LIHEAP AT 2023-04 Household Report Short Form and Long Form for Federal Fiscal Year 2023

Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program

Action Transmittal

AT#:  LIHEAP-AT-2023-04

DATE:  June 9, 2023

TO:  Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) Grant Recipients

SUBJECT:  LIHEAP Household Report Long Form and Short Form for Federal Fiscal Year (FY) 2023

ATTACHMENT(S): 

A. LIHEAP Household Report Long Form for FY 2023                                     
B. LIHEAP Household Report Short Form for FY 2023                                    
C. Instructions for the LIHEAP Household Report Long Form for FY 2023
D. Instructions for the LIHEAP Household Report Short Form for FY 2023

1. To inform all LIHEAP grant recipients that they are required to submit final data for the LIHEAP Household Report for federal Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 (October 1, 2022 — September 30, 2023) to OCS via the On-Line Data Collection (OLDC) system no later than Friday, December 15, 2023. 

2. To inform LIHEAP grant recipients that they are to use the following Household Report forms:

• The 50 States, the District of Columbia (hereafter referred to as “states”), and territories are to complete the LIHEAP Household Report Long Form for FY 2023. (Attachment A)
• Directly funded Native American tribes/tribal organizations (hereafter referred to as “tribes”) are to complete the LIHEAP Household Report Short Form for FY 2023. (Attachment B)

3. To remind grant recipients of Household Report changes in FY 2023 and FY 2024.

BACKGROUND:

Information collection activities, such as the LIHEAP Household Report, must receive approval from OMB in accordance with Section 3507 of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. OMB approved the Household Report for use through May 31, 2025.

OCS staff are available to assist LIHEAP grant recipients with the data collection and reporting of these data, as well as how to use OLDC to submit the LIHEAP Household Report. Grant recipient’s access OLDC report forms on the Grant Solutions’ homepage. For questions regarding accessing OLDC, contact your OCS regional liaison.

Our technical assistance contractor, APPRISE Incorporated, is also available to assist grant recipients that need assistance with data collection, reporting, or submission of their LIHEAP Household Report for FY 2023. APPRISE also will contact you, if necessary, to correct data errors and/or missing data identified in your report. The goal of the technical assistance available from our office and our contractor, APPRISE, is to assist grant recipients with identifying and resolving issues in order to facilitate successful and timely submission of reports. APPRISE will continue to work with grant recipients in validating their data when necessary.

CONTENT:

Household Report Changes:

As communicated previously in LIHEAP-DCL-2022-03 Preparations for LIHEAP Data Collection and Reporting Enhancements, the Office of Community Services (OCS) has made substantive, OMB approved changes to the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) Household Report for FY 2023 and FY 2024. The report now includes additional reporting requirements for assisted applicants and household member demographic characteristics and household owner/renter status on the Household Report Long Form and Short Form. To reduce burden and to provide grant recipients time to make necessary system changes, OCS phased in these required data elements, making some changes optional in FY 2023 before requiring them in FY 2024.

The new optional and required reporting data elements for FY 2023 and FY 2024 are as follows:

• Number of Assisted Applicants by Ethnicity. (This data reporting is required for FY 2023.)
• Number of Assisted Applicants by Race. (This data reporting is required for FY 2023.)
• Number of Assisted Household Applicants by Sex. (This data reporting is required for FY 2023.)
• Assisted Household Members by Ethnicity. (This data reporting is optional for FY 2023 and required for FY 2024.)
• Assisted Household Members by Race. (This data reporting is optional for FY 2023 and required for FY 2024.)
• Number of Assisted Household Members by Sex. (This data reporting is optional for FY 2023 and required for FY 2024.)
• Number of assisted households by owner/renter status, which includes households that own, rent with utilities billed separately, rent with utilities included in rental fee, and other. (This data reporting is optional for FY 2023 and required for FY 2024.)

Reducing Reporting Burden:

To reduce grant recipient reporting burden in light of the added required data elements, OCS removed the requirement to report applicant households by assistance type and poverty interval from the LIHEAP Household Report Long Form. And given that this is the first year OCS is requiring some of these new elements, OCS has suspended requiring estimated data submission for the FY 2023 Household Report that is typically due September 1^st of each year. Given this, grant recipients are only required to submit the final Household Report on December 15, 2023.

Household Report Instructions and Validations:

Attachment C provides the instructions for the LIHEAP Household Report Long Form for FY 2023. Attachment D provides the instructions for the LIHEAP Household Report Short Form for FY 2023.

As with the FY 2022 household data, OLDC has built-in validations in the LIHEAP Household Report Long Form for FY 2023 to help grant recipients ensure that data submitted to our office are accurate. Built-in validations check certain data before the grant recipient can proceed to the next step with the report submission.

There are two types of validation responses when there is a data issue: warnings and errors.

• A “warning” notifies the grant recipient of a possible inconsistency or mistake in the data. States and territories are encouraged to double check the data fields described in the warning to make sure all information is correct. States and territories will be able to certify and submit the report without changing any data that led to a warning.

• An “error” notifies the grant recipient of a mistake that must be corrected prior to the report being submitted to our office. OLDC will not allow a report to be certified and submitted until the error has been addressed.

Once the LIHEAP Household Report has been submitted, we will notify grant recipients of any reporting deficiencies not identified or resolved through OLDC. OCS will request a plan for remedial action.

As a reminder, and as indicated in LIHEAP-DCL-2023-06 LIHEAP Reporting Requirements for FY 2023, OCS will not ask grant recipients to report data by separate FY 2023 awards (i.e., the additional supplemental funding including Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) funds, and the two $1B supplements from the Continuing Resolution and the final budget). Instead, grant recipients will report on all FY 2023 funding as one line item. In other words, these reports will not break out separate FY 2023 awards as sub-reporting lines as OCS required with the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) and the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds.

SUBMISSION TO:

The deadline for all grant recipients to submit their LIHEAP Household Report for FY 2023 in OLDC is December 15, 2023. OCS grant extensions on the Household Report Long and Short Form. However, extensions may not be made unless the grant recipient requests the extension in writing before the deadline(s). All extension requests should be sent to your assigned federal LIHEAP program specialist.

OCS will notify grant recipients when the report forms are available via OLDC on GrantSolutions ; we anticipate this will be in mid-October. If you have not yet created an account in OLDC, contact your LIHEAP Regional Liaison for assistance. Please direct questions regarding accessing OLDC and/or completing the OLDC form to your LIHEAP Regional Liaison.

INQUIRIES TO:

For questions regarding accurate completion of the LIHEAP Household Report, contact:

Peter Edelman
Program Analyst
Division of Energy Assistance, Office of Community Services
Administration for Children and Families
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
330 C Street, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20201
202-401-5292 (Voice)
202-401-5661 (Fax)
peter.edelman@acf.hhs.gov
www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ocs/liheap/

RELATED REFERENCES:

The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Act, as amended (42 U.S.C. § 8621 et seq.); 45 C.F.R. § 96.82; House Report 103-483 and Senate Report 103-251 on S.2000, the predecessor to Public Law 103-252 (the Human Services Amendments of 1994); federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Control No. 0970-0060 (Expiration Date ─ May 31, 2025).

Thank you for your attention to these matters. OCS looks forward to continuing to provide high-quality services to OCS partners.

/s/
Dr. Lanikque Howard
Director
Office of Community Services