Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program: Greater Fraud Prevention Controls Are Needed
Released: 2010-07-01T00:00:00

Letter

Background

Title XXVI of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981 established LIHEAP to assist low-income households, particularly those with the lowest incomes that pay a high proportion of household income for home energy, in meeting their immediate home energy needs. States, territories, Indian tribes, and tribal organizations that wish to assist low-income households in meeting the costs of home energy may apply for a LIHEAP block grant. These grantees operate their LIHEAP programs by paying qualified households or energy service providers for a range of covered home heating and cooling services. LIHEAP benefits are provided to eligible beneficiaries up to the maximum eligible payment for that beneficiary as determined by the grantee. Grant funds are distributed in this manner until the annual grant has been entirely expended or the program year has ended. Although LIHEAP is 100 percent federally funded with no required state match, states and other entities may contribute supplemental funds.

While the federal government establishes overall guidelines, each grantee operates its own program. For example, federal law provides that an eligible household’s income must not exceed the greater of 150 percent of the poverty level or 60 percent of the state median income (75 percent in fiscal years 2009 and 2010). Grantees may not set their maximum income threshold below 110 percent of the poverty level, but they may give priority to those households with the highest home energy costs or needs in relation to income. Under the law, LIHEAP grantees have the flexibility of serving households having at least one member who also receives assistance under any of the following federal programs: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and certain needs-tested Veteran Benefits. LIHEAP grantees may also set additional LIHEAP eligibility criteria, such as passing an assets test; living in nonsubsidized housing; having a household member who is elderly, disabled, or a young child; or having received a utility disconnection notice.

LIHEAP Is at Risk for Fraud and Improper Benefits in Selected States

Our analysis of LIHEAP data revealed that the program is at risk of fraud and providing improper benefits in all seven of our selected states. About 260,000 applications—9 percent of households receiving benefits in the selected states—contained invalid identity information, such as Social Security numbers, names, or dates of birth. Many applications may have inaccuracies due to simple errors such as typos or incomplete sections, making it impossible to determine whether these cases involve fraud. For example, about a third of the applications had Social Security numbers that were blank or obviously invalid (e.g., all zeros). Nonetheless, these applications pose a higher risk of fraud because there is no complete electronic record of beneficiaries’ identities. These benefits totaled some $116 million for the year we reviewed. Our previous work, such as our audit of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s management of the Individuals and Households Program for hurricanes Katrina and Rita, found that limited or nonexistent use of a third-party validation process left assistance programs vulnerable to substantial fraud. As we will discuss later, LIHEAP generally does not have this third-party validation process for the seven selected states that we reviewed.

As described in the bullets below, thousands of cases show strong indications of fraud and improper benefits. But because of the invalid identity information noted above—a lack of a valid Social Security number makes it impossible to fully investigate such cases—these numbers are understated.

Deceased individuals. The identities of over 11,000 deceased individuals were used as applicants or household members for LIHEAP benefits. Our analysis matching LIHEAP data to the SSA’s death master file found these individuals were deceased before the LIHEAP application date. Benefits involved with these applications totaled about $3.9 million for the year we reviewed. Incarcerated individuals. For the four states that provided reliable incarceration data, we found 725 instances where the identities of individuals incarcerated in state prisons were used as applicants or household members. These identities were associated with about $370,000 of LIHEAP benefits even though these individuals were in prison at the time of the application and thus ineligible for benefits.

Federal employees exceeding income thresholds. Matching LIHEAP data with federal civilian payroll records, we identified about 1,100 federal employees whose federal salary exceeded the maximum income threshold at the time of their application. The benefit payments associated with those applications totaled $671,000.

Because LIHEAP is a block grant program, the potential fraudulent and improper activities associated with these thousands of cases have an adverse effect on the program. Specifically, these fraudulent and improper activities will either reduce the amount of energy assistance provided to recipients or prevent legitimate recipients from receiving the energy assistance because the funds have been used.

