16 Performance Goals and Measures, 2605(b)

16.1 Describe your progress toward meeting the data collection and reporting requirements of the four required LIHEAP (Benefit Targeting Index, Burden Reduction Targeting Index, Restoration of Home Energy Service, and Prevention of Loss of Home Energy Service). Include timeframes and plans for meeting these requirements and what you believe will be accomplished in the coming federal fiscal year. DE LIHEAP is working with the sub-grantees and vendors to accomplish the collection of data for the performance measures. After the additional fundings that were received during the pandemic have been depleted, Delaware again will have the following software challenges because DE does not receive a sufficient amount of administrative funds for developing and maintaining a more sophisticated system: 1) Data exchange with the energy vendors because it has to be executed manually with the help of Excel spreadsheets. Creating a portal or some other electronic solution is too cost prohibitive for the small grant that Delaware receives because it also constrains our capability to maintain the software; 2) Storing and accessing the data will be a challenge beyond the limited capabilities that have been designed into the new software; 3) Fixing defects and data errors will be dependent on the availability of the administrative funds that are limited by statute to 10% of the grant. 4) Cost of Operations and Maintenance of the software that provides data collection for reports is beyond financial ability of the program because Delaware's 10% of the grant for the administrative purposes is significantly less from the 45 other states that administer LIHEAP. However, the base capital cost for designing and managing the software that can collect LIHEAP data is the same for all the states because they all have to provide the same outcome variables in their federal reports. Hence, the states that receive smaller grants and have to administer the entire program with the federal funds are worse off managing complex data systems necessary for data collection than the states that receive bigger grants. Meanwhile, LIHEAP office is executing all the available solutions for assuring data integrity of the reports by manually reviewing the reports before they are entered into the federal OLDC system. The discrepancies that are noticed by LIHEAP office are reported back to the Information Resource Management Unit for further clarification and explanation. If the clarification process produces a different value, the report is adjusted accordingly. If any of the above questions require further explanation or clarification that could not be made in the fields provided, attach a document with said explanation here.