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EAP Policy Manual FFY24 Chapter 5 Crisis Page 6 • ‘Standard Delivery Amount’ is changed to $650. • Calculated Crisis benefit is $200. • Primary Heat plus Crisis is $650, enough for a delivery Benefit Determination Errors In the event of a benefit determination error, a benefit fix is required if the correct benefit amount changes from the incorrectly determined benefit by $10 or more. This applies to both underpayments and overpayments of $10 or more. If the household was underpaid, provide the additional benefit. If the error resulted in an overpayment to the household, follow instructions in the Overpayments Resulting from Error section of Chapter 10 - Incidents and Appeals. Distributing Crisis Benefits The following are requirements for the distribution of the Crisis benefits. • Prior to approving the Crisis benefit the Service Provider must verify and document the Crisis eligibility requirements. For delivered fuel Crisis events paying only a household’s arrearage, use a “reasonability check” to estimate the household has less than 20% in their fuel tank or less than ten days of biofuel. • Primary Heat payments must be in ‘Payable’ status to be utilized to calculate the Crisis benefit. • Collapse scheduled Primary Heat payments as needed and change the scheduled date of the payment so it is issued immediately to address the emergency. • Each Crisis benefit is distributed to one vendor in one payment. • A household can have an unlimited number of Crisis events per program year. • When determining the Crisis benefit, the entered account balance must not be older than 7 days. • Crisis payments must be made ‘payable’ in eHEAT within 7 calendar days. While favorable business relationships, verbal agreements and local level practices may be utilized to ensure emergencies are addressed timely and household risks are avoided (e.g., additional fees assigned to the household or shut off), the program must have auditable standards to ensure timely response. Completion of the payment process is the sole, consistent and objective method to obtain this. • For connected fuels: payment must be made payable within 7 calendar days from the date of verification of Crisis information. • For delivered fuels with pre-delivery payment: payments must be made payable within 7 calendar days from verification of Crisis information.