Cases of Fraudulent or Improper Activity Expose Problems in LIHEAP

We identified and further investigated 20 cases that demonstrate how fraudulent or improper activity was perpetrated. Thirteen cases concern applications with invalid identity information, deceased individuals, incarcerated individuals, or federal employees receiving LIHEAP benefits. Seven cases are examples of other types of improper and potentially fraudulent activity, including individuals in residential facilities being used to improperly receive benefits and households receiving duplicate LIHEAP benefits. We are referring all 20 cases to the HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) for further investigation. See table 1 for case details.

Further, we identified several instances of LIHEAP program funds being disbursed to individuals who may have met the income threshold but had significant assets. Specifically, we identified several beneficiaries living in million-plus dollar houses in Potomac, Maryland, and the Chicago suburbs. Because neither state considers the amount of a household’s assets in determining whether to provide energy assistance, owning high-dollar assets cannot be considered fraud or improper activity of the program in those states. Without access to bank and tax records, our investigations could not determine whether these individuals met the LIHEAP maximum income threshold. However, in one case, a beneficiary conducted her counseling service from her residence, according to an insurance company Web site. She lives in a $2 million home in a wealthy Chicago suburb and owns a late 2000s Mercedes. She also won a multimillion dollar settlement in the mid 2000s that is currently under appeal. The applicant refused to speak with our investigators or the local police about her LIHEAP application.

Finally, our proactive testing further demonstrated LIHEAP’s vulnerability to fraud. Posing as low-income residents, we used bogus addresses and fabricated energy bills, pay stubs, and other supporting documents to apply for energy assistance in West Virginia and Maryland. For three of the five cases, the LIHEAP payments were made to our fictitious energy company to pay the low-income resident’s energy bills. Our investigators created this energy-related company to receive the energy assistance payments. For the other two cases, the low-income residents “lived” in a rental house where the landlord paid the energy assistance benefits as a part of the rent. For these two cases, the investigators created fictitious landlords who received the energy assistance payments. All five claims were processed and the energy assistance payments issued and mailed to our fake company and landlords (see fig. 1).

The Federal Government and Selected States Lack an Effective Fraud Prevention Framework for LIHEAP

LIHEAP’s internal controls framework has several key weaknesses at both the federal and state levels, as shown by GAO’s fraud prevention model. At the federal level, HHS has not provided specific guidance to states and other grantees for preventing fraud and abuse of LIHEAP. While grantees are primarily responsible for preventing fraud in LIHEAP, the LIHEAP statute establishes a number of oversight and enforcement responsibilities for HHS to ensure that grantees are properly applying the funds, including requiring the issuance of regulations to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse in LIHEAP. HHS has issued regulations that require grantees to establish appropriate systems and procedures to prevent, detect, and correct waste, fraud, and abuse by clients, vendors, and administering agencies, but it has not provided any additional detailed guidance to the states or other grantees on how to develop an effective fraud prevention system.

In addition, the selected states do not have an effective design for a comprehensive fraud prevention framework. In fact, the states are lacking key efforts in all three crucial elements of a well-designed fraud prevention system: preventive controls, detection and monitoring, and investigations and prosecutions.

Preventive controls. States lack essential preventive controls, which are the most efficient and effective means to minimize fraud, waste, and abuse. Social Security numbers are a key element in the identification of a person’s identity. Our analysis of 1 year of LIHEAP data found that for the selected states about 100,000 individuals’ records contained a blank or obviously invalid Social Security number. HHS’s prior interpretation of the Privacy Act prohibited states from requiring recipients to provide Social Security numbers in applying for LIHEAP benefits. However, 42 U.S.C. § 405 allows states to require that individuals disclose their Social Security numbers for “the administration of any tax, general public assistance, driver’s license, or motor vehicle registration law within its jurisdiction.” We believe that LIHEAP falls within the scope of this statute. In response to our draft report, HHS revised its interpretation, and strongly suggested that states require Social Security numbers. Under HHS’ prior interpretation, the states were not be able to validate individuals’ identities and, without this basic control, we believe it cannot have an effective fraud prevention program.

