Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection; Comment Request, 34449-34451 [2015-14728]
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34449
Federal Register / Vol. 80, No. 115 / Tuesday, June 16, 2015 / Notices
SAMHSA Buprenorphine Physician
Locator.
Since July 2002, SAMHSA has
received over 25,000 notifications and
has certified almost 27,000 physicians.
Fifty-none percent of the notifications
were submitted by mail or by facsimile,
with approximately forty-one percent
submitted through the Web based online
system. Approximately 60 percent of the
certified physicians have consented to
disclosure on the
SAMHSA Buprenorphine Physician
Locator.
Respondents may submit the form
electronically, through a dedicated Web
Responses
per
respondent
Number of
respondents
Purpose of submission
page that SAMHSA will establish for the
purpose, as well as via U.S. mail.
There are no changes to the forms and
burden hours.
The following table summarizes the
estimated annual burden for the use of
this form.
Burden per
response
(hr.)
Total burden
(hrs)
Initial Application for Waiver ............................................................................
Notification to Prescribe Immediately ..............................................................
Notice to Treat up to 100 patients ...................................................................
1,500
50
500
1
1
1
.083
.083
.040
125
4
20
Total ......................................................................................................
2,050
........................
........................
149
Written comments and
recommendations concerning the
proposed information collection should
be sent by July 16, 2015 to the SAMHSA
Desk Officer at the Office of Information
and Regulatory Affairs, Office of
Management and Budget (OMB). To
ensure timely receipt of comments, and
to avoid potential delays in OMB’s
receipt and processing of mail sent
through the U.S. Postal Service,
commenters are encouraged to submit
their comments to OMB via email to:
OIRA_Submission@omb.eop.gov.
Although commenters are encouraged to
send their comments via email,
commenters may also fax their
comments to: 202–395–7285.
Commenters may also mail them to:
Office of Management and Budget,
Office of Information and Regulatory
Affairs, New Executive Office Building,
Room 10102, Washington, DC 20503.
Summer King,
Statistician.
[FR Doc. 2015–14727 Filed 6–15–15; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4162–20–P
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND
HUMAN SERVICES
Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration
asabaliauskas on DSK5VPTVN1PROD with NOTICES
Agency Information Collection
Activities: Proposed Collection;
Comment Request
In compliance with Section
3506(c)(2)(A) of the Paperwork
Reduction Act of 1995 concerning
opportunity for public comment on
proposed collections of information, the
Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration (SAMHSA)
will publish periodic summaries of
proposed projects. To request more
information on the proposed projects or
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17:18 Jun 15, 2015
Jkt 235001
to obtain a copy of the information
collection plans, call the SAMHSA
Reports Clearance Officer at (240) 276–
1243.
Comments are invited on: (a) Whether
the proposed collections of information
are necessary for the proper
performance of the functions of the
agency, including whether the
information shall have practical utility;
(b) the accuracy of the agency’s estimate
of the burden of the proposed collection
of information; (c) ways to enhance the
quality, utility, and clarity of the
information to be collected; and (d)
ways to minimize the burden of the
collection of information on
respondents, including through the use
of automated collection techniques or
other forms of information technology.
Proposed Project: Survey of State
Underage Drinking Prevention Policies
and Practices—(OMB No. 0930–0316)—
Revision
The Sober Truth on Preventing
Underage Drinking Act (the ‘‘STOP
Act’’) 1 states that the ‘‘Secretary [of
Health and Human Services] shall . . .
annually issue a report on each state’s
performance in enacting, enforcing, and
creating laws, regulations, and programs
to prevent or reduce underage
drinking.’’ The Secretary has delegated
responsibility for this report to
SAMHSA. Therefore, SAMHSA has
developed a Survey of State Underage
Drinking Prevention Policies and
Practices (the ‘‘State Survey’’) to provide
input for the state-by-state report on
prevention and enforcement activities
related to underage drinking component
of the Annual Report to Congress on the
1 Public
Law 109–422. It is assumed Congress
intended to include the District of Columbia as part
of the Report to Congress.
