LIHEAP DCL Reminder of Deadline for Final Household Report Data FY 2013

 
Dear Colleagues:

Each year, LIHEAP grantees are required to submit a LIHEAP Household Report that provides data on the numbers of households served by LIHEAP in the prior federal fiscal year (FFY).  Estimated data (rather than actual data) were required as part of the FFY 2014 LIHEAP grant applications, so as not to delay the awarding of initial LIHEAP grants for FFY 2014. The deadline for grantees to submit actual household data on their FFY 2013 LIHEAP Household Report is December 16, 2013.

Grantees initially received notice of these deadlines this summer when we issued Action Transmittal (AT) LIHEAP AT 2013-4 which we distributed by email and posted to our website at: /programs/ocs/resource/liheap-household-report....  In part, the purpose of the AT was to remind all LIHEAP grantees to include required data for the LIHEAP Household Report for FFY 2013 — Long Form (October 1, 2012 — September 30, 2013) as part of their LIHEAP grant application for FFY 2014.  Grantees were required to submit their reports for the first time through the Administration of Children and Families’ On-Line Data Collection System (OLDC) at: https://extranet.acf.hhs.gov/ssi/

As noted in the AT, the data from the Household Report are required part of the LIHEAP Report to Congress for FFY 2013.  Late submission of state grantees’ actual data in the LIHEAP Household Report- Long Form has contributed to the delay in completing the ACF annual LIHEAP Report to Congress.  This year, OLDC will notify us quickly which states have not submitted the actual household data by December 16, 2013.

We will send notification to those States that fail to meet the above deadline.  This date may be extended for states that request an extension before the deadline if our office agrees to a reasonable extension.  For those states that fail to submit timely data or respond timely to our requests for clarification of the data, we will indicate that such states failed to report actual household data in a timely manner for the LIHEAP Report to Congress for FFY 2013.  In addition, we will consider such failure as a violation of Section 2605(b)(14) of the LIHEAP statute that requires states’ assurance that the state will cooperate with our agency regarding data collection and reporting.

We have contracted with APPRISE to assist state grantees in completing their FFY 2013 Household Report and correcting data errors identified by OLDC.  The OLDC system will not allow grantees to submit their LIHEAP Household Report if it contains errors.  Therefore, APPRISE will be proactively reaching out to those state grantees whose preliminary Household Reports (submitted on September 1, 2013) triggered warning or error messages in OLDC.   The goal is to assist grantees with both identifying and resolving these issues prior to the December 16 reporting deadline.

APPRISE is available to help any state grantee who needs assistance with data collection, reporting, or submission of their FFY 2013 LIHEAP reports.  If you have questions, or would like assistance, please contact Jim Devlin (Jim-Devlin@appriseinc.org) or Sherry Vogel (sherryv@ncat.org).

For questions regarding accessing OLDC, contact your LIHEAP regional liaison.

/s/
Jeannie L. Chaffin
Director
Office of Community Services