The selected states do not have other measures that we believe are key to preventing fraud, as we discovered from our discussions with state officials (table 2). We believe that these are key preventive control measures that states should integrate in their application processes as long as the costs of these controls do not outweigh the benefits.

Officials from five of the states said they did not validate applicant and household member information with SSA, which can verify a person’s Social Security number, name, and date of birth against its records.

Officials from all seven states stated that they did not compare applicant and household information against death records prior to payment. Officials from these states stated that they did not check death records from SSA or their state’s Vital Statistics Office to determine if applicants or household members were deceased.

Officials from all seven states said that they did not check LIHEAP applicants and household members against a listing of incarcerated individuals in state prisons.

Six states generally did not verify self-reported income of LIHEAP applicants and household members with employment and wage databases (e.g., State Directory of New Hires). After our inquiries, officials from only one state said that they recently had begun to perform such a comparison, and only for those individuals who claimed zero income.

Six states did not verify household member residency through checking long-term care facility records, according to officials. To be eligible for LIHEAP, an individual must be a member of a household that is eligible for the benefits and responsible for energy costs either directly or through their rent. As such, an individual residing over an extended period of time in a long-term care facility (e.g., nursing home) that is paid by Medicaid does not meet this requirement.

System edit checks can be added to a grantee’s electronic database of LIHEAP beneficiaries to check for repeated use of a name, Social Security number, utility account number, or other identifying fields. Officials from all seven states said that they have some form of edit checks to prevent duplicate benefits. However, the edit checks performed varied by the state and are not comprehensive in certain states.

Detection and monitoring. To be efficient in reaching similarly targeted recipients, certain states automatically enroll LIHEAP recipients based on the applicant or household member receiving benefits for certain federal programs (e.g., TANF or SNAP). Thus, LIHEAP relies on the preventive controls for these programs to ensure that only eligible applicants and/or household members are receiving the benefits. As a result, the LIHEAP’s preventive controls will only be as effective as the preventive controls for the federal program (e.g., TANF or SNAP) from which the recipient originally received benefits. Monitoring and detection within a fraud prevention program involves data mining for fraudulent and suspicious applicants and evaluating vendors and employees to provide reasonable assurance that they continue to meet program requirements and follow program protocols. The selected states generally do not match their beneficiary files to third-party databases, such as State Directory of New Hires, to determine continued eligibility, nor do they ensure that applicants are not acting as their own vendor.

Investigation and prosecution. Several state officials stated that they generally did not pursue investigations and prosecutions involving LIHEAP. The aggressive investigation and prosecution of individuals who defraud the government is the final component of an effective fraud prevention model. Schemes identified through investigations and prosecution can also be used to improve the fraud prevention program. However, pursuing recipients who commit fraud can be costly and time- consuming. The amounts of energy assistance benefits to individuals are relatively small, which may deter prosecution of the cases by federal or state prosecutors. Because of this, it is important to have strong controls to prevent the occurrence of fraud.

Conclusions

Without an adequate fraud prevention framework, LIHEAP in the seven states is vulnerable to individuals willing to commit fraudulent and improper activities to receive energy assistance benefits. Given that the states are responsible for administering LIHEAP and establishing the proper controls, each state needs an effective fraud prevention framework to provide reasonable assurance of the integrity of its program. Without these proper controls, energy assistance benefits will continue to be provided to ineligible individuals, which limits the help that can be provided to those individuals who meet program requirements. However, the responsibility for actively partnering with and providing such guidance to the states rests with HHS.

