2017 / Rules and Regulations 52203 

Executive Order 13084 (Consultation 

and Coordination With Indian Tribal 

Governments) 

This final rule does not have Tribal 

implications under Executive Order 

13175 that require a Tribal summary 

impact statement. The final rule does 

not have substantial direct effects on 

one or more Indian Tribes, on the 

relationship between the Federal 

Government and Indian Tribes, or on 

the distribution of power and 

responsibilities between the Federal 

Government and Indian Tribes. 

Plain Language 

The final rule uses plain language. 

Effects on Families 

The undersigned hereby certifies that 

the final rule would not adversely affect 

the well-being of families. 

Executive Order 13045 (Protection of 

Children) 

This final rule would have no 

environmental health risk or safety risk 

that may disproportionately affect 

children. 

Environmental Impact Assessment 

A review of this final rule in 

accordance with the requirements of the 

National Environmental Policy Act of 

1969 (NEPA), 42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.; the 

regulations of the Council on 

Environmental Quality, 40 CFR part 

1500 et seq.; and DOL NEPA 

procedures, 29 CFR part 11, indicates 

the final rule would not have a 

significant impact on the quality of the 

human environment. There is, thus, no 

corresponding environmental 

assessment or an environmental impact 

statement. 

Executive Order 13211 (Energy Supply) 

This final rule is not subject to 

Executive Order 13211. It will not have 

a significant adverse effect on the 

supply, distribution, or use of energy. 

Executive Order 12630 

(Constitutionally Protected Property) 

This final rule is not subject to 

Executive Order 12630 because it does 

not involve implementation of a policy 

that has takings implications or that 

could impose limitations on private 

property use. 

Executive Order 12988 (Civil Justice 

Reform Analysis) 

This final rule was drafted and 

reviewed in accordance with Executive 

Order 12988 and will not unduly 

burden the Federal court system. The 

final rule was reviewed to eliminate 

drafting errors and ambiguities, written 

to minimize litigation, and written to 

provide a clear legal standard for 

affected conduct and to promote burden 

reduction. 

List of Subjects in 20 CFR Part 1011 

Employment, Veterans, Employer 

Recognition, Medallion. 

■ For the reasons set out in the 

preamble, the Veterans’ Employment 

and Training Service amends 20 CFR 

chapter IX by adding part 1011 to read 

as follows: 

PART 1011—HIRE VETS MEDALLION 

PROGRAM 

Subpart A—General Provisions 

Sec. 

1011.000 What is the HIRE Vets Medallion 

Program? 

1011.005 What definitions apply to this 

part? 

1011.010 Who is eligible to apply for a 

HIRE Vets Medallion Award? 

1011.015 What are the different types of the 

HIRE Vets Medallion Awards? 

Subpart B—Award Criteria 

1011.100 What are the criteria for the large 

employer HIRE Vets Medallion Award? 

1011.105 What are the criteria for the 

medium employer HIRE Vets Medallion 

Award? 

1011.110 What are the criteria for the small 

employer HIRE Vets Medallion Award? 

1011.115 Is there an exemption for certain 

large employers from the dedicated 

human resources professional criterion 

for the large employer platinum HIRE 

Vets Medallion Award? 

1011.120 Under what circumstances will 

VETS find an employer ineligible to 

receive a HIRE Vets Medallion Award for 

a violation of labor law? 

Subpart C—Application Process 

1011.200 How will VETS administer the 

HIRE Vets Medallion Award process? 

1011.205 What is the timing of the HIRE 

Vets Medallion Award process? 

1011.210 How often can an employer 

receive the HIRE Vets Medallion Award? 

1011.215 How will the employer complete 

the application for the HIRE Vets 

Medallion Award? 

1011.220 How will VETS verify a HIRE Vets 

Medallion Award application? 

1011.225 Under what circumstances will 

VETS conduct further review of an 

application? 

1011.230 Under what circumstances can 

VETS deny or revoke an award? 

