LIHEAP Grantees

 LOW-INCOME HOME ENERGY ASSISTANCE Information Memorandum

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families Office of Community Services Division of Energy Assistance 370 L'Enfant Promenade, S.W. Washington, D.C. 20447 www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ocs/liheap

Transmittal No. LIHEAP-AT-2015-04 Date: March 22, 2016

TO: LOW INCOME HOME ENERGY ASSISTANCE PROGRAM (LIHEAP) STATE GRANTEES

GUIDANCE

INTENDED FOR: X STATES
_____TRIBES/TRIBAL ORGANIZATIONS
_____TERRITORIES

SUBJECT: State FY 2015 LIHEAP Household Administrative Data Matching

RELATED

REFERENCES: Sections 2605(b)(14), 2610(b), and 2610(a)(6) of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Act, Title XXVI of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981, Public Law 97-35, as amended.

PURPOSE: To request that States furnish FY 2015 LIHEAP household-level data for matching LIHEAP recipients with the 2015 RECS respondent households. This data collection effort has been approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB Control No. XXX-XXXX; Expiration Date – XXXX YY, 201X).

BACKGROUND: Since FY 1982, our office has relied upon data from the Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS). The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) conducts this survey to provide periodic national and regional data on residential energy use in the United States.  We use RECS data to furnish Congress and the Administration with important national and regional descriptive data on the energy needs of low-income households.

The last RECS (the 2009 RECS) was conducted in 2010. At that time, ACF funded a set of supplemental LIHEAP questions and a post-survey administrative records matching effort to identify RECS respondents that were LIHEAP recipients. This effort was developed and implemented with the cooperation of LIHEAP State agencies. The RECS contractor used administrative household data from State LIHEAP to determine which RECS households participated in LIHEAP and what type and amount of benefits they received. As a result of this effort, ACF was able to examine information and develop statistics from RECS that were specific to the LIHEAP recipient population, including information related to benefits targeting, energy usage, and energy insecurity.

ACF has funded a similar effort for the 2015 RECS.

CONTENT: ACF has allocated funds to this administrative data matching effort to support analysis of LIHEAP data for the annual Report to Congress and the annual LIHEAP Home Energy Notebook.

We request your participation in the 2015 RECS LIHEAP Administrative Data Matching project through the procedures discussed in the attachment to this Action Transmittal. Data will be needed on regular and crisis fuel assistance benefits for FY 2015. Please note that this is the same data needed to generate programmatic summary statistics for your state’s annual LIHEAP Household Report Form and the LIHEAP Performance Data Form. Your application client waiver allows you to share information with ACF and its contractors. For the prior effort, almost all States provided data.

ACF has contracted with APPRISE to manage this project. APPRISE staff will be contacting you in the next few weeks regarding this data collection effort. The confidentiality of client data will be strictly protected as part of the project. APPRISE and its predecessors have been collecting State LIHEAP data since 2001. During this time, no data breech has ever occurred.

Your cooperation in this effort is greatly appreciated. Please do not hesitate to contact Peter Edelman of my staff if you have any questions, concerns, or problems in providing the data.

PRA STATEMENT: THE PAPERWORK REDUCTION ACT OF 1995 (Pub. L. 104-13)

Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 24 hours per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and reviewing the collection of information.

An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number.

ATTACHMENT: 2015 RECS LIHEAP Data Matching Requirements Using State LIHEAP Administrative Data

INQUIRIES TO: Peter Edelman, Program Analyst
Policy and Evaluation Branch
Division of Energy Assistance
Office of Community Services, ACF, HHS
370 LEnfant Promenade, S.W.
Washington, D.C.  20447
Telephone: (202) 401-5292
Fax:  (202) 401-5661
E-mail:  [email protected]

______________________________
Lauren Christopher
Director
Division of Energy Assistance
Office of Community Services

ATTACHMENT

2015 RECS LIHEAP Data Matching Requirements Using State LIHEAP Administrative Data Acquiring a File of LIHEAP Recipients

ACF’s contractor, APPRISE, will ask your State to provide a file of LIHEAP households that received fuel assistance in FY 2015. States may choose for whom they will furnish LIHEAP-recipient records:

A. All FY 2015 LIHEAP recipients for your entire state. 

B. All FY 2015 LIHEAP recipients only in the counties from your state that are part of the RECS sample (a list will be provided separately).

C. All FY 2015 LIHEAP recipients only in the ZIP codes from your state that are part of the RECS sample (a list will be provided separately).

Protocol Options

Your State will be asked to select one of the following two options for providing the data needed to facilitate the 2015 RECS LIHEAP Supplement.

Option 1: One-Step Approach
Your State will provide all of the required data items and as many of the optional data items as you have available for your FY 2015 LIHEAP recipient households at whatever level you choose (see options A, B, and C, above).

Option 2: Two-Step Approach
ACF’s contractor, APPRISE, will ask your State to provide only the name, address (including ZIP code), and telephone number for all FY 2015 LIHEAP recipients at whatever level you choose (see options A, B, and C, above).

Later, ACF’s contractor, APPRISE, will give you a list of a subset of these LIHEAP recipients who completed a RECS interview and ask you to provide all of the required data items and as many of the optional data items as you have available for those households.

Required Data Items

ACF’s contractor, APPRISE, will need the following data items for each LIHEAP recipient household you include in your State’s file.

• Name

• Telephone Number

• Address (must include ZIP code)

• Gross Income

• Household Size

• Household or Client ID

• Heating assistance awarded

• Amount of heating assistance

• Date of heating assistance

• Cooling assistance awarded

• Amount of cooling assistance

• Date of cooling assistance

• Crisis assistance awarded

• Amount of crisis assistance

• Date of crisis assistance

• Other assistance awarded

• Amount of other assistance

• Date of other assistance

• Presence of children 5 or younger

• Presence of adult 60 or older

• Presence of disabled person

Optional Data Items

The following data will enrich the analyses ACF's contractor, APPRISE, will conduct using the RECS data.  Please furnish the following data if they are available in your database(s):

• Tenancy (i.e., own or rent)

• Type(s) of fuel used

• Heat included in rent

Data Format

The ACF’s contractor, APPRISE, will need to receive your data in one of these commonly used formats:

MS Excel, MS Access, SAS, or Stata

If necessary, ACF’s contractor, APPRISE, may arrange to accept the data in other formats as well.