Low-Income Home Energy Assistance

Legislative Changes Could Result in Better Program Management Gao ID: HRD-90-165 September 7, 1990

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed block grant funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), focusing on possible congressional action to help the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the states better manage LIHEAP.

GAO found that: (1) states could not efficiently plan their heating programs, since they did not know how much HHS planned to allocate in LIHEAP funding before the heating season began; (2) federal delays in providing allocation information resulted in fewer households being served and program funds being carried over to the following year; (3) states' needs for LIHEAP assistance varied, according to weather conditions and regional fuel prices; and (4) HHS could better respond to unanticipated heating cost increases if it had more discretion on how to use available funds or authority to borrow or reprogram other funds on an emergency basis.

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.

Director: Team: Phone:


The Justia Government Accountability Office site republishes public reports retrieved from the U.S. GAO These reports should not be considered official, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Justia.