Recommendations for Executive Action

To establish an effective fraud prevention system for the LIHEAP program in the seven states, the Secretary of HHS should evaluate our findings and consider issuing guidance to the states addressing the following six recommendations: Require applicants and household members to provide Social Security numbers for themselves and all members of the household in order to receive energy assistance benefits.

Evaluate the feasibility (including consideration of any costs and operational and system modifications) of validating applicant and household member identity information with SSA.

Develop prepayment edit checks to prevent individuals from receiving duplicate benefits.

Evaluate the feasibility of using SSA’s or states’ vital record death data to prevent individuals using deceased identities from receiving benefits.

Evaluate the feasibility of preventing incarcerated individuals from improperly receiving benefits, for example, by verifying Social Security numbers with state’s prisoner information.

Evaluate the feasibility of using third-party sources (e.g., State Directory of New Hires) at a minimum on a random or risk basis, to provide assurance that individuals do not exceed maximum income thresholds.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

HHS and SSA provided written responses to our request for comments. Seven of the eight states covered in our report also provided written responses. Letters with comments from HHS, SSA, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia are reprinted and discussed in further detail, when applicable, in the appendices. Maryland stated that it did not have any comments on the report. HHS and certain states also provided technical comments, which we incorporated as appropriate. Responses from HHS, SSA, and the states are reprinted in appendixes II–X.

HHS agreed with all our recommendations, stating that it had begun to take action on some of them since reviewing a draft of this report. While the agency stated that the Privacy Act prevents it from forcing states to require Social Security numbers, it issued a memorandum encouraging states to do so, as well as implement our other recommendations. HHS also stated that it planned to take additional steps to deter ineligible payments and prevent fraud, waste, and abuse in the program, including requesting that states address key elements of fraud prevention systems in their “LIHEAP Program Integrity Plan” and reviewing those systems. We strongly support these additional steps and encourage HHS to follow through on these additional actions.

In its written comments, SSA did not agree with our recommendation that the Secretary of HHS evaluate the feasibility of validating applicant and household member identity information with SSA. SSA stated that it could validate applicants for LIHEAP, but not other household members, because “the compatibility requirement of the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a(b)(3), only permits us to disclose and verify information to determine an applicant’s entitlement to an income maintenance program.” Section 552a(b)(3) of the act allows disclosure of information for a routine use published by the agency in the Federal Register. However, the actual language of the routine use that SSA published allows disclosure “to Federal, State, or local agencies (or agents on their behalf) for the purpose of validating SSNs those agencies use to administer cash or non-cash income maintenance programs or health maintenance programs” as a routine use in which disclosure is allowable. We believe that this language is broad enough to include validation of household members who are beneficiaries of LIHEAP assistance.

Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and West Virginia expressed difficulty in obtaining access to SSA records to validate Social Security numbers and verify income. We support any initiatives, such as EVS and State OnLine Query, that are allowed by federal law to provide the states the necessary information from SSA. Lack of validation of identity and income information were two of the major problems that we identified in our investigation of LIHEAP.

As agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce the contents of this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days from the date of this letter. We will then send copies of this report to other interested congressional committees, the Secretary of HHS, the administrator of SSA, and the LIHEAP program offices of Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia. The report also is available at no charge on the GAO Web site at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact me at (202) 512-6722 or kutzg@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report.

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

To identify indications of fraud and abuse in the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), we obtained and analyzed benefit files for the latest year available for seven selected states: Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Virginia. These states were selected primarily based on the magnitude of total LIHEAP funding and the availability of a centralized database of applicants and benefits. These states comprised about a third of all LIHEAP spending in federal fiscal year 2009. Our analysis focused on LIHEAP applications that were made using invalid identity information—such as invalid Social Security numbers, names, or dates of birth—or the identities of individuals who were deceased or incarcerated. We compared LIHEAP data to data from the Social Security Administration (SSA) and state prisoner records. We also used federal salary data from the U.S. Department of Treasury, the U.S. Postal Service, and the Defense Finance and Accounting Service to determine whether civilian federal employees receiving LIHEAP benefits earned incomes above program thresholds.