Subpart D—Fees and Caps 

1011.300 What are the application fees for 

the HIRE Vets Medallion Award? 

1011.305 May VETS set a limit on how 

many applications will be accepted in a 

year? 

Subpart E—Design and Display 

1011.400 What does a successful applicant 

receive? 

1011.405 What are the restrictions on 

display and use of the HIRE Vets 

Medallion Award? 

Subpart F—Requests for Reconsideration 

1011.500 What is the process to request 

reconsideration of a denial or 

revocation? 

Subpart G—Record Retention 

1011.600 What are the record retention 

requirements for the HIRE Vets 

Medallion Award? 

Authority: Division O, Pub. L. 115–31, 131 

Stat. 135. 

Subpart A—General Provisions 

§ 1011.000 What is the HIRE Vets 

Medallion Program? 

The HIRE Vets Medallion Program is 

a voluntary employer recognition 

program administered by the 

Department of Labor’s Veterans’ 

Employment and Training Service. 

Through the HIRE Vets Medallion 

Program, the Department of Labor 

solicits voluntary applications from 

employers for the HIRE Vets Medallion 

Award. The purpose of this award is to 

recognize efforts by applicants to 

recruit, employ, and retain veterans and 

to provide services supporting the 

veteran community. 

§ 1011.005 What definitions apply to this 

part? 

Active Duty in the United States 

National Guard or Reserve means active 

duty as defined in 10 U.S.C. 101(d)(1). 

Dedicated human resources 

professional means either a full-time 

professional or the equivalent of a fulltime professional dedicated exclusively 

to supporting the hiring, training, and 

retention of veteran employees. Two 

half-time professionals, for example, are 

equivalent to one full-time professional. 

Employee means any individual for 

whom the employer furnishes an IRS 

Form W–2, excluding temporary 

workers. 

Employer means any person, 

institution, organization, or other entity 

that pays salary or wages for work 

performed or that has control over 

employee opportunities, except for the 

Federal Government or any State or 

foreign government. For the purposes of 

this regulation, VETS will recognize 

employers based on the Employer 

Identification Number, as described in 

26 CFR 301.7701–12, used to furnish an 

IRS Form W–2 to an employee. 

However, in the case of an agent 

designated pursuant to 26 CFR 31.3504– 

1, a payor designated pursuant to 26 

CFR 31.3504–2, or a Certified 

Professional Employer Organization 

recognized pursuant to 26 U.S.C. 7705, 

the employer shall be the common law 


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52204 Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 217 / Monday, November 13, 2017 / Rules and Regulations 

employer, client, or customer, 

respectively, instead of the entity that 

furnishes the IRS Form W–2. 

Human Resources Veterans’ Initiative 

means an initiative through which an 

employer provides support for hiring, 

training, and retention of veteran 

employees. 

Post-secondary education means postsecondary level education or training 

courses that would be acceptable for 

credit toward at least one of the 

following: associate’s or bachelor’s 

degree or higher, any other recognized 

post-secondary credential, or an 

apprenticeship. 

Salary means an employee’s base pay. 

Temporary worker means any worker 

hired with the intention that the worker 

be retained for less than 1 year and who 

is actually retained for less than 1 year. 

Veteran has the meaning given such 

term under 38 U.S.C. 101. 

VETS means the Veterans’ 

Employment and Training Service of the 

Department of Labor. 

§ 1011.010 Who is eligible to apply for a 

HIRE Vets Medallion Award? 

All employers who employ at least 

one employee are eligible to apply for a 

HIRE Vets Medallion Award. To qualify 

for a HIRE Vets Medallion Award, an 

employer must satisfy all application 

requirements. 

§ 1011.015 What are the different types of 

the HIRE Vets Medallion Awards? 

(a) There are three different categories 

of the HIRE Vets Medallion Award: 

(1) Large Employer Awards for 

employers with 500 or more employees. 

(2) Medium Employer Awards for 

employers with more than 50 but fewer 

than 500 employees. 

