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Weatherization Assistance Program Resources and Leveraging:

A Review of Alternative Data Sources and Reports

By Meg Power, Ph.D.

With the assistance of Mac Stockdale

August 24, 2001

Revised 10/12/01

Weatherization Assistance Program Resources and Leveraging:

A Review of Alternative Data Sources and Reports

In 2001, the National Energy Technology Laboratory contracted with Economic Opportunity Studies, Inc. (EOS) to review state reports on the Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) resources they received from any sources, including those that were coordinated with DOE/WAP funds for similar purposes, but not directly used in the local programs. The resources reported as part of the states federal quarterly reporting system in the winsaga format were to be compared to other information available. The two key state surveys that requested and published information on any funds used with DOE/WAP dollars or for WAP are by the National Association for State Community Services Programs (NASCSP); the first is the annual Weatherization Funding Survey and the second is The Community Services Block Information System (CSBG/IS) Survey which includes reports on all local agency resources from the WAP subgrantees that are also Community Action Agencies (CAAs). The CAAs make up about two thirds of local WAP delivery agencies. (Contact the NASCSP office at www.nascsp.org for copies and information.)

The PY 1997 PY 2000 data from WINSAGAs reports was provided to EOS in May 2001 by DOEs contractor, DATA TREE, Inc. The analysis that follows relies solely on the states PY 1999 reports, as that was the most recent year completed. FY 1999 was also the first year that states provided detailed leveraging reports to DOE.

NASCSP made available its FY 1999 Survey database and agreed to EOS use of the draft FY1999 CSBG/IS data, scheduled for release in November 2001. (EOS provides analysis and survey design services to NASCSP each year to produce the CSBG/IS report for the Department of Health and Human Services.)

All PY 1999 program information provided to the Department is summarized in this first section to establish the context for the later analysis of leveraged activity; the second compares these to the NASCSP Survey for the same year and to relevant information from the CSBG/IS draft report.

Part I: An Overview of the Weatherization Assistance Program Reports

The primary purpose of the federal reports captured by the WINSAGA system is, of course, to track the federal financial assistance provided to the states and their subgrantees, to record grant expenditures and activities, and to compare them to state plans for the same period. Information on the other funding sources, leveraging, and program outcomes are of ancillary importance to the Program Reports.

Table 1 below provides the data on the sources of all PY 1999 Weatherization funds reported by 50 states, D.C. and the Navajo Nation. Four of these grantees provided only partial information, and some tables that follow include data from even fewer grantees. Appendix A shows each of the 52 grantees reports in detail for each of the years PY 1997 1999 with some data from the comparable NASCSP reports. Appendix B shows data on leveraged resources, and Appendix C is the detailed NASCSP survey.

Table 1 shows that nearly all of the PY 1999 funds that states reported using in the WAP are from DOE grants. Only 19 states reported receiving funding from either state or PVE sources. None reported using LIHEAP funds in their local WAP programs. Seventeen states reported using other leveraged funds, but only 15 of these states provided funding information; their leveraged monies totaled about $23 million dollars. Further, as the detailed tables in Appendix B show, the dates for the FY 1999 leveraging reports cover more than 12 months because of overlapping program years among the states.

Table 2 shows the breakdown of the uses of most of the funding reported in Table 1. Not all states reported, and not all that did report had expenditures in each category. The sum of these expenditures, even when only the 49 states included in Table 2 are considered does not equal the entire total in Table 1, which includes state, PVE and leveraged funding.

Other includes liability insurance, energy audit development, etc.

Figure 1 illustrates the Table 2 proportional uses of funding by program function. Most resources, 61% went to standard Weatherization investments in homes subject to a statewide average expenditure ceiling. Another 13% was invested in homes that needed both Weatherization and additional capital intensive measures in order to save energy, such as new equipment or major mechanical repair. Four percent was added to other energy efficiency investments in order to make modifications to unsafe conditions or equipment in the homes weatherized. Just less than 3 percent was used for associated cost items such as liability insurance and the development of new energy audits and diagnostic hardware.

Figure 1.

Reports on the homes weatherized were completed by all 52 grantees. They were asked for an annual total, and their reports added up to 71,545 weatherized homes. In addition, they provided the number of houses in each major category of housing unit type and tenure. Table 3 shows these totals, which do not equal the 71,545 total in the first row. The Other in Table 3 refers to houses that were re-weatherized, or received low-cost measures instead of full Weatherization. In sum, it appears more than 76,500 low-income households may have received energy efficiency services from the local programs.