PO 00000
Frm 00087
Fmt 4703
Sfmt 4703
Prevention and Reduction of Underage
Drinking (‘‘Report to Congress’’).
The STOP Act also requires the
Secretary to develop ‘‘a set of measures
to be used in preparing the report on
best practices’’ and to consider
categories including but not limited to
the following:
Category #1: Sixteen 2 specific
underage drinking laws/regulations
enacted at the state level (e.g., laws
prohibiting sales to minors; laws related
to minors in possession of alcohol);
Category #2: Enforcement and
educational programs to promote
compliance with these laws/regulations;
Category #3: Programs targeted to
youths, parents, and caregivers to deter
underage drinking and the number of
individuals served by these programs;
Category #4: The amount that each
state invests, per youth capita, on the
prevention of underage drinking broken
into five categories: (a) Compliance
check programs in retail outlets; (b)
Checkpoints and saturation patrols that
include the goal of reducing and
deterring underage drinking; (c)
Community-based, school-based, and
higher-education-based programs to
prevent underage drinking; (d)
Underage drinking prevention programs
that target youth within the juvenile
justice and child welfare systems; and
(e) Any other state efforts or programs
that target underage drinking.
Congress’ purpose in mandating the
collection of data on state policies and
programs through the State Survey is to
provide policymakers and the public
with currently unavailable but much
needed information regarding state
underage drinking prevention policies
and programs. SAMHSA and other
2 Nine additional policies have been added to the
Report to Congress pursuant to Congressional
appropriations language or the Secretary’s authority
granted by the STOP Act.
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16JNN1
asabaliauskas on DSK5VPTVN1PROD with NOTICES
34450
Federal Register / Vol. 80, No. 115 / Tuesday, June 16, 2015 / Notices
Federal agencies that have underage
drinking prevention as part of their
mandate will use the results of the State
Survey to inform federal programmatic
priorities. The information gathered by
the State Survey will also establish a
resource for state agencies and the
general public for assessing policies and
programs in their own state and for
becoming familiar with the programs,
policies, and funding priorities of other
states.
Because of the broad scope of data
required by the STOP Act, SAMHSA
relies on existing data sources where
possible to minimize the survey burden
on the states. SAMHSA uses data on
state underage drinking policies from
the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse
and Alcoholism’s Alcohol Policy
Information System (APIS), an
authoritative compendium of state
alcohol-related laws. The APIS data is
augmented by SAMHSA with original
legal research on state laws and policies
addressing underage drinking to include
all of the STOP Act’s requested laws
and regulations (Category #1 of the four
categories included in the STOP Act, as
described above, page 2).
The STOP Act mandates that the State
Survey assess ‘‘best practices’’ and
emphasize the importance of building
collaborations with federally recognized
tribal governments (‘‘tribal
governments’’). It also emphasizes the
importance at the federal level of
promoting interagency collaboration
and to that end established the
Interagency Coordinating Committee on
the Prevention of Underage Drinking
(ICCPUD). SAMHSA has determined
that to fulfill the Congressional intent, it
is critical that the State Survey gather
information from the states regarding
the best practices standards that they
apply to their underage drinking
programs, collaborations between states
and tribal governments, and the
development of state-level interagency
collaborations similar to ICCPUD.
SAMHSA has determined that data on
Categories #2, #3, and #4 mandated in
the STOP Act (as listed on page 2)
(enforcement and educational programs;
programs targeting youth, parents, and
caregivers; and state expenditures) as
well as states’ best practices standards,
collaborations with tribal governments,
and state-level interagency
collaborations are not available from
secondary sources and therefore must be
collected from the states themselves.
The State Survey is therefore necessary
to fulfill the Congressional mandate
found in the STOP Act.