To illustrate cases of fraudulent, improper, and abusive activity in LIHEAP, we identified 20 cases for detailed audit and investigation. The 20 cases were chosen using a nonrepresentative selection approach based on our judgment, data mining, and a number of other criteria that provided indications of fraud and abuse. For example, to identify case study examples of applicants or household members living in a long-term care facility at the time of application, we compared the LIHEAP data to the Medicaid long-term care claims files for the selected states. We requested or obtained the application for LIHEAP benefits from the states for each case and performed additional searches of criminal, financial, and public records and obtained documentation (e.g., death certificates) to substantiate cases of fraud and abuse. We also interviewed several LIHEAP beneficiaries. In addition, we conducted proactive testing of LIHEAP controls in Maryland and West Virginia. We applied for LIHEAP benefits using bogus addresses and fabricated energy bills, pay stubs, and other supporting documents, which included a Social Security number of a deceased individual. In addition, we created an energy provider and landlords using phony documents to receive LIHEAP benefits on behalf of our fictitious applicants.

To identify potential weaknesses in the design of key aspects of LIHEAP’s internal controls framework, we interviewed LIHEAP officials from the selected states and HHS. In addition, we obtained and reviewed the selected states’ LIHEAP policies and procedures. We used GAO’s fraud prevention model as criteria for an effective fraud prevention program, but did not test the effectiveness of LIHEAP’s controls.

Data Reliability

To determine the reliability of the seven state LIHEAP applications and benefit payment databases, we interviewed state officials responsible for the quality of those databases. In addition, we compared the total number of households served by each state for 1 year against reports each state provided to HHS. Finally, we performed electronic testing to determine the reasonableness of specific data elements in the databases that we used to perform our work. Based on our discussions with agency officials responsible for the quality of the databases, reconciliation to independent reported information, and our own electronic testing, we concluded that the data elements used for this report were sufficiently reliable for our purposes.

We performed our work from June 2009 through June 2010 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We conducted our related investigative work in accordance with standards prescribed by the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency.

Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families

The following are GAO’s comments on the Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families’ letter dated May 11, 2010.

GAO Comments

1. States may set an asset test for determination of LIHEAP eligibility criteria. In the report, we state that Illinois and Maryland did not have this requirement. As such, owning high-dollar assets cannot be considered fraud or improper activity of the program. We are not making a recommendation on whether HHS should seek legal authority to require asset tests in State LIHEAP programs.

Appendix III: Comments from the Social Security Administration

Appendix IV: Comments from State of Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity

GAO Comments

1. See our discussion in the “Agency Comments and Our Evaluation” section. 2. States may set an asset test for determination of LIHEAP eligibility criteria. In the report, we state that Illinois did not have this requirement. As such, owning high-dollar assets cannot be considered fraud or improper activity of the program. Without access to bank and tax records, our investigation could not determine whether these individuals met the LIHEAP maximum income threshold. As requested, we will be referring this case to the State of Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Equality for further investigation.

Appendix V: Comments from State of Michigan Department of Human Services

Appendix V: Comments from State of Michigan Department of Human Services Matthew Valenta, Assistant Director Financial Management and Assurance General Accountability Office-Dallas 1999 Bryan Street Suite 2200 Dallas, Texas 75201 Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the draft Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program: Greater Fraud Prevention Controls Are Needed report. This was compiled as a result of a recent audit of the LIHEAP program by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). This audit was conducted in seven states, including Michigan. The purpose of the audit was to assess the risk of fraud and improper payments in LIHEAP. The report contains observations as well as recommendations. The following comments are Michigan’s view of the results and may not reflect the views of the other states involved in the audit.

In the course of the audit, 16 Michigan cases were reviewed by the auditor(s). Two of the cases were cited as showing fraudulent and/or improper LIHEAP activity.