(3) Small Employer Awards for 

employers with 50 or fewer employees. 

(4) Timing. The correct category of 

award is determined by the employer’s 

number of employees as of December 31 

of the year prior to the year in which the 

employer applies for an award. 

(b) Within each award category, there 

are two levels of award: 

(1) A Gold Award; and 

(2) A Platinum Award. 

Subpart B—Award Criteria 

§ 1011.100 What are the criteria for the 

large employer HIRE Vets Medallion Award? 

(a) Gold Award. To qualify for a large 

employer gold HIRE Vets Medallion 

Award, an employer must satisfy all of 

the following criteria: 

(1) The employer is a large employer 

as specified in § 1011.015 of this part; 

(2) The employer is not found 

ineligible under § 1011.120 of this part; 

(3) Veterans constitute not less than 7 

percent of all employees hired by such 

employer during the prior calendar year; 

(4) The employer has retained not less 

than 75 percent of the veteran 

employees hired during the calendar 

year preceding the preceding calendar 

year for a period of at least 12 months 

from the date on which the employees 

were hired; 

(5) The employer has established an 

employee veteran organization or 

resource group to assist new veteran 

employees with integration, including 

coaching and mentoring; and 

(6) The employer has established 

programs to enhance the leadership 

skills of veteran employees during their 

employment. 

(b) Platinum Award. To qualify for a 

large employer platinum HIRE Vets 

Medallion Award, an employer must 

satisfy all of the following criteria: 

(1) The employer is a large employer 

as specified in § 1011.015 of this part; 

(2) The employer is not found 

ineligible under § 1011.120 of this part; 

(3) Veterans constitute not less than 

10 percent of all employees hired by 

such employer during the prior calendar 

year; 

(4) The employer has retained not less 

than 85 percent of the veteran 

employees hired during the calendar 

year preceding the preceding calendar 

year for a period of at least 12 months 

from the date on which the employees 

were hired; 

(5) The employer has established an 

employee veteran organization or 

resource group to assist new veteran 

employees with integration, including 

coaching and mentoring; 

(6) The employer has established 

programs to enhance the leadership 

skills of veteran employees during their 

employment; 

(7) The employer employs a dedicated 

human resources professional as 

defined in § 1011.005 of this part to 

support hiring, training, and retention of 

veteran employees; 

(8) The employer provides each of its 

employees serving on active duty in the 

United States National Guard or Reserve 

with compensation sufficient, in 

combination with the employee’s active 

duty pay, to achieve a combined level 

of income commensurate with the 

employee’s salary prior to undertaking 

active duty; and 

(9) The employer has a tuition 

assistance program to support veteran 

employees’ attendance in postsecondary education during the term of 

their employment. 

§ 1011.105 What are the criteria for the 

medium employer HIRE Vets Medallion 

Award? 

(a) Gold Award. To qualify for a 

medium employer gold HIRE Vets 

Medallion Award, an employer must 

satisfy all of the following criteria: 

(1) The employer is a medium 

employer per § 1011.015 of this part; 

(2) The employer is not found 

ineligible under § 1011.120 of this part; 

(3) The employer has achieved at least 

one of the following: 

(i) Veterans constitute not less than 7 

percent of all employees hired by such 

employer during the prior calendar year; 

or 

(ii) The employer has achieved both 

of the following: 

(A) The employer has retained not 

less than 75 percent of the veteran 

employees hired during the calendar 

year preceding the preceding calendar 

year for a period of at least 12 months 

from the date on which the employees 

were hired; and 

(B) On December 31 of the year prior 

to the year in which the employer 

applies for the HIRE Vets Medallion 

Award, at least 7 percent of the 

employer’s employees were veterans; 

and 

(4) The employer has at least one of 

the following forms of integration 

assistance: 

(i) The employer has established an 

employee veteran organization or 

resource group to assist new veteran 

employees with integration, including 

coaching and mentoring; or 

(ii) The employer has established 

programs to enhance the leadership 

skills of veteran employees during their 

employment. 

