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EAP Policy Manual FFY24 Chapter 7 Assurance 16 Page 5 A16 Funding A16 funding is managed in a way that limits the portion of a Service Provider’s A16 allocation that may be spent on certain activity categories. Specifically, Service Providers can spend no more than 50% of their A16 funding on Outreach activities.2 This reserves at least 50% of A16 funding for Energy Self-Sufficiency activities. If a Service Provider chooses to spend less than 50% of their A16 funding on Outreach, they may spend the difference on Energy Self-Sufficiency activities. The A16 funding limits are meant to ensure A16 activities are focused more directly on energy need reduction; they also act as a control on allowable A16 activities, which enables a substantial reduction in reporting. Outreach Funding Service Providers are required to do both Informational and Accessibility Outreach activities, but must determine what portion of their total Outreach allocation (within reason) should be committed to activities in either sub-category, based on local needs. That is, if a Service Provider identifies Informational Outreach as a greater need for a given year, they may plan to use more of their Outreach funds to conduct Informational Outreach activities than to conduct Accessibility Outreach activities, and vice versa. As indicated in the paragraph above, however, the total A16 funds spent on Informational and Accessibility Outreach activities combined may not exceed 50% of a Service Provider’s total annual A16 allocation. Energy Self-Sufficiency Funding 50% of A16 funds, at minimum, are available for ESS activities. With these funds, Service Providers must provide Responsive and/or Proactive services to the best of their ability. At least 10% of total A16 funds must be reserved for Proactive ESS activities. A Service Provider may choose to use more than 10% on Proactive services. However, even if a Service Provider determines they are unable to provide Proactive services for the program year, the 10% for Proactive services may not be used for other A16 activities. See the Proactive Energy Self- Sufficiency Plan section below for guidance on how unspent Proactive funds will be handled.

2 Per guidance from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Outreach is technically a program expense and not an A16 expense. Because Minnesota has historically funded Outreach through A16 funding, the EAP Policy Manual describes Outreach as an A16 activity. From a federal reporting perspective, however, Outreach expenses are tracked separately and reported as a program expense.