One case was cited because the applicant stated she was not employed at the time of application. The auditors subsequently discovered the applicant was an employee of the U.S. Postal Service. This was discovered through federal salary data from the U.S. Postal Service. This is not a resource available to our state at this time. We feel the caseworker acted properly based on the information available, but agree it is appropriate to pursue a fraud referral on this client.

The second case for which we were cited was due to a client receiving the maximum benefits available on two different cases. In our previous Legacy computer system, this could occur if the client was issued more than one case number for different types of assistance. For example, a client might have one case number for his/her food assistance benefits and another case number for his/her medical assistance. Our Legacy system tracked payments by case number which is why this overpayment was able to occur—maximum benefits were issued on each case number and the system didn’t catch it was the same client. However, we would like it noted our new BRIDGES computer system now tracks by recipient identification number for all members, rather than by case number. Therefore, we believe this particular issue is resolved.

The following are GAO’s comments on the State of Michigan Department of Human Services’ letter dated May 5, 2010.

GAO Comments

1. In our report we cite 2 cases from Michigan. Based on our data mining, all 16 Michigan cases reviewed in our audit had indications of fraud or improper benefits. However, because we did not investigate in detail the other 14 cases, we cannot conclude whether fraudulent or improper activities were associated with those cases.

Appendix VI: Comments from State of New Jersey Department of Community Affairs

The following are GAO’s comments on the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs’ letter dated May 7, 2010.

GAO Comments

1. See our discussion in the “Agency Comments and Our Evaluation” section.

Appendix VII: Comments from State of New York Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance

Mr. Matthew Valenta Assistant Director Forensic Audits and Special Investigations U.S. Government Accountability Office 1999 Bryan Street Suite 2200 Dallas, Texas 75201 This is in response to Mr. Greg Kunz’s e-mail of April 15, 2010 requesting New York State’s comments on GAO’s draft report entitled “Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program: Greater Fraud Prevention Controls are Needed.”

New York State is committed to operating an efficient and effective LIHEAP program that we and our local social services districts operate with the utmost integrity. During the 2008- 09 LIHEAP season, New York State issued over 1.5 million LIHEAP benefits totaling over $400 million. These funds were critical in enabling low-income households struggling with the effect of the recession and volatile home energy prices to avoid potentially life-threatening loss of heat. This large volume of LIHEAP funds is distributed within a constrained time period (usually between November and May), and our local districts and their alternate certifiers do an exemplary job in determining eligibility and authorizing benefits with a high degree of accuracy within constrained timeframes.

As we explained during the course of the GAO review, the New York Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA) and the New York City Human Resources Administration (HRA) have numerous measures currently in place to prevent and uncover fraud and abuse in New York State’s LIHEAP program. Because individuals applying for Safety Net Assistance, Family Assistance, Code A “living alone” Supplemental Security Income and/or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits are required to provide their Social Security Number (SSN) at the time of application for one or more of these programs, individuals who are categorically income eligible for LIHEAP based upon their receipt of one or more of these program benefits have an SSN that has been validated by the Social Security Administration (SSA) prior to the issuance of a LIHEAP benefit. In addition, New York State asks household members applying only for LIHEAP to provide their SSN, and New York’s upstate Welfare Management System verifies such SSNs with SSA for validity. “providing temporary assistance for permanent change”

New York State’s upstate Welfare Management System application clearance process detects duplicate records in LIHEAP application fields, and New York City’s LIHEAP system checks for duplicate names and addresses. New York City conducts a match against SSA data to identify deceased individuals before LIHEAP benefits are sent for payment, and single-person LIHEAP cases on the upstate Welfare Management System were added to the monthly SSA death match beginning in June 2009. New York State conducts a monthly prison match to detect individuals who are prisoners who are applying for or are categorically income eligible for LIHEAP and are also in receipt of Safety Net Assistance, Family Assistance and/or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits.