(b) Platinum Award. To qualify for a 

medium employer platinum HIRE Vets 

Medallion Award, an employer must 

satisfy all of the following criteria: 

(1) The employer is a medium 

employer as specified in § 1011.015 of 

this part; 

(2) The employer is not found 

ineligible under § 1011.120 of this part; 

(3) The employer has achieved at least 

one of the following: 

(i) Veterans constitute not less than 10 

percent of all employees hired by such 

employer during the prior calendar year; 

or 

(ii) The employer has achieved both 

of the following: 

(A) The employer has retained not 

less than 85 percent of the veteran 

employees hired during the calendar 

year preceding the preceding calendar 

year for a period of at least 12 months 

from the date on which the employees 

were hired; and 

(B) On December 31 of the year prior 

to the year in which the employer 


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applies for the HIRE Vets Medallion 

Award, at least 10 percent of the 

employer’s employees were veterans; 

(4) The employer has the following 

forms of integration assistance: 

(i) The employer has established an 

employee veteran organization or 

resource group to assist new veteran 

employees with integration, including 

coaching and mentoring; and 

(ii) The employer has established 

programs to enhance the leadership 

skills of veteran employees during their 

employment; and 

(5) The employer has at least one of 

the following additional forms of 

integration assistance: 

(i) The employer has established a 

human resources veterans’ initiative; 

(ii) The employer provides each of its 

employees serving on active duty in the 

United States National Guard or Reserve 

with compensation sufficient, in 

combination with the employee’s active 

duty pay, to achieve a combined level 

of income commensurate with the 

employee’s salary prior to undertaking 

active duty; or 

(iii) The employer has a tuition 

assistance program to support veteran 

employees’ attendance in postsecondary education during the term of 

their employment. 

§ 1011.110 What are the criteria for the 

small employer HIRE Vets Medallion 

Award? 

(a) Gold Award. To qualify for a small 

employer gold HIRE Vets Medallion 

Award, an employer must satisfy all of 

the following criteria: 

(1) The employer is a small employer 

as specified in § 1011.015 of this part; 

(2) The employer is not found 

ineligible under § 1011.120 of this part; 

and 

(3) The employer has achieved at least 

one of the following: 

(i) Veterans constitute not less than 7 

percent of all employees hired by such 

employer during the prior calendar year; 

or 

(ii) The employer has achieved both 

of the following: 

(A) The employer has retained not 

less than 75 percent of the veteran 

employees hired during the calendar 

year preceding the preceding calendar 

year for a period of at least 12 months 

from the date on which the employees 

were hired; and 

(B) On December 31 of the year prior 

to the year in which the employer 

applies for the HIRE Vets Medallion 

Award, at least 7 percent of the 

employer’s employees were veterans. 

(b) Platinum Award. To qualify for a 

small employer platinum HIRE Vets 

Medallion Award, an employer must 

satisfy all of the following criteria: 

(1) The employer is a small employer 

as specified in § 1011.015 of this part; 

(2) The employer is not found 

ineligible under § 1011.120 of this part; 

(3) The employer has achieved at least 

one of the following: 

(i) Veterans constitute not less than 10 

percent of all employees hired by such 

employer during the prior calendar year; 

or 

(ii) The employer has achieved both 

of the following: 

(A) The employer has retained not 

less than 85 percent of the veteran 

employees hired during the calendar 

year preceding the preceding calendar 

year for a period of at least 12 months 

from the date on which the employees 

were hired; and 

(B) On December 31 of the year prior 

to the year in which the employer 

applies for the HIRE Vets Medallion 

Award, at least 10 percent of the 

employer’s employees were veterans; 

and 

(4) The employer has at least two of 

the following forms of integration 

assistance: 

(i) The employer has established an 

employee veteran organization or 

resource group to assist new veteran 

employees with integration, including 

coaching and mentoring; 

