Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request, 55516-55517 [2018-24229]

Agencies

• DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

[Federal Register Volume 83, Number 215 (Tuesday, November 6, 2018)]
[Notices]
[Pages 55516-55517]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2018-24229]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE


Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request

    The Department of Commerce will submit to the Office of Management 
and Budget (OMB) for clearance the following proposal for collection of 
information under the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act.
    Agency: U.S. Census Bureau.
    Title: Data Collection Form for Reporting on Audits of States, 
Local Governments, Indian Tribes, Institutions of Higher Education, and 
Non-Profit Organizations.
    OMB Control Number: 0607-0518.
    Form Number(s): SF-SAC.
    Type of Request: Reinstatement with changes.
    Number of Respondents: 80,000 (40,000 auditees and 40,000 
auditors).
    Average Hours per Response: 100 hours for large auditees (approx. 
400 respondents) and 21 hours for all other auditees (approx. 79,600 
respondents). These amounts reflect estimates of reporting burden on 
both auditees and auditors individually, meaning 100 or 21 hours for 
auditees and 100 or 21 hours for auditors. Auditees and auditors submit 
a combined response, making the total number of annual submissions 
40,000.
    Burden Hours: 1,711,600 total hours annually. (A slight refinement 
of the estimate increased the annual burden hours by less than 1% from 
the estimate of 1,699,600 hours, which was published in the 
presubmission notice on April 3, 2018.)
    Needs and Uses: Non-Federal entities (states, local governments, 
Indian tribes, institutions of higher education, and nonprofit 
organizations) are required by the Single Audit Act Amendments of 1996 
(31 U.S.C. 7501, et seq.) (Act) and 2 CFR part 200, ``Uniform 
Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements 
for Federal Awards,'' (Uniform Guidance) to have audits conducted of 
their Federal awards and file the resulting reporting packages (Single 
Audit reports) and data collection forms (Form SF-SAC) with the Federal 
Audit Clearinghouse (FAC). The Form SF-SAC is Appendix X to 2 CFR part 
200. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has designated the 
Census Bureau as the FAC to serve as the government-wide repository of 
record for Single Audit reports.
    The Single Audit process is a primary method Federal agencies and 
pass-through entities use to provide oversight for Federal awards and 
reduce risk of non-compliance and improper

[[Page 55517]]

payments. This includes following up on audit findings and questioned 
costs. The proposed changes are to revise some existing data elements 
and add data elements that would make the reports easier for Federal 
agencies, pass-through entities, and the public to use.
    This is a reinstatement, with changes, of Form SF-SAC, OMB control 
number 0607-0518. Prior to the year 1997, the Census Bureau was 
responsible for the OMB clearance approval process using OMB control 
number 0607-0518. In 1997, OMB took over the approval process for the 
Form SF-SAC under OMB control number 0348-0057 (currently expiring June 
30, 2019). The Census Bureau is now resuming responsibility for 
obtaining OMB clearance under the original OMB control number 0607-
0518. The FAC will continue to collect Single Audit reports from prior 
audit years, going back to audit year 2013, to accommodate late 
submissions and revisions. Late submissions or revisions from prior 
years are to use the version of the Form SF-SAC applicable to that 
audit year. The FAC also plans to allow Non-Federal entities who did 
not meet the threshold requiring submission of a Single Audit report to 
voluntarily notify the FAC that they did not meet the reporting 
threshold. The FAC plans to put this information on their website.
    The proposed changes are to include the following required elements 
of the reporting package on the data collection form: The text of the 
federal award audit findings, the text of the corrective action plan, 
and the notes to the schedule of expenditures of federal awards (SEFA). 
There will be a checkbox for each finding text and corrective action 
plan (CAP) text entered asking the user if there are any charts or 
tables that could not be copied or pasted to analyze how often this 
occurs. Additionally, a new yes/no question has been added regarding 
whether the auditors communicated to the auditee, in a written 
document, any issues that were not audit findings. The inclusion of 
these items is to aid Federal agencies and pass-through entities in 
their review of their recipients/subrecipients. This will reduce their 
burden of manually searching the reporting package for this 
information. With these items now included on the form, the information 
can be viewed during the initial review of auditees instead of needing 
to access and search all reporting packages of all recipients/
subrecipients. In the future, the FAC would like to develop a system-
generated exportable Schedule of Findings and Questioned Costs using 
these items, similar to the system-generated SEFA and Notes to the 
SEFA, which will reduce burden for auditees and auditors.
    Two additional items not mentioned in the pre-submission notice 
will be collected in the Web-based collection instrument, the Internet 
Data Entry System (IDES). These items will collect the date the 
auditor's report(s) were received by the auditee and what items were 
modified when a revision has been conducted. The date the auditor's 
report(s) was received was not included in the pre-submission notice as 
logistics were still being discussed about what instructions should 
accompany this field. This is the date the auditee received the full, 
complete report from the auditor. This inclusion is to help with the 
determination of whether the Form SF-SAC and Single Audit report were 
submitted on time. Collecting this date will allow for tracking of the 
30-day deadline, as the FAC already collects the fiscal period ending 
date to track the nine-month deadline. The list of what items were 
modified when a revision has been conducted was not included in the 
pre-submission notice as it was not suggested to the FAC until a 
meeting with stakeholders that occurred after the pre-submission notice 
was submitted. Users will select which items changed from the 
previously submitted version using a preset list of options. Users will 
be able to check multiple options. This information will be publicly 
displayed on the FAC website.
    The proposed revisions to the Form SF-SAC can be obtained by 
download from the FAC homepage at https://harvester.census.gov/facweb 
or by contacting the Federal Audit Clearinghouse at [email protected] 
or 800-253-0696.
    Affected Public: States, local governments, Indian tribes, 
institutions of higher education, non-profit organizations (Non-Federal 
entities) and their auditors.
    Frequency: Annually.
    Respondent's Obligation: Mandatory.
    Legal Authority: Title 31 U.S.C. Section 7501 et seq. and 2 CFR 
part 200.
    This information collection request may be viewed at 
www.reginfo.gov. Follow the instructions to view Department of Commerce 
collections currently under review by OMB.
    Written comments and recommendations for the proposed information 
collection should be sent within 30 days of publication of this notice 
to [email protected] or fax to (202) 
395-5806. You may also submit comments, identified by Docket Number 
OMB-2018-0007, to the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal: https://www.regulations.gov. All comments received are part of the public 
record. Comments will generally be posted without change. All 
Personally Identifiable Information (for example, name and address) 
voluntarily submitted by the commenter may be publicly accessible. Do 
not submit Confidential Business Information or otherwise sensitive or 
protected information. You may submit attachments to electronic 
comments in Microsoft Word, Excel, WordPerfect, or Adobe PDF file 
formats only.

Sheleen Dumas,
Departmental Lead PRA Officer, Office of the Chief Information Officer.
[FR Doc. 2018-24229 Filed 11-5-18; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 3510-07-P