Take Action! National Prisoner Statistics Program and More
by Meghan Maury
Survey of the Week: National Prisoner Statistics Program (NPS).
DOJ is making a number of changes to its NPS program, which collects information about people incarcerated in state and federal facilities. Proposed changes include removing the HIV/AIDS module and conducting cognitive testing on implementing the SPD15 race and ethnicity data collection standards. As part of the SPD15 test, DOJ plans to assess the availability of more detailed race and ethnicity information within the respondents' data systems.
Comments due Sept. 22.
Every time the government makes a change to a survey or a form — or introduces a new survey or form — you have the right to weigh in on that decision. The Take Action! newsletter highlights surveys or forms the government is changing, renewing, or introducing. Click the links to tell the government what you think about the changes they are making.
Note: The Take Action tab of DataIndex.us provides information about even more surveys, forms, evaluations, and records notices than are listed in your weekly newsletter.
Surveys
Hate Crimes: National Crime Victimization Survey. The NCVS provides data on the level and change of criminal victimization both reported and not reported to police in the United States. DOJ is revising the survey to add and remove several questions, including adding questions about hate crimes against people based on their religious beliefs, removing gender identity response options from the sex question (but retaining the gender identity-related hate crime question, including gender non-conforming response options), and adding language about taking action to protect property.
Comments due Sept. 22.
Education: National Public Education Financial Survey (NPEFS) 2025-2027. NPEFS is a comprehensive source of state-level finance data for public education including revenues, expenditures, and average daily attendance of all publicly funded schools and elementary-secondary local education agencies (LEAs), state payments on behalf of LEAs, and state support for a free public education for students in prekindergarten through 12th grade. NPEFS data are used to calculate a state's “average per-pupil expenditure” (SPPE) for elementary and secondary education and in calculating allocations for certain formula grant programs. No changes are being made to the survey.
Comments due Sept. 16.
Education: School-Level Finance Survey (SLFS). SLFS is a comprehensive source of school-level finance data for public education including salaries, benefits, and total current expenditures broken out by activity for all publicly funded schools serving students in prekindergarten through 12th grade. Data on school-level spending patterns is helpful for parents to make choices for the education of their child. Uniform and comparable data helps states measure the effectiveness of resource allocation. Collecting this data at the national level addresses the need for reliable and unbiased measures that can be utilized to compare how resources are distributed among schools within local districts. Education finance statistics provided by this collection allow for comparisons of how public elementary-secondary schools are spending their funds. No changes are being made to this survey.
Comments due Sept. 16.
Military Healthcare: TRICARE Select Survey of Civilian Providers. This survey is designed to gather data on providers (physicians including primary care physicians, specialist, and mental health providers and non-physician behavioral health providers) to assess the extent to which they are aware of the overall TRICARE program, accept new TRICARE patients specifically, the extent to which these providers accept Medicare patients, and reasons if they are not. It's unclear from the listing whether any changes are being made.
Comments due Sept. 19.
Women’s Health: Childbirth and Breastfeeding Demonstration Survey. This survey will be used to evaluate the Childbirth and Breastfeeding Support Demonstration (CBSD), which is a project that will cover services of certain extra medical providers (certified labor doulas, certified lactation consultants, and certified lactation counselors) over a 5-year period. The survey will solicit information from TRICARE beneficiaries who have given birth in the specified reporting period. Results will be used to assist in evaluating the effectiveness of the CBSD project.
Comments due Sept. 19.
Data Sharing Agreements
National Security: Counterintelligence Investigations and Collection Activities (CICA) Privacy Act Exemption. DOD is proposing to exempt portions of its new Counterintelligence Investigations and Collection Activities (CICA) system of records from certain provisions of the Privacy Act to protect national security and law enforcement interests.
Comments due Sept. 19.
Forms
Immigration: Notice of Appeal From a Decision of an Immigration Judge. This form is being revised to reflect new filing fees required under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Under that law, filing fees increase by $1,000.
Comments due Sept. 2.
Civil Rights: NASA Assurance of Civil Rights Compliance. NASA grantees use this form to submit an assurance of non-discrimination as part of their initial grant application package. In the current iteration, NASA is including a clarifying statement that reads "Title VI’s protections against discrimination based on race, color, and national origin include antisemitism and other forms of discrimination when based on shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics."
Comments due Sept. 16.
Disability: Social Security Administration Forms. SSA is revising a number of its forms, including the Continuing Disability Review Report (used to assess whether a diability payment claimant's disability continues to make them unable to work), Special Veterans Benefits forms, and SSN Verification Process forms. The listing indicates that changes are being made to these forms, but it's unclear what changes are being made.
Comments due Sept. 19.
This newsletter is made possible by a very generous donation from the Leadership Conference Education Fund.