(ii) The employer has established 

programs to enhance the leadership 

skills of veteran employees during their 

employment; 

(iii) The employer has established a 

human resources veterans’ initiative; 

(iv) The employer provides each of its 

employees serving on active duty in the 

United States National Guard or Reserve 

with compensation sufficient, in 

combination with the employee’s active 

duty pay, to achieve a combined level 

of income commensurate with the 

employee’s salary prior to undertaking 

active duty; 

(v) The employer has a tuition 

assistance program to support veteran 

employees’ attendance in postsecondary education during the term of 

their employment. 

§ 1011.115 Is there an exemption for 

certain large employers from the dedicated 

human resources professional criterion for 

the large employer platinum HIRE Vets 

Medallion Award? 

Yes. Large employers who employ 

5,000 or fewer employees need not have 

a dedicated human resources 

professional to support the hiring and 

retention of veteran employees. A large 

employer with 5,000 or fewer 

employees can satisfy the criterion at 

§ 1011.100(b)(7) by employing at least 

one human resources professional 

whose regular work duties include 

supporting the hiring, training, and 

retention of veteran employees. 

§ 1011.120 Under what circumstances will 

VETS find an employer ineligible to receive 

a HIRE Vets Medallion Award for a violation 

of labor law? 

(a) Any employer with an adverse 

labor law decision, stipulated 

agreement, contract debarment, or 

contract termination, as defined in 

paragraphs (b) through (e) of this 

section, pursuant to either of the 

following labor laws, as amended, will 

not be eligible to receive an award: 

(1) Uniformed Services Employment 

and Reemployment Rights Act 

(USERRA); or 

(2) Vietnam Era Veterans’ 

Readjustment Assistance Act 

(VEVRAA); 

(b) For purposes of this section, an 

adverse labor law decision means any of 

the following, issued in the calendar 

year prior to year in which applications 

are solicited or the calendar year in 

which applications are solicited up 

until the issuance of the award, in 

which a violation of any of the laws in 

paragraph (a) of this section is found: 

(1) A civil or criminal judgment; 

(2) A final administrative merits 

determination of an administrative 

adjudicative board or commission; or 

(3) A decision of an administrative 

law judge or other administrative judge 

that is not appealed and that becomes 

the final agency action. 

(c) For purposes of this section, a 

stipulated agreement means any 

agreement (including a settlement 

agreement, conciliation agreement, 

consent decree, or other similar 

document) to which the employer is a 

party, entered into in the calendar year 

prior to the year in which applications 

are solicited or the calendar year in 

which applications are solicited up 

until the issuance of the award, that 

contains an admission that the employer 

violated either of the laws cited in 

paragraph (a) of this section. 

(d) For purposes of this section, a 

contract debarment means any order or 

voluntary agreement, pursuant to the 

laws listed in paragraph (a) of this 

section, that debars the employer from 

receiving any future Federal contract. 

Employers shall be ineligible for an 

award for the duration of time that the 

contract debarment is in effect. 

(e) For purposes of this section, a 

contract termination means any order or 

voluntary agreement, pursuant to the 

laws listed in paragraph (a) of this 

section, that terminates an existing 

Federal contract prior to its completion. 

Employers shall be ineligible for the 

award if this termination occurred in 


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the calendar year prior to the year in 

which applications are solicited or the 

calendar year in which applications are 

solicited up until the issuance of the 

award. 

(f) VETS may delay issuing an award 

to an employer if, at the time the award 

is to be issued, VETS has credible 

information that a significant violation 

of one of the laws in paragraph (a) of 

this section may have occurred that 

could lead to an employer being 

disqualified pursuant to any of 

paragraphs (b) through (e) of this 

section. 

Subpart C—Application Process 

§ 1011.200 How will VETS administer the 

HIRE Vets Medallion Award process? 

