The federal Low Income Home Energy
Assistance Program (LIHEAP) statute requires the Department of
Health and Human Services (HHS) to collect data annually from all
LIHEAP grant recipients regarding the status of obligated and
unobligated funding (42 U.S.C. § 8626). The amount held available
from a prior fiscal year shall not exceed 10 percent of the funds
awarded for that fiscal year (42 U.S.C. § 826(b)(2)(B)), with the
excess reallotted in the following fiscal year among that year’s
LIHEAP grant recipients (42 U.S.C. § 8626(b)(1)(C)). The federal
HHS block grant regulations further require that the Carryover and
Reallotment Report (Carryover Report) must contain the following
information: (1) The amount of funds that the grant recipient
requests to hold available for obligation in the following fiscal
year; (2) A statement of the reasons that this amount to remain
available will not be used in the fiscal year for which it was
allotted; (3) A description of the types of assistance to be
provided with the amount held available; and (4) The amount of
funds, if any, to be subject to reallotment. See 45 C.F.R. § 96.81.
OMB most recently approved the Carryover Report in June 2022 for
three years. The form as approved includes three lines that cover
unobligations from the following sources: (1) regular LIHEAP funds;
(2) supplemental funds from the Infrastructure Investments and Jobs
Appropriations Act (IIJA) [Public Law (P. L.) 117-58]; and (3)
supplemental funds from other sources. Since the lines for these
supplemental funds from other sources, including Coronavirus Aid,
Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act (Public Law 116-136),
American Rescue Plan Act (ARP) of 2021 (Public Law 117-2), are not
available for obligation in Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) they need to be
removed prior to the next reporting period (planned to begin August
1, 2024). The addition of these lines for these supplemental funds
was originally processed as nonsubstantive changes. Similarly, this
change request is to update the form, instructions, and burden
estimates to reflect the removal of these lines. Minor updates were
also made to the instructions for clarity, such as wording and
punctuation. HHS’s Administration for Children and Families (ACF)
seeks to revise this form to zero-out the third line (unobligations
from other sources of supplemental funds) and close it to user
entry. It also seeks to make minor changes to wording and
punctuation. ACF also seeks to accordingly revise the instructions
associated with this form. Finally, for the version of the
Carryover Report that was approved in July 2022, we estimated the
total average burden to be 7 hours per respondent. This estimate
combined (1) three hours per respondent for the standard lines; and
(2) four additional hours per respondent to cover the breakouts of
funds from non-IIJA supplemental appropriations. With the removal
of the non-IIJA supplemental appropriations lines, we are reverting
to the previous estimate of an average of 3 hours per response.
Supporting Statement A was updated to explain these updates and to
update the burden section.
This nonsubstantive change
request is to remove unneeded reporting lines from the report for
FY2024 reporting. This change reverts the estimated average time
per response from 7 hours back to 3 hours due to the removal of
reporting lines, as described in A1 and A12 of Supporting Statement
A.
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that
the collection of information encompassed by this request complies
with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR
1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding
the proposed collection of information, that the certification
covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a
benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control
number;
If you are unable to certify compliance with any of
these provisions, identify the item by leaving the box unchecked
and explain the reason in the Supporting Statement.
Form 1 Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) Carryout and Reallotment Report
ADMIN_LIHEAP_CRRNonsubChangeRequest_FY2024_fnl 7.16.24.docx
Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) Carryout and Reallotment Report