TEGL_20-20_acc.pdf

ETA Advisory File Text

EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING ADMINISTRATION ADVISORY SYSTEM U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR Washington D.C. 20210 CLASSIFICATION SCSEP CORRESPONDENCE SYMBOL OWI DNPTTA DATE May 6 2021 ADVISORY TRAINING AND EMPLOYMENT GUIDANCE LETTER NO. 20-20 TO FROM SUBJECT SENIOR COMMUNITY SERVICE EMPLOYMENT PROGRAM GRANTEES SUZAN G. LEVINE s Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Program Year PY 2021 Planning Instructions and Allotments for Senior Community Service Employment Program SCSEP State Territorial and National Grantees 1.Purpose . To provide SCSEP grantees with PY 2021 allotments and grant application instructions and dissemination of annual Federal poverty guidelines used in SCSEP eligibility determinations. 2.Action Requested. To apply for PY 2021 grant funds SCSEP grantees must follow the instructions in this TEGL and submit all documents to https www.grants.gov with a copy to their respective Federal Project Office as well as the SCSEP program office at grants.scsepdocs dol.gov by May 24 2021. SCSEP grantees should also note the Employment and Training Administration s ETA plan for disseminating poverty and low- income guidelines in future years. 3.Summary and Background. a.Summary ETA releases grant planning guidance each program year to advise SCSEP grantees of the number of authorized positions and associated allotments for the program year and ETA s requirements for obligating funding to grantees. This TEGL provides SCSEP state territorial and national grantees with the PY 2021 SCSEP allotments and instructions for PY 2021 grant submissions. b .Background SCSEP funds are allocated by a formula provided in Section 506 of the Older Americans Act of 1965 OAA as amended 42 USC 3056d and operate on a PY basis from July 1 through the following June 30. The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 Pub. L. 116- 260 from this point forward referred to as the Act Division H Title I secs. 106 b and 107 allows the Secretary of Labor Secretary to set aside up to 0.5 percent of each discretionary appropriation for activities related to program integrity and 0.75 percent of most operating funds for evaluations. In PY 2021 after reducing the appropriation by 1 123 000 for set-asides authorized by the Act 403 877 000 isRESCISSIONS EXPIRATION DATE TEGL 22-19 and TEGL 22-19 Change 1 Continuing 2 available for SCSEP program activities. Any funds not used for these reserve activities will be distributed by formula to state territorial and national grantees. SCSEP funds are allocated to and administered through grants to all state governors Puerto Rico the District of Columbia and four territories as well as competitively awarded to national non-profit agencies for services across the country. The national non-profit organizations compete for the awards every four years subject to annual appropriations with an optional one-year extension. ETA renews SCSEP state and territorial grant awards on an annual basis and SCSEP national grants on an annual basis during non-competitive years which includes PY 2021 as PY 2020 was a national competition award year . Each year ETA requires grantees to submit a grant application that includes an SF-424 an SF-424A the geographic areas to be served a detailed budget narrative a program narrative signed programmatic assurances and any optional special requests. Each year in January the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services HHS publishes the poverty and low-income guidelines based on the last calendar year s increase in prices as measured by the Consumer Price Index. These numbers multiplied by 125 percent are the basis of low income for eligibility determinations as defined at Section 518 a 3 A of the OAA Amendments of 2006 42 USC 3056p a 3 A . 4. Program Details Annual Grant Guidance. This section provides detailed submission instructions for state and territory formula grantees as well as current national grantees. a. Program Allotments Attachment I . Attachment I details the funding amounts and authorized positions for each grantee in PY 2021. b. Grant Application Requirements. Grantees must submit a complete grant package to receive PY 2021 funds. ETA will not obligate funds to any grantee until it has provided all of the information outlined in this guidance. Additionally grantees must ensure that the components of the grant application package are consistent with each other. i. Application and Budget Information Form. Grantees must submit current versions of the SF-424 Application for Federal Assistance and the SF-424A Budget Information Form. Budgets must include the non-Federal share of at least 10 percent of the total cost OAA Sec. 502 c 1 42 USC 3056 c 1 . These interactive documents and accompanying instructions are available at the following link1 https www.grants.gov forms sf-424-family.html. ii. Geographic Areas. Item 14 of the SF-424 requires a list of the Areas Affected by Project. Grantees must list the states and counties the grant will serve and must use www.scseped.org to obtain that information. Grantees can export the data for the service area s to an Excel spreadsheet and attach the list as a separate document. iii. Budget Narrative Attachment II . Grantees must submit a budget narrative that provides the information outlined in Attachment II including 1 Choose the SF-424 and SF-424A that note Agency Owner as Grants.gov . 