The State Survey is a single document
that is divided into four sections, as
follows:
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17:18 Jun 15, 2015
Jkt 235001
(1) Enforcement programs to promote
compliance with underage drinking
laws and regulations (as described in
Category #2 above, page 2);
(2) Programs targeted to youth,
parents, and caregivers to deter
underage drinking (as described in
Category #3 above, page 2);
(3) State interagency collaboration to
implement prevention programs, state
best-practice standards, and
collaborations with tribal governments
(as described above, page 4);
(4) The amount that each state invests
on the prevention of underage drinking
in the categories specified in the STOP
Act (see description of Category #4,
above, page 2) and descriptions of any
dedicated fees, taxes, or fines used to
raise these funds.
The number of questions in each
section is as follows:
Section 1: 31 questions
Section 2A: 30 questions 3
Section 2B: 7 questions
Section 2C: 6 questions
Section 2D: 15 questions
TOTAL: 89 questions
It is anticipated that respondents will
actually respond to only a subset of this
total. This is because the survey is
designed with ‘‘skip logic,’’ which
means that many questions will only be
directed to a subset of respondents who
report the existence of particular
programs or activities.
This latest version of the survey has
been revised slightly. There are no new
questions, nor were any deleted. All
revisions are for the purpose of
clarifying the existing questions. The
total number of questions remains the
same, so no additional time burden
should be placed on the respondents.
All questions continue to ask only for
readily available data.
The changes can be summarized as
follows:
Some global changes have been made;
for example, the current HHS and
SAMHSA style guides are applied so
that ‘‘state’’ and ‘‘federal’’ are not
capitalized. In addition, some
instruction sentences are put in bold
font, in response to frequent questions
from respondents for clarification of
these questions. These include
questions about the time period for
which they are asked to report specific
data, or the type of prevention programs
that should be included in responses.
3 Note that the number of questions in Section 2A
is an estimate. This section asks states to identify
their programs that are specific to underage
drinking prevention. For each program identified
there are six follow-up questions. Based on the
average number of programs per state reported in
the survey’s four year history, it is anticipated that
states will report an average of five programs for a
total of 30 questions.
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Fmt 4703
Sfmt 4703
In addition, the following specific
changes are recommended as
clarifications or improvements of
existing questions:
Part 1, Enforcement:
A question requesting the total
number of licensees in the state has
been moved up to become the second
question. It was previously located in
the set of questions about state
compliance checks, but was skipped if
the respondent answered that the state
does do not do compliance checks. The
number of licensees is a general piece of
information that could be very useful in
analyzing survey response data, and
therefore should be collected from all
states, regardless of whether they
conduct compliance checks.
The wording of the question asking
for the number of random compliance
checks conducted by the state has been
changed, and a definition of random
checks is included. The current wording
is confusing,4 and has often elicited an
answer that reflects all licenses in the
state, rather than the actual number of
random checks. Respondents have also
requested clarification of the definition
of random checks.
Part 2A, Programs:
Two changes have been made to
shorten the length of program
descriptions, in which states describe
their underage drinking prevention
programs. The program descriptions are
the lengthiest portion of the survey
response and are significant
contributors to the length of the Report
to Congress. In addition, the length of
the responses may pose a burden on
state respondents. The two changes are:
(a) The instructions in the section
have been modified to state: ‘‘Please
briefly describe the program, including
primary purpose, population served,
and methods used.’’
(b) The number of programs reported
on has been reduced from 15 to 10. In
the 2014 survey, 43 states (84%)
reported 10 or fewer programs. The
burden on respondents from those eight
states that report more than 10 programs
could be reduced by limiting the
responses to 10 programs.
Part 2D, Expenditures:
In response to the question about
expenditures on school-based
prevention programs, some respondents
have reported all expenditures for K–12,
which resulted in artificially inflated
data. The following statement has been
added to the instructions: ‘‘If it is not
possible to distinguish funds expended
specifically for the prevention of
underage drinking from a general fund
4 ‘‘Please provide number of licensees subject to
random compliance checks/decoy operations.’’