The GAO review found that there are areas where we could do more to improve our ability to prevent fraud and abuse in the LIHEAP program, and we welcome your suggestions. We will consider these recommendations within the context of the limitations on the amount of federal funding available for such efforts. The federal LIHEAP statute limits the amount of funds that states may use for administration to 10 percent of our total federal LIHEAP allocation. Ten percent is one of the lowest administrative percentages of all federal block grants; for example, TANF has a 15 percent allowable administrative rate. The way in which New York State operates our LIHEAP program is directly related to the limited funding for administration that is available to us, as New York State is limited in our ability to make state funding available for such purposes. We will assess the feasibility of implementing GAO’s recommendations; however, such implementation may be contingent upon receipt of additional federal administrative funding that is guaranteed at a sufficient level on an annual basis.

Of equal importance is ensuring that the imposition of additional fraud and abuse measures not impede the ability of states to provide timely heating assistance to vulnerable households, and to resolve energy crises within federal statutorily mandated timeframes. Because states operate LIHEAP benefit programs that require large volumes of applications to be processed and paid annually within a tight time period within constrained funding, choices have to be made about what fraud prevention measures can be put in place both from a practical perspective as well as from a resource perspective. As GAO’s report states on page 3, federal LIHEAP funds are provided to assist households “in meeting their immediate home energy needs.” Accordingly, additional fraud and abuse prevention measures must take into account the need for states to be responsive to the immediate needs of eligible applicants, particularly in light of the federal statutory requirement to resolve household energy crises within 18 to 48 hours.

With regard to the specifics of the report itself, we offer the following two comments: Footnote 3 on page 2 and footnote 16 on page 17 incorrectly state that the LIHEAP benefit files provided to GAO by New York State covered the July 2007 through June 2008 period. The files we provided were actually for the October 1, 2007 through September 30, 2008 period.

We have confirmed that the finding in case 17 in Table 1 on page 10 is correct. A $240 regular 2007-08 HEAP benefit and a $425 emergency 2007-08 HEAP benefit were provided to an Albany County applicant who included two incarcerated individuals as members of her household on her application. The household would not have been income eligible for a LIHEAP crisis benefit without the inclusion of two household members who were incarcerated at the time of application. We have instructed Albany County to take action to recover the erroneously issued benefit. New York State’s LIHEAP application clearly asks the applicant to list only those people living in the same house or apartment. When an applicant lists adult children “providing temporary assistance for permanent change” without income, our procedures (as described in our LIHEAP Manual) direct the certifier to require the applicant to provide a signed statement for any adult household member with zero income stating the adult has no income. This procedure was not followed in this case.

We would like to take this opportunity to offer a simple suggestion that could be easily implemented through HHS and SSA collaboration that would be of tremendous value to states in combating fraud and abuse in the LIHEAP program. SSA does not allow states to use the State OnLine Query (SOLQ) system to determine initial and ongoing eligibility for LIHEAP. Elderly and disabled applicants often leave their Social Security or SSI/SSDI benefit amount blank on their LIHEAP application. If SOLQ were to be available for LIHEAP, the certifier would be able to find out the correct income amount via SOLQ, thus expediting the processing of the LIHEAP application as well as ensuring the accuracy of the applicant’s income as well as the accuracy of their Social Security number. Moreover, SOLQ would also enable the certifier to determine how the applicant’s Medicare premiums are being paid, which would facilitate a correct determination as to whether the applicant was income eligible for LIHEAP.

While local social services districts have alternative ways of verifying income and SSNs (via SSA batched data that is used to update our Welfare Management System), this data is not real-time and the WMS system is not available to alternate certifiers. Our understanding is that states would be able to use SOLQ for LIHEAP if the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration were to agree to make this system available for this purpose, and to allow the system to be used by both county and contracted LIHEAP alternate certifier staff. It seems to us to be a logical extension to enable states to use an available federal system to assist in correctly determining eligibility for a 100% federally funded program such as LIHEAP.