3 A detailed description of costs associated with each line item on the SF -424A Budget Information Form Both the percentage and total dollar amount allocated to participant wages and fringe benefits as described at 20 CFR 641.565 Both the percentage and total dollar amount allocated to administrative costs as described at 20 CFR 641.856 and Infrastructure contribut ions to the workforce system in accordance with WIOA Sec. 121 h 29 USC 3151 h . iv. Program Narrative Attachment III . All g rantees must submit a narrative that includes the information outlined in detail in Attachment II I including SCSEP operation service delivery and coordination Services to minorities and Organizational structure monitoring and audits. Additionally national grantees may also choose to provide any relevant updates to the statement of work that was included in the grant aw ard documents following the PY 2020 National Competition. State grantees may also choose to provide any updates since submission of the SCSEP portion of the PY 2020 State Plan. v. Program matic Assurances Attachment IV . Grantees must review sign and su bmit the programmatic assurances in Attachment I V that outline program requireme nts based on the OAA and the SCSEP regulations at 20 CFR Part 641. Adobe signatures are acceptable. The signatory must be the same individual as the Authorized Representative listed in item 21 of the SF -424. vi. Option al Requests Attachment V . Grantees may submit one or more of the optional re quests described in Attachment V. c. Notices of Award. ETA will issue Notices of Award with new grant numbers and allocation amounts to SCSE P grantees for PY 2021 . d. Office of Management and Budget OMB Approval. As required by the Paperwork Reduction Act OMB has reviewed and approved this information collection OMB Control Number 1205 -0040 which expires on November 30 2021 . Under 5 CFR 1320.5 b an agency cannot conduct sponsor or require a response to a collection of information unless the collection displays a valid OMB Control Number. e. Poverty Guidelines. HHS published updated Federal poverty guidelines on January 13 2021. These guidelines provide the basis for determining the income eligibility of SCSEP applicants and enrollees. Grantees must multiply the appropriate base poverty guideline by 125 percent or 1.25 to convert the poverty guidelines to low income as defined at Section 518 a 3 A OAA 42 USC 3056p a 3 A . The poverty guidelines are published annually on the HHS website and in the Federal Register. The HHS website that provides federal poverty guidelines https aspe.hhs.gov poverty -guidelines also provides a chart with percentages of the guidelines including 125 percent levels. Until last year ETA published an annual TEGL indicating the numbers to be used for SCSEP eligibility based on the defini tion at OAA Section 518 42 USC 3056p and derived from the HHS guidelines . Given the availability of this information via the 4 Federal Register and the HHS website going forward ETA will no longer publish annual TEGLs to convey poverty guidelines. Rat her grantees should review the poverty guidelines to be used on one of these sites which provide the poverty guideline numbers that are effective as of the publication date. ETA will notify grantees informally once the poverty guidelines are published and will post links to the guidelines at https www.dol.gov agencies eta seniors and https olderworkers.workforcegps.org . Continued SCSE P Provisions of the CARES Act . The CARES Act Pub.L 116 -136 March 27 2020 Sec. 3223 2 provided the Secretary authority to increase the administrative costs for a project as described in OAA Sec. 502 c 3 42 USC 3056 c 3 to an amount not to exce ed 20 percent of the grant amount if such an increase is appropriate due to the effects of the COVID -19 public health emergency. This TEGL provides SCSEP grantees the opportunity once again to request an increase to their administrative cost limitation to up to 20 percent of the grant amount if the grantee can demonstrate that such an increase will help it mitigate the impact of the COVID -19 public health emergency on its operations employees or participants. As noted above in the instructions for the Bud get Narrative and in Attachment II grantees should note in their Budget Narrative whether they plan to request the increased 20 percent cost limitation. To use this flexibility grantees must request and obtain ETA s approval according to the instruction s in Attachment V Optional Special Requests addressing the justification requirements in 20 CFR 641.870. 5. Inquir ies. Please direct inquiries to the appropriate Federal Project Officer . 6. References . Older Americans Act of 1965 as amended 42 USC 305 6 et seq. Older Americans Act Reauthorization Act of 2016 Pub.L. 114 -144 April 19 2016 Supporting Older Americans Act of 2020 Pub.L.116 -131 March 25 2020 Consolidated Appropriations Act 2021 Including Coronavirus Stimulus Relief Pub.L. 11 6-260 December 27 2020 TEGL 17 -20 Update Guidance on Priority of Service Durational Limits and State Plan Submissions April 15 2021 Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security Act of 2020 CARES Act Pub. L. 116 -136 March 27 2020 TEGL 17 -16 Infrastructure Funding of the One -Stop Delivery System January 18 2017 Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act WIOA Pub. L. 113 -128 Sec. 121 Funding of One -Stop Infrastructure Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 Pub. L. 104 -13 May 22 1995 SC SEP Performance Data Collection Approval Office of Management and Budget No. 1205 -0040 expiration date November 30 2021 OMB Uniform Administrative Requirements Cost Principles and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards Final Rule 78 FR 78589 December 26 2013 published at 2 CFR Part 200 5 TEGL 12 -06 Revised Income Inclusions and Exclusions and Procedures for Determining Senior Community Service Employment Program SCSEP Eligibility December 28 2006 VOW Veterans Opportunity to Work to Hire Heroes Act of 2011 Pub. L. 112 -56 November 21 2011 Federal Poverty Guidelines Federal Register 86 FR 7732 February 1 2021 or HHS website at https aspe.hhs.gov poverty -guidelines . 7. Att achments . Attachment I A-IE Funding Allocations and Authorized Positions Attachment II Budget Narrative Instructions Attachment III Program Narrative Instructions Attachment IV Programmatic Assurances Attachment V Optional Requests