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34451
Federal Register / Vol. 80, No. 115 / Tuesday, June 16, 2015 / Notices
targeted to an activity or program listed
below, please check ‘These data are not
available in my state.’ ’’
To ensure that the State Survey
obtains the necessary data while
minimizing the burden on the states,
SAMHSA has conducted a lengthy and
comprehensive planning process. It has
sought advice from key stakeholders (as
mandated by the STOP Act) including
hosting an all-day stakeholders meeting,
conducting two field tests with state
officials likely to be responsible for
completing the State Survey, and
investigating and testing various State
Survey formats, online delivery systems,
and data collection methodologies.
Based on these investigations,
SAMHSA collects the required data
using an online survey data collection
platform (SurveyMonkey). Links to the
four sections of the survey are
distributed to states via email. The State
Survey is sent to each state governor’s
office and the Office of the Mayor of the
District of Columbia. Based on the
experience from the last four years of
administering the State Survey, it is
anticipated that the state governors will
designate staff from state agencies that
have access to the requested data
(typically state Alcohol Beverage
Control [ABC] agencies and state
Substance Abuse Program agencies).
SAMHSA provides both telephone and
electronic technical support to state
agency staff and emphasizes that the
states are only expected to provide data
that is readily available and are not
required to provide data that has not
already been collected. The burden
estimate below takes into account these
assumptions.
The estimated annual response
burden to collect this information is as
follows:
Instrument
Number of
respondents
Responses/
respondent
Burden/
response
(hrs)
Annual
burden
(hrs)
State Questionnaire .........................................................................................
51
1
17.7
902.7
Send comments to Summer King,
SAMHSA Reports Clearance Officer,
Room 2–1057, One Choke Cherry Road,
Rockville, MD 20857 or email her a
copy at summer.king@samhsa.hhs.gov.
Written comments should be received
by August 17, 2015.
Summer King,
Statistician.
[FR Doc. 2015–14728 Filed 6–15–15; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4162–20–P
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND
SECURITY
[Docket No. DHS–2015–0019]
National Infrastructure Advisory
Council
National Protection and
Programs Directorate, DHS.
ACTION: Committee Management; Notice
of an Open Federal Advisory Committee
Meeting.
AGENCY:
The National Infrastructure
Advisory Council will meet on Tuesday,
June 30, 2015, at The Auditorium, 2451
Crystal Drive (first floor), Arlington, VA
22202. This meeting will be open to the
public.
DATES: The National Infrastructure
Advisory Council will meet on June 30,
2015 from 1:30 p.m.–4:30 p.m. EDT. The
meeting may close early if the
committee has completed its business.
For additional information, please
consult the National Infrastructure
Advisory Council Web site,
www.dhs.gov/NIAC, or contact the
National Infrastructure Advisory
Council Secretariat by phone at (703)
asabaliauskas on DSK5VPTVN1PROD with NOTICES
SUMMARY:
VerDate Sep<11>2014
17:18 Jun 15, 2015
Jkt 235001
235–2888 or by email at NIAC@
hq.dhs.gov.
ADDRESSES: The Auditorium, 2451
Crystal Drive, First Floor, Arlington, VA
22202. Members of the public will
register at the table at the door to the
meeting room. For information on
facilities or services for individuals with
disabilities, or to request special
assistance at the meeting, contact the
person listed under FOR FURTHER
INFORMATION CONTACT below as soon as
possible. To facilitate public
participation, we are inviting public
comment on the issues to be considered
by the Council as listed in the
‘‘Summary’’ section below. Comments
must be submitted in writing no later
than 12:00 p.m. on June 30, 2015, in
order to be considered by the Council in
its meeting. The comments must be
identified by ‘‘DHS–2015–0019,’’ and
may be submitted by any one of the
following methods:
• Federal eRulemaking Portal:
www.regulations.gov. Follow the
instructions for submitting written
comments.
• Email: NIAC@hq.dhs.gov. Include
the docket number in the subject line of
the message.
• Fax: (703) 603–5098.
• Mail: Nancy Wong, National
Protection and Programs Directorate,
Department of Homeland Security, 245
Murray Lane SW., Mail Stop 0607,
Arlington, VA 20598–0607.
Instructions: All written submissions
received must include the words
‘‘Department of Homeland Security’’
and the docket number for this action.
