Low-Income Home Energy Assistance

HHS Has Not Assured State Compliance With Administrative Cost Restrictions Gao ID: HRD-91-15 November 13, 1990

GAO examined Georgia community action agencies' (CAA) use of federal funds to pay for costs of administering the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP).

GAO found that: (1) Georgia's Department of Human Resources reported that CAA administrative costs for LIHEAP usually exceeded the 10-percent cap; (2) Georgia did not have procedures in place to monitor whether CAA spent other federal funds for LIHEAP administrative costs; (3) CAA in Athens and Atlanta each planned to use between $35,000 and $40,000 in other federal funds for LIHEAP administrative costs during fiscal year 1990; (4) since Georgia allocated and expected to spend the full 10 percent of its LIHEAP funds for administrative costs, CAA use of other federal funds would exceed the 10-percent cap on federal funding of LIHEAP administrative costs; and (5) HHS reviews of state compliance with statutory LIHEAP requirements were not designed to identify such noncompliance.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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