Notice2024-31659
Information Collection; Student Loan Repayment Application and Service Agreement (GSA Form 5015)
Primary source
Metadata and text below are from the Federal Register, a public-domain U.S. government work. Always verify the official published version before relying on it for any legal matter.
Published
January 8, 2025
Issuing agencies
General Services Administration
Abstract
Under the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act, the Regulatory Secretariat Division will be submitting to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) a request to review and approve a new information collection requirement.
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 90 Issue 5 (Wednesday, January 8, 2025)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 90, Number 5 (Wednesday, January 8, 2025)]
[Notices]
[Pages 1482-1490]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2024-31659]
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GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION
[OMB Control No. 3090-XXXX; Docket No. 2025-0001; Sequence No. 2]
Information Collection; Student Loan Repayment Application and
Service Agreement (GSA Form 5015)
AGENCY: Office of Human Resource Management, Strategic Planning,
Policy, and Training Division, General Services Administration (GSA).
ACTION: Notice; request for comments.
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SUMMARY: Under the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act, the
Regulatory Secretariat Division will be submitting to the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) a request to review and approve a new
information collection requirement.
DATES: Submit comments on or before March 10, 2025.
ADDRESSES: Submit comments identified by Information Collection 3090-
XXXX; ``Student Loan Repayment Application and Service Agreement (GSA
Form 5015)'' to: <a href="http://www.regulations.gov">http://www.regulations.gov</a>. Submit comments via the
Federal eRulemaking portal by searching for ``Information Collection
3090-XXXX; ``Student Loan Repayment Application and Service Agreement
(GSA Form 5015).'' Select the link ``Submit a Comment'' that
corresponds with ``Information Collection 3090-XXXX; Student Loan
Repayment Application and Service Agreement (GSA Form 5015).'' Follow
the instructions provided at the ``Submit a Comment'' screen. Please
include your name, company name (if any), and ``Information Collection
3090-XXXX; Student Loan Repayment Application and Service Agreement
(GSA Form 5015)'' on your attached document. If your comment cannot be
submitted using <a href="https://www.regulations.gov">https://www.regulations.gov</a>, call or email the points
of contact in the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section of this
document for alternate instructions.
Instructions: Please submit comments only and cite ``Information
Collection 3090-XXXX; Student Loan Repayment Application and Service
Agreement (GSA Form 5015),'' in all correspondence related to this
collection. Comments received generally will be posted without change
to <a href="http://www.regulations.gov">http://www.regulations.gov</a>, including any personal and/or business
confidential information provided. To confirm receipt of your
comment(s), please check <a href="http://www.regulations.gov">www.regulations.gov</a>, approximately two-to-
three days after submission to verify posting.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Colin C. Bennett, Human Resources
Specialist, Office of Human Resources Management, Strategic Planning,
Policy, and Training Division, at telephone 240-418-6822 or via email
to <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#22414d4e4b4c0c40474c4c475656624551430c454d54"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="d3b0bcbfbabdfdb1b6bdbdb6a7a793b4a0b2fdb4bca5">[email protected]</span></a> for clarification of content.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
A. Purpose
Federal civil service personnel law, codified at 5 U.S.C. 5379,
allows Federal agencies to use appropriated funds, revenue funds, or
revolving funds, to pay for all or part of student loan debts incurred
by job candidates or existing agency employees. By law, each candidate
or employee is limited to a benefit of $10,000 per calendar year and a
lifetime limit of $60,000 (at any agency or combination of Federal
agencies). This benefit is paid by the Federal agency directly to the
financial institution, and not to the job candidate
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or employee. When paid by an agency to the lender, these benefits are
considered taxable wages and are subject to income tax withholding and
Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes.
There are many eligibility requirements that must be met before
agencies can transfer funds to a candidate's or employee's lender.
First, the student loans must be made, insured, or guaranteed under
parts B, D or E of title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20
U.S.C. 1071 et seq.). Normally these loans are part of the U.S.
Department of Education's William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program.
Direct Subsidized Loans, Direct Unsubsidized Loans, Direct PLUS Loans,
and Direct Consolidation Loans are all common types of Direct Loans.
Only certain types of Federal appointments are eligible. Non-career
temporary appointments limited to 1 year or less are not eligible. Non-
career term appointments of less than 3 years are also excluded.