The Secretary of Labor will 

annually— 

(a) Solicit and accept voluntary 

applications from employers in order to 

consider whether those employers 

should receive a HIRE Vets Medallion 

Award; 

(b) Review applications received in 

each calendar year; 

(c) Notify such recipients of their 

awards; and 

(d) At a time to coincide with the 

annual commemoration of Veterans 

Day— 

(1) Announce the names of such 

recipients; 

(2) Recognize such recipients through 

publication in the Federal Register; and 

(3) Issue to each such recipient— 

(i) A HIRE Vets Medallion Award; and 

(ii) A certificate stating that such 

employer is entitled to display such 

HIRE Vets Medallion Award. 

§ 1011.205 What is the timing of the HIRE 

Vets Medallion Award process? 

VETS will review all timely 

applications that fall under any cap 

established in § 1011.305 of this part to 

determine whether an employer should 

receive a HIRE Vets Medallion Award, 

and, if so, of what level. 

(a) Performance period—except as 

otherwise noted in § 1011.120 of this 

part, only the employer’s actions taken 

prior to December 31 of the calendar 

year prior to the calendar year in which 

applications are solicited will be 

considered in reviewing the award. 

(b) Solicitation period—VETS will 

solicit applications not later than 

January 31 of each calendar year for the 

HIRE Vets Medallion Award to be 

awarded in November of that calendar 

year. 

(c) End of acceptance period—VETS 

will stop accepting applications on 

April 30 of each calendar year for the 

awards to be awarded in November of 

that calendar year. 

(d) Review period—VETS will finish 

reviewing applications not later than 

August 31 of each calendar year for the 

awards to be awarded in November of 

that calendar year. 

(e) Selection of recipients—VETS will 

select the employers to receive HIRE 

Vets Medallion Awards not later than 

September 30 of each calendar year for 

the awards to be awarded in November 

of that calendar year. 

(f) Notice of awards and denials— 

VETS will notify employers who will 

receive HIRE Vets Medallion Awards 

not later than October 11 of each 

calendar year for the awards to be 

awarded in November of that calendar 

year. VETS will also notify applicants 

who will not be receiving an award at 

that time. 

§ 1011.210 How often can an employer 

receive the HIRE Vets Medallion Award? 

Per section 2(d) of the HIRE Vets Act, 

an employer who receives a HIRE Vets 

Medallion Award for 1 calendar year is 

not eligible to receive a HIRE Vets 

Medallion Award for the subsequent 

calendar year. 

§ 1011.215 How will the employer 

complete the application for the HIRE Vets 

Medallion Award? 

(a) VETS will require all applicants to 

provide information to establish their 

eligibility for the HIRE Vets Medallion 

Award. 

(b) VETS may request additional 

information in support of the 

application for the HIRE Vets Medallion 

Award. 

(c) The chief executive officer, the 

chief human resources officer, or an 

equivalent official of each employer 

applicant must attest under penalty of 

perjury that the information the 

employer has submitted in its 

application is accurate. 

(d) Interested employers can access 

the application form via the HIRE Vets 

Web site accessible from https://

www.hirevets.gov/. 

(e) Applicants will complete the 

application form and submit it 

electronically. 

(f) Applicants who need a reasonable 

accommodation in accessing the 

application form, submitting the 

application form, or submitting the 

application fee may contact VETS at 

(202) 693–4700 or TTY (877) 889–5627 

(these are not toll-free numbers). 

(g) Should the information provided 

on the application be deemed 

incomplete, VETS will attempt to 

contact the applicant. The applicant 

must respond with the additional 

information necessary to complete the 

application form within 5 business days 

or VETS will deny the application. 

§ 1011.220 How will VETS verify a HIRE 

Vets Medallion Award application? 

VETS will verify all information 

provided by an employer in its 

application to the extent that such 

information is relevant in determining 

whether or not such employer meets the 

criteria to receive a HIRE Vets 

Medallion Award or in determining the 

appropriate level of HIRE Vets 

Medallion Award for that employer to 

receive. VETS will verify this 

information by reviewing all 

information provided as part of the 

application. 

