What You'll Find Here
LIHEAP is a block grant, which means that state, territorial, and tribal grant recipients may, within statutory parameters, operate their programs as they see fit, based on their budgets, administrative and program delivery structures, client demographics, and other factors. As a result, the variations in state program practices are nearly endless.
Funding
This section includes both narrative descriptions and graphs related to LIHEAP funding.
Administration
This section outlines the statutory and regulatory frameworks of LIHEAP administration while detailing the many variations in state administrative practices and components therein, such as contracting, fiscal management and oversight, and monitoring. It includes state-by-state tables on how LIHEAP is administered at the state and local level, as well as examples of materials used by states to administer their programs (budget sheets, contracts, agreements, checklists, and monitoring tools).
Delivery
By contrast, the "Delivery" section focuses on how program services are delivered with state-by-state tables on such key program areas as eligibility levels, benefits, heating, cooling, crisis and weatherization component variations, and self-sufficiency initiatives such as Assurance 16.
Leveraging
This section details initiatives by states to supplement LIHEAP funds with non-federal funds and other resources. It also includes descriptions of ratepayer-funded programs providing low-income energy assistance and energy efficiency around the country.
Performance Measures
This section looks at performance measures proposed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 2013. The section includes background related to why the performance measures were proposed; how they were developed; and what their status is in the approval process. It also includes information about the Performance Measures Implementation Work Group, and a link to a grantee-only website.
The LIHEAP Performance Measures Implementation Work Group (PMIWG) began in 2010 to help state grantees develop and implement methods for recording, collecting, and tracking data associated with meeting LIHEAP's new performance measures. Collecting data provides a means to manage programs effectively and efficiently in order to fulfil the LIHEAP statute’s requirement that the highest level of assistance should go to households with the lowest incomes and highest energy burdens.
The Work Group helped create a Performance Management website to provide LIHEAP grantees a tool that turns data into information that can be used to improve the management of their programs each year and inform budget and programmatic decisions. The website was also designed to have information that would be useful for other stakeholders outside of LIHEAP grantees, including Congressional members and staff; state and local legislators; utilities and utility regulators; consumer advocates and sub-grantees; and academic researchers, the media, and the general public.
These stakeholders have access to information that includes the LIHEAP Performance Data Form, LIHEAP Household Report, and federal Home Energy Notebook. These records are regularly available through the annual LIHEAP Reports to Congress, but the Performance Management Website allows direct access to the data to generate analytical tools such as bar graphs, pie charts, maps, and so on. To read more about the website, please see this “Dear Colleague” letter from the Administration for Children and Families.
On the Performance Management website, LIHEAP grantees can get reports and analyze data, in addition to accessing webinars, presentations, and training tools that provide information on collecting and reporting performance measures data. An online discussion forum is also available on the website, as well as various communications from the PMIWG.