Written comments received will be
posted without alteration at
www.regulations.gov, including any
personal information provided.
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Sfmt 4703
Docket: For access to the docket to
read background documents or
comments received by the National
Infrastructure Advisory Council, go to
www.regulations.gov. Enter ‘‘NIAC
2015’’ in the search line and the Web
site will list all relevant documents for
your review. Members of the public will
have an opportunity to provide oral
comments on the topics on the meeting
agenda below, and on any previous
studies issued by the National
Infrastructure Advisory Council. We
request that comments be limited to the
issues and studies listed in the meeting
agenda and previous National
Infrastructure Advisory Council studies.
All previous National Infrastructure
Advisory Council studies can be located
at www.dhs.gov/NIAC. Public comments
may be submitted in writing or
presented in person for the Council to
consider. Comments received by Nancy
Wong after 12:00 p.m. on June 29, 2015,
will still be accepted and reviewed by
the members, but not necessarily by the
time of the meeting. In-person
presentations will be limited to three
minutes per speaker, with no more than
15 minutes for all speakers. Parties
interested in making in-person
comments should register on the Public
Comment Registration list available at
the meeting location no later than 15
minutes prior to the beginning of the
meeting.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Nancy Wong, National Infrastructure
Advisory Council, Designated Federal
Officer, Department of Homeland
Security, (703) 235–2888.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Notice of
this meeting is given under the Federal
Advisory Committee Act, 5 U.S.C.
E:\FR\FM\16JNN1.SGM
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]]>Agencies
[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 115 (Tuesday, June 16, 2015)]
[Notices]
[Pages 34449-34451]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2015-14728]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection;
Comment Request
In compliance with Section 3506(c)(2)(A) of the Paperwork Reduction
Act of 1995 concerning opportunity for public comment on proposed
collections of information, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration (SAMHSA) will publish periodic summaries of
proposed projects. To request more information on the proposed projects
or to obtain a copy of the information collection plans, call the
SAMHSA Reports Clearance Officer at (240) 276-1243.
Comments are invited on: (a) Whether the proposed collections of
information are necessary for the proper performance of the functions
of the agency, including whether the information shall have practical
utility; (b) the accuracy of the agency's estimate of the burden of the
proposed collection of information; (c) ways to enhance the quality,
utility, and clarity of the information to be collected; and (d) ways
to minimize the burden of the collection of information on respondents,
including through the use of automated collection techniques or other
forms of information technology.
Proposed Project: Survey of State Underage Drinking Prevention Policies
and Practices--(OMB No. 0930-0316)--Revision
The Sober Truth on Preventing Underage Drinking Act (the ``STOP
Act'') \1\ states that the ``Secretary [of Health and Human Services]
shall . . . annually issue a report on each state's performance in
enacting, enforcing, and creating laws, regulations, and programs to
prevent or reduce underage drinking.'' The Secretary has delegated
responsibility for this report to SAMHSA. Therefore, SAMHSA has
developed a Survey of State Underage Drinking Prevention Policies and
Practices (the ``State Survey'') to provide input for the state-by-
state report on prevention and enforcement activities related to
underage drinking component of the Annual Report to Congress on the
Prevention and Reduction of Underage Drinking (``Report to Congress'').
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Public Law 109-422. It is assumed Congress intended to
include the District of Columbia as part of the Report to Congress.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The STOP Act also requires the Secretary to develop ``a set of
measures to be used in preparing the report on best practices'' and to
consider categories including but not limited to the following:
Category #1: Sixteen \2\ specific underage drinking laws/
regulations enacted at the state level (e.g., laws prohibiting sales to
minors; laws related to minors in possession of alcohol);
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Nine additional policies have been added to the Report to
Congress pursuant to Congressional appropriations language or the
Secretary's authority granted by the STOP Act.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Category #2: Enforcement and educational programs to promote
compliance with these laws/regulations;
Category #3: Programs targeted to youths, parents, and caregivers
to deter underage drinking and the number of individuals served by
these programs;
Category #4: The amount that each state invests, per youth capita,
on the prevention of underage drinking broken into five categories: (a)
Compliance check programs in retail outlets; (b) Checkpoints and
saturation patrols that include the goal of reducing and deterring
underage drinking; (c) Community-based, school-based, and higher-
education-based programs to prevent underage drinking; (d) Underage
drinking prevention programs that target youth within the juvenile
justice and child welfare systems; and (e) Any other state efforts or
programs that target underage drinking.