We appreciate the opportunity to provide comments on the draft report. Please feel free to contact Phyllis Morris at 518-473-0332 if you have any questions or require additional information.

John Meglino Director Audit and Quality Improvement cc: Cecile Noel, NYC HRA Michael Normile Eileen Stack Elizabeth Segal Robin White Christine Unson Carolyn Karins Alicia Sullivan Phyllis Morris OTDA Executive Deputy Director Elizabeth Berlin “providing temporary assistance for permanent change”

The following are GAO’s comments on the State of New York Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance’s letter dated May 10, 2010.

GAO Comments

1. We revised the report to reflect the dates of the data provided by New York. 2. See our discussion in the “Agency Comments and Our Evaluation” section.

Appendix VIII: Comments from State of Ohio Department of Development

The following are GAO’s comments on the State of Ohio Department of Development’s letter dated May 11, 2010.

GAO Comments

1. See our discussion in the “Agency Comments and Our Evaluation” section.

Appendix IX: Comments from Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Social Services

Appendix IX: Comments from Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Social Services Mr. Matthew Valenta Assistant Director U. S. Government Accountability Office 1999 Bryan Street, Suite 2200 Dallas, Texas 75201 The Commonwealth of Virginia appreciates the opportunity to participate in the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) review of Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP.) Program integrity is a priority of the Department of Social Services; as such we are always interested in exploring ways to improve program operation and administration. As highlighted in the report, while there are ways to improve fraud prevention in the LIHEAP, primarily through significant data matches with various sources, to date Virginia has not pursued data matches primarily due to the interpretation of the Department of Health and Human Services that requiring social security numbers (SSN) is not a condition of eligibility. This interpretation has recently been modified to allow, but not require, states to ask for SSNs. Virginia does utilize various control measures in to attempt to prevent fraud; the state engages in significant sub-recipient monitoring including local case reading reviews.

You cite in the report the practice of enrolling individuals in LIHEAP based on their eligibility for another federal programs as a practice that avails itself to fraud; you specifically reference TANF and SNAP. Specifically, the report states that “…LIHEAP’s preventative controls will only be as effective as the preventative controls for the federal program (e.g., TANF or SNAP) that the recipient originally received benefits.” However, both the TANF and SNAP programs require SSNs for all household members which are subsequently verified through the Social Security Administration. Additionally, both programs require periodic reviews of eligibility. As a result, the preventative measures for TANF and SNAP are inherently better than those currently required for LIHEAP. Therefore, while some federal programs may not use the preventative measures utilized in TANF and SNAP, we do not agree that qualifying individuals for LIHEAP based on their TANF or SNAP eligibility is prone to excessive fraudulent activity.

The following are GAO’s comments on the Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Social Services’ letter dated May 10, 2010.

GAO Comments

1. In the report, we state that LIHEAP’s preventive controls will only be as effective as the preventive controls for the federal program for which the recipient originally received benefits. We did not determine that qualifying LIHEAP recipients based on their eligibility for such programs is prone to excessive fraudulent activity. 2. We will be referring the four Virginia Cases to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for further investigation. To ensure that any actions conducted by the Commonwealth of Virginia do not impede the HHS OIG investigation, we believe that the Department of Social Services should coordinate its efforts with the HHS OIG.

Appendix X: Comments from State of West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources

The following are GAO’s comments on the State of West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources’ letter dated May 7, 2010.

GAO Comments

1. See our discussion in the “Agency Comments and Our Evaluation” section.

Appendix XI: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments:

In addition to the contact named above, the following individuals made major contributions to this report: Erika Axelson, Assistant Director; Matthew Harris, Assistant Director; Matthew Valenta, Assistant Director; Randall Cole; Erica Estrada; Grant Fleming; Deanna Lee; Barbara Lewis; Olivia Lopez; Jeff McDermott; Vanessa Taylor; and Tim Walker.