Employment Standards Administration (ESA)

ESA Information Quality Guidelines

On December 21, 2000 Congress passed Section 515 of the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2001, and OMB issued final guidance for implementing the Act on February 22, 2002. The OMB guidance requires all Federal agencies to issue information quality guidelines ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information disseminated. The guidelines apply to information disseminated on or after October 1, 2002.

Overview of Information Correction Request

ESA believes that in most cases, informal contacts would be appropriate. Sometimes agencies and affected persons may find it helpful to resolve concerns about information in a more structured way and may choose to follow a more formal process. ESA makes available to the public an e-mail address to which more formal correction requests and appeals should be sent.

Information Complaint and Appeals Process

Affected persons must indicate their interest in following a more structured complaint and appeal process. Requesters must:

• Identify themselves and indicate where and how they can be reached;
• Identify, as specifically as possible, the information in question;
• Indicate how they are affected by the information about which they are complaining;
• Carefully describe the nature of the complaint, including an explanation of why they believe the information does not comply with OMB, Departmental, or agency-specific guidelines; and
• Describe the change requested and the reason why the agency should make the change.

Agency responses are to be within 60 days of receipt of a correction request. If a requester is dissatisfied with the initial response to the complaint, he or she may submit an appeal within 45 days of the date the agency’s response or 105 days from the date on which an agency or agencies first received the complaint, whichever is later. The appeal request should contain the same contact and descriptive information that was provided in the original complaint and the specific reasons why the initial agency response was not satisfactory. Once an appeal decision has been rendered by the agency, it will notify the complainant.

Initial correction requests and appeals should be clearly marked as such. Requests and Appeals can be sent to:

Data Quality Group
U. S. Department of Labor
Employment Standards Administration
200 Constitution Avenue, NW
Room C-3201
Washington, DC 20210

or contact us via email: http://www.dol.gov/cgi-bin/contactus.asp