§ 1011.225 Under what circumstances will 

VETS conduct further review of an 

application? 

If at any time VETS becomes aware of 

facts that indicate that the information 

provided by an employer in its 

application was incorrect or that the 

employer does not satisfy the 

requirements at § 1011.120, VETS may 

conduct further review of the 

application. As part of that review, 

VETS may request information and/or 

documentation to confirm the accuracy 

of the information provided by the 

employer in its application or to 

confirm that the employer is not 

ineligible under § 1011.120. Depending 

on the result of the review, VETS may 

either deny or revoke the award. If 

VETS initiates such review prior to 

issuing the award, VETS will not be 

required to meet the timeline 

requirements in this part. 

§ 1011.230 Under what circumstances can 

VETS deny or revoke an award? 

(a) Denial of award. VETS may deny 

an award for any of the following 

reasons: 

(1) The applicant fails to provide 

information and/or documentation as 

requested under § 1011.225 of this part; 

(2) VETS determines that the chief 

executive officer, the chief human 

resources officer, or an equivalent 

official of the applicant falsely attested 

that the information on the application 

was true; 

(3) The employer is ineligible to 

receive an award pursuant to § 1011.120 

of this part; or 

(4) The application does not satisfy all 

application requirements. 

(b) Revocation of award. Once the 

HIRE Vets Medallion Award has been 

awarded, VETS may revoke the 

recipient’s award for the following 

reasons: 

(1) The HIRE Vets Medallion Award 

recipient fails to provide information 

and/or documentation as requested 

under § 1011.225 of this part; 

(2) VETS determines that the chief 

executive officer, the chief human 


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resources officer, or an equivalent 

official of the recipient falsely attested 

that the information on the application 

was true; 

(3) The employer was ineligible to 

receive an award pursuant to § 1011.120 

of this part; or 

(4) The employer violated the display 

restrictions at § 1011.405 of this part. 

(c) If VETS decides to deny or revoke 

an award, it will provide the employer 

with notice of the decision. An 

employer may request reconsideration 

of VETS’ decision to deny or revoke an 

award pursuant to § 1011.500 of this 

part. 

Subpart D—Fees and Caps 

§ 1011.300 What are the application fees 

for the HIRE Vets Medallion Award? 

(a) The Act requires the Secretary of 

Labor to establish a fee sufficient to 

cover the costs associated with carrying 

out the HIRE Vets Medallion Program. 

(b) Table 1 to § 1011.300 sets forth the 

fees an employer must pay to apply for 

the HIRE Vets Medallion Award. VETS 

will adjust the fees periodically 

according to the Implicit Price Deflator 

for Gross Domestic Product published 

by the U.S. Department of Commerce 

and notify potential applicants of the 

adjusted fees. 

(1) If a significant adjustment is 

needed to arrive at a new fee for any 

reason other than inflation, then a 

proposed rule containing the new fees 

will be published in the Federal 

Register for comment. 

(2) VETS will round the fee to the 

nearest dollar. 

TABLE 1 TO § 1011.300 

Application Fees 

Small Employer Fee ............. $90.00 

Medium Employer Fee ......... 190.00 

Large Employer Fee ............. 495.00 

(c) All applicants must submit the 

appropriate application processing fee 

for each application submitted. This fee 

is based on the fees provided in table 1 

to § 1011.300. Payment of this fee must 

be made electronically through the U.S. 

Treasury pay.gov system or an 

equivalent. 

(d) Once a fee is paid, it is 

nonrefundable, even if the employer 

withdraws the application or does not 

receive a HIRE Vets Medallion Award. 

§ 1011.305 May VETS set a limit on how 

many applications will be accepted in a 

year? 

Yes, VETS may set a limit on how 

many applications will be accepted in 

any given year. 

Subpart E—Design and Display 

§ 1011.400 What does a successful 

applicant receive? 

