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ExpectMore.govExpectMore.gov home pageEXPECT FEDERAL PROGRAMS TO PERFORM WELL, AND BETTER EVERY YEAR.
 
Program Assessment

Program

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Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program

This program aims to assist low-income households, particularly those with the lowest income that pay a high proportion of household income for home energy, in meeting their immediate home energy needs. Federal LIHEAP block grants are distributed to the States, which administer the program locally.

Rating

What This Rating Means

NOT PERFORMING
Results Not Demonstrated

A rating of Results Not Demonstrated (RND) indicates that a program has not been able to develop acceptable performance goals or collect data to determine whether it is performing.
  • As a block grant that provides maximum flexibility to States, the program faces challenges in developing meaningful performance measures that States can track. While energy trend data indicate that the net effect of this assistance has been to move low income household heating burdens closer to that of all households, the program lacks performance data to assess the outcome(s) of this trend.
  • The program targets low-income, high energy burden households and vulnerable households with children, disabled and elderly individuals who are at risk for health problems due to insufficient home heating or cooling. Home energy burden for low income households is over four times that of non-low income households.
  • The program's design flaws limit the program's effectiveness and efficiency. Two different statutory block grant allocation formulas are used based on appropriations levels above or below $1.975 billion in a given year. The inflexible formulas make it difficult to effectively target resources to States.

Improvement Plan

About Improvement Plans

We are taking the following actions to improve the performance of the program:

  • Developing long-term measures.
  • Improving performance-based budgeting.
  • Providing States with the opportunity to increase non-federal funding through the LIHEAP Leveraging Incentive Program.

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