``Schedule C'' political appointments in the Title 5 excepted service
are also not eligible. All candidates or employees who are eligible,
and who receive benefits, must sign a service agreement to remain with
the Federal Government (sometimes with the specific agency) for a
period no less than 3 years. In practice, if payments are made annually
over the course of multiple years, the service agreement length can
last as long as 6 years under this recruitment and retention bonus
authority.
To ensure that Federal funds are only used in an appropriate and
strategic manner, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has
promulgated civil services implementing regulations, found at 5 CFR
part 537. These regulations stipulate that this authority is available
to job candidates, who are not currently part of the Federal civil
service, when the candidates are highly-qualified and the agency
otherwise would encounter difficulty in filling the positions with
highly qualified individuals. This authority is also available to
facilitate the retention of agency employees when those employees would
otherwise be likely to leave the Federal service agency for outside
employment. In the retention context, agencies must determine that it
is essential to retain the employees based upon their high or unique
qualifications or a special agency need.
GSA, like many Federal agencies, has administrative approval
controls to make sure that funds are only used for the most appropriate
recruitment or retention cases. At GSA, the administrative approval
process is currently very cumbersome and laborious because it requires
a custom-written memorandum by a ``Requesting Official'' (i.e., the
selecting official or employee's supervisor), routed through a senior
``Reviewing Official'' for budgetary approval, and then finally routed
through three different divisions within the Office of Human Resources
and then one additional office in the office of the Chief Financial
Officer. Because each memorandum is custom-written, the agency is only
able to transactionally process a very small number of requests each
year (i.e., typically 1 to 7 requests annually, across an agency of
nearly 13,000 employees).
In an effort to improve Government efficiency, GSA proposes to
standardize and streamline its agency process for this personnel
authority by creating a new agency form, GSA Form 5015, ``Student Loan
Repayment Application and Service Agreement.'' The purpose of this form
will be to collect together, in one place, information necessary to
determine a job candidate's or employee's eligibility. The information
collected will include the type of loan, the name and address of the
lender, and a justification statement summarizing the candidate's or
employee's knowledge, skills and abilities that support a ``highly-
qualified'' designation. The proposed form also will contain standard
signature blocks for all 6 agency signatures that are required for
transactional processing. The agency's current processing procedures
are contained within the public administrative Order 9537.1B, ``Student
Loan Repayment Plan,'' found at <a href="http://www.gsa.gov/">http://www.gsa.gov/</a>. The proposed form
also contains the Service Agreement itself, so that all signatures and
binding terms and conditions of the agreement are centralized into one
location.
Public notice for GSA Form 5015 is sought because non-Federal job
candidates may partially complete certain selections of the form, to
aid the selecting official who is responsible for the vacancy
announcement. For student loan repayment applications that are approved
and processed, the GSA Form 5015 will be placed into the future or
existing employee's Official Personnel File (OPF) as an agency
temporary document, in accordance with the OPM Guide to Personnel
Recordkeeping (available at <a href="http://www.opm.gov">http://www.opm.gov</a>).
B. Annual Reporting Burden
Respondents: 25 per year.
Responses Per Respondent: 1.
Total Annual Responses: 25.
Hours per Response: 8.
Total Burden Hours: 200.
C. Public Comments
Public comments are solicited to help GSA understand whether or not
creating the proposed new GSA Form 5015 will help to streamline the
current consideration and approval process as well as save labor hours
in the creation of requests and their subsequent approval and
administrative routing. The agency would also like to know: (a) whether
this collection of information is necessary, (b) whether it will have
practical utility, (c) whether our estimate of the public burden of
this collection of information is accurate (and based on valid
assumptions and methodology), (d) whether or not there are ways to
enhance the new form's utility and clarity of the information to be
collected, and (e) whether or not there might be ways in to minimize
the data collection burden through the use of information technology.
Obtaining Copies of Proposals: We have provided a copy of the
proposed draft GSA Form 5015 at the end of this notice below the
signature block. A copy of the proposed draft form can alternatively be
obtained through GSA's Regulatory Secretariat Division by calling (202)
501-4755 or emailing <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#a0e7f3e1f2c5c7f3c5c3e0c7d3c18ec7cfd6"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="3a7d697b685f5d695f597a5d495b145d554c">[email protected]</span></a>. Please cite OMB Control No.
3090-XXXX, Student Loan Repayment Application and Service Agreement
(GSA Form 5015), in all correspondence.
Lois Mandell,
Director, Regulatory Secretariat Division, General Services
Administration.
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[FR Doc. 2024-31659 Filed 1-7-25; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6820-FM-P
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