Congress' purpose in mandating the collection of data on state
policies and programs through the State Survey is to provide
policymakers and the public with currently unavailable but much needed
information regarding state underage drinking prevention policies and
programs. SAMHSA and other
[[Page 34450]]
Federal agencies that have underage drinking prevention as part of
their mandate will use the results of the State Survey to inform
federal programmatic priorities. The information gathered by the State
Survey will also establish a resource for state agencies and the
general public for assessing policies and programs in their own state
and for becoming familiar with the programs, policies, and funding
priorities of other states.
Because of the broad scope of data required by the STOP Act, SAMHSA
relies on existing data sources where possible to minimize the survey
burden on the states. SAMHSA uses data on state underage drinking
policies from the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism's
Alcohol Policy Information System (APIS), an authoritative compendium
of state alcohol-related laws. The APIS data is augmented by SAMHSA
with original legal research on state laws and policies addressing
underage drinking to include all of the STOP Act's requested laws and
regulations (Category #1 of the four categories included in the STOP
Act, as described above, page 2).
The STOP Act mandates that the State Survey assess ``best
practices'' and emphasize the importance of building collaborations
with federally recognized tribal governments (``tribal governments'').
It also emphasizes the importance at the federal level of promoting
interagency collaboration and to that end established the Interagency
Coordinating Committee on the Prevention of Underage Drinking (ICCPUD).
SAMHSA has determined that to fulfill the Congressional intent, it is
critical that the State Survey gather information from the states
regarding the best practices standards that they apply to their
underage drinking programs, collaborations between states and tribal
governments, and the development of state-level interagency
collaborations similar to ICCPUD.
SAMHSA has determined that data on Categories #2, #3, and #4
mandated in the STOP Act (as listed on page 2) (enforcement and
educational programs; programs targeting youth, parents, and
caregivers; and state expenditures) as well as states' best practices
standards, collaborations with tribal governments, and state-level
interagency collaborations are not available from secondary sources and
therefore must be collected from the states themselves. The State
Survey is therefore necessary to fulfill the Congressional mandate
found in the STOP Act.
The State Survey is a single document that is divided into four
sections, as follows:
(1) Enforcement programs to promote compliance with underage
drinking laws and regulations (as described in Category #2 above, page
2);
(2) Programs targeted to youth, parents, and caregivers to deter
underage drinking (as described in Category #3 above, page 2);
(3) State interagency collaboration to implement prevention
programs, state best-practice standards, and collaborations with tribal
governments (as described above, page 4);
(4) The amount that each state invests on the prevention of
underage drinking in the categories specified in the STOP Act (see
description of Category #4, above, page 2) and descriptions of any
dedicated fees, taxes, or fines used to raise these funds.
The number of questions in each section is as follows:
Section 1: 31 questions
Section 2A: 30 questions \3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Note that the number of questions in Section 2A is an
estimate. This section asks states to identify their programs that
are specific to underage drinking prevention. For each program
identified there are six follow-up questions. Based on the average
number of programs per state reported in the survey's four year
history, it is anticipated that states will report an average of
five programs for a total of 30 questions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Section 2B: 7 questions
Section 2C: 6 questions
Section 2D: 15 questions
TOTAL: 89 questions
It is anticipated that respondents will actually respond to only a
subset of this total. This is because the survey is designed with
``skip logic,'' which means that many questions will only be directed
to a subset of respondents who report the existence of particular
programs or activities.
This latest version of the survey has been revised slightly. There
are no new questions, nor were any deleted. All revisions are for the
purpose of clarifying the existing questions. The total number of
questions remains the same, so no additional time burden should be
placed on the respondents. All questions continue to ask only for
readily available data.