(a) The award will be in the form of 

a certificate and will state the year for 

which it was awarded. 

(b) VETS will also provide a digital 

image of the medallion for recipients to 

use, including as part of an 

advertisement, solicitation, business 

activity, or product. 

§ 1011.405 What are the restrictions on 

display and use of the HIRE Vets Medallion 

Award? 

It is unlawful for any employer to 

publicly display a HIRE Vets Medallion 

Award, in connection with, or as a part 

of, any advertisement, solicitation, 

business activity, or product— 

(a) For the purpose of conveying, or 

in a manner reasonably calculated to 

convey, a false impression that the 

employer received the award through 

the HIRE Vets Medallion Program, if 

such employer did not receive such 

award through the HIRE Vets Medallion 

Program; or 

(b) For the purpose of conveying, or 

in a manner reasonably calculated to 

convey, a false impression that the 

employer received the award through 

the HIRE Vets Medallion Program for a 

year for which such employer did not 

receive such award. 

Subpart F—Requests for 

Reconsideration 

§ 1011.500 What is the process to request 

reconsideration of a denial or revocation? 

(a) An applicant may file a request for 

reconsideration of VETS’ decision to 

deny or revoke a HIRE Vets Medallion 

Award or of VETS’ decision as to the 

level of award by mailing a request for 

reconsideration to the following address 

no later than 15 business days after the 

date of VETS’ notice of its decision. 

Requests for reconsideration must be 

sent to: HIRE Vets Medallion Program, 

DOL VETS, 200 Constitution Ave. NW., 

Room S1325, Washington, DC 20210. 

(b) Requests for reconsideration 

pursuant to paragraph (a) of this section 

must contain the following: 

(1) The employer name and 

identification number; 

(2) The reason for the request; and 

(3) An explanation, accompanied by 

any necessary documentation to support 

that explanation, of why VETS’ decision 

was incorrect. 

(c) VETS may request from the 

employer filing such request any 

additional evidence or explanation it 

finds necessary for reconsideration. 

(d) Within 30 business days after the 

later of the receipt of the request or the 

receipt of any additional evidence or 

explanation requested, VETS will issue 

a determination about whether to grant 

or deny the request. 

(e) No additional Department of Labor 

review is available. 

Subpart G—Record Retention 

§ 1011.600 What are the record retention 

requirements for the HIRE Vets Medallion 

Award? 

Applicants must retain a record of all 

information used to support an 

application for the HIRE Vets Medallion 

Award for 2 years from the date of 

application. 

Signed at Washington, DC, this 1st day of 

November 2017. 

J.S. Shellenberger, 

Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Veterans’ 

Employment and Training Service. 

[FR Doc. 2017–24214 Filed 11–9–17; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4510–79–P 

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND 

HUMAN SERVICES 

Food and Drug Administration 

21 CFR Part 573 

[Docket No. FDA–2014–F–0988] 

Food Additives Permitted in Feed and 

Drinking Water of Animals; Ammonium 

Formate and Formic Acid 

AGENCY: Food and Drug Administration, 

HHS. 

ACTION: Final rule. 

SUMMARY: The Food and Drug 

Administration (FDA, we, the Agency) 

is amending food additive regulations 

for food additives permitted in feed and 

drinking water of animals to provide for 

the safe use of formic acid and 

ammonium formate. This action is in 

response to a food additive petition filed 

by BASF Corp for Feed Grade Sodium 

Formate (FAP 2286), which also 

proposed to amend the animal food 

additive regulations for formic acid and 

ammonium formate to limit formic acid 

and formate salts from all added 

sources. 

DATES: This rule is effective November 

13, 2017. Submit either written or 

electronic objections and requests for a 

hearing by December 13, 2017. See 

section V of this document for 

information on the filing of objections. 

ADDRESSES: You may submit objections 

and requests for a hearing as follows. 

Please note that late, untimely filed 

objections will not be considered. 

Electronic objections must be submitted 


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