The changes can be summarized as follows:
Some global changes have been made; for example, the current HHS
and SAMHSA style guides are applied so that ``state'' and ``federal''
are not capitalized. In addition, some instruction sentences are put in
bold font, in response to frequent questions from respondents for
clarification of these questions. These include questions about the
time period for which they are asked to report specific data, or the
type of prevention programs that should be included in responses.
In addition, the following specific changes are recommended as
clarifications or improvements of existing questions:
Part 1, Enforcement:
A question requesting the total number of licensees in the state
has been moved up to become the second question. It was previously
located in the set of questions about state compliance checks, but was
skipped if the respondent answered that the state does do not do
compliance checks. The number of licensees is a general piece of
information that could be very useful in analyzing survey response
data, and therefore should be collected from all states, regardless of
whether they conduct compliance checks.
The wording of the question asking for the number of random
compliance checks conducted by the state has been changed, and a
definition of random checks is included. The current wording is
confusing,\4\ and has often elicited an answer that reflects all
licenses in the state, rather than the actual number of random checks.
Respondents have also requested clarification of the definition of
random checks.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ ``Please provide number of licensees subject to random
compliance checks/decoy operations.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Part 2A, Programs:
Two changes have been made to shorten the length of program
descriptions, in which states describe their underage drinking
prevention programs. The program descriptions are the lengthiest
portion of the survey response and are significant contributors to the
length of the Report to Congress. In addition, the length of the
responses may pose a burden on state respondents. The two changes are:
(a) The instructions in the section have been modified to state:
``Please briefly describe the program, including primary purpose,
population served, and methods used.''
(b) The number of programs reported on has been reduced from 15 to
10. In the 2014 survey, 43 states (84%) reported 10 or fewer programs.
The burden on respondents from those eight states that report more than
10 programs could be reduced by limiting the responses to 10 programs.
Part 2D, Expenditures:
In response to the question about expenditures on school-based
prevention programs, some respondents have reported all expenditures
for K-12, which resulted in artificially inflated data. The following
statement has been added to the instructions: ``If it is not possible
to distinguish funds expended specifically for the prevention of
underage drinking from a general fund
[[Page 34451]]
targeted to an activity or program listed below, please check `These
data are not available in my state.' ''
To ensure that the State Survey obtains the necessary data while
minimizing the burden on the states, SAMHSA has conducted a lengthy and
comprehensive planning process. It has sought advice from key
stakeholders (as mandated by the STOP Act) including hosting an all-day
stakeholders meeting, conducting two field tests with state officials
likely to be responsible for completing the State Survey, and
investigating and testing various State Survey formats, online delivery
systems, and data collection methodologies.
Based on these investigations, SAMHSA collects the required data
using an online survey data collection platform (SurveyMonkey). Links
to the four sections of the survey are distributed to states via email.
The State Survey is sent to each state governor's office and the Office
of the Mayor of the District of Columbia. Based on the experience from
the last four years of administering the State Survey, it is
anticipated that the state governors will designate staff from state
agencies that have access to the requested data (typically state
Alcohol Beverage Control [ABC] agencies and state Substance Abuse
Program agencies). SAMHSA provides both telephone and electronic
technical support to state agency staff and emphasizes that the states
are only expected to provide data that is readily available and are not
required to provide data that has not already been collected. The
burden estimate below takes into account these assumptions.
The estimated annual response burden to collect this information is
as follows:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of Responses/ Burden/ Annual burden
Instrument respondents respondent response (hrs) (hrs)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
State Questionnaire......................... 51 1 17.7 902.7
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Send comments to Summer King, SAMHSA Reports Clearance Officer,
Room 2-1057, One Choke Cherry Road, Rockville, MD 20857 or email her a
copy at summer.king@samhsa.hhs.gov. Written comments should be received
by August 17, 2015.
Summer King,
Statistician.
[FR Doc. 2015-14728 Filed 6-15-15; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4162-20-P