Figure 2 displays the percentages of houses weatherized by type and tenure. Half of the Weatherization Programs customer base was the low-income family who owned their single-family homes, and most of the rest were rented houses or mobile homes that were also occupied by single families. Three grantees reported that only single-family low-income, owner-occupied homes were weatherized. Multi-family buildings made up just 18% of the total.

Figure 2

The program gives priority to the elderly and the disabled, and LIHEAP, which is coordinated locally with WAP, prioritizes families with young children. Table 4 shows, first, the number of people who were members of those vulnerable groups and then a count of all persons living in the weatherized homes. The table also shows counts of Native American-occupied homes served.

Because there is a great deal of overlap among these categories (one can be a Native American child or both elderly and disabled), the total number of people assisted would not be the sum of all those in one or more of the groups. However, only 31 states reported totals that were different from the sum of all the vulnerable-person categories. Their numbers are shown in Table 4a, along with the total DOE grant outlays made by those 31 states, a figure equal to 60% of the national total. These data seem more accurate, and should give a better basis for estimating the national total of people assisted in WAP. Of the 96,550 people living in the nearly 40,000 homes weatherized, 17% were elderly, 22% were children and 16% were disabled.

These 31 states had average occupancy of 2.4 persons per Weatherized unit. If spending elsewhere served proportionally the same number of low-income individuals per dollar, nearly 161,000 people can be estimated to have occupied the 71,500-74,000 homes weatherized.

Part II: A Comparison of Reports on Leveraged

and Weatherization Plus Resources

In PY 1999, 21 states spent nearly $2.1 million of their DOE funds for activities that would help leverage non-federal Weatherization resources. More than half of the total was used for projects in New York. In PY 1998 previous year, a similar amount had been used by 15 states, including NY; of those, fourteen provided PY 1999 reports on the fruits of their efforts.

Table 5 shows all the WINSAGA Leveraging Reports for the PY 1997 2000 period. The DOE reporting form asks states to report in detail on any funds used with Weatherization but not subject to WAP regulation or, in other words, any funds not reported in quarterly and annual WAP/WINSAGA reports. In 1999, although 17 states reported on their leveraging sources, only 15 of those reported their expenditures of about $23.5 million. The numbers for PY 2000 were a little smaller, as reports available covered just 14 states with $15.6 million; only one state reported in 1997 or 1998. From 1997 to the middle of 2000, 29 states reported no leveraging at all for any years. Total leveraged funding for this three and a half year period was over $39 million and reached 23,000 homes. Utility companies provided over half of all leveraged funds, including the large Public Benefit utility programs run through Weatherization agencies in Massachusetts and Washington. Federal programs, mostly LIHEAP, were about a sixth of the total.

The voluntary annual Weatherization Funding Survey of the NASCSP presents a dramatically different picture. Apparently, states have omitted from WINSAGA and its leveraging reports at least $220 million in funding used by the Weatherization network in homes Weatherized. Other data shown below also suggests additional Weatherization Plus resources are used but not reported to NASCSP.

Figure 3 compares the NASCSP and WINSAGA reports by funding source. They are similar with respect to the DOE grant funding reported; small differences may be explained by state reporting periods for WINSAGA that differ from the 4/1/99-3/31/00 period covered by the NASCSP survey. The graph also shows the state, local, and private funds, including utility programs, in the network grouped in other. Thirty-four states reported to NASCSP they had other non-federal funding compared to the fifteen that submitted DOE leveraging reports. Federal funds in a few DOE leveraging reports were from LIHEAP, but the total, $3.2 million, is invisible in the DOE report graph bar below. Yet, LIHEAP dominates the NASCSP total shown. States reported twice as much PVE funding ($20 million) to NASCSP as was recorded in DOE reports, including PVE resources not governed by WAP regulations. .

Figure 3

The NASCSP survey totals used in the chart are shown in Table 6, and Appendix C shows state-by-state figures. No data on the housing units that received these investments is collected, nor is any information on the nature of the measures

The most dramatic difference between surveys is shown in Table 7, which compares details of the LIHEAP funding reported. According to the 1999 WINSAGA Report, no states used any LIHEAP funding under DOE rules. While the NASCSP survey asks for different data, i.e. any LIHEAP funds at all used for energy efficiency, the LIHEAP funding reported to NASCSP exceeds all reported DOE funding. Many states are known to use at least some of those funds under DOE rules, and the balance should appear in WINSAGA leveraging reports when LIHEAP energy efficiency funds are in the same agencies as Weatherization.

Eight states accounted for over half the difference. Collectively and in order, Texas, New York, Ohio, Illinois, California, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, and Massachusetts had the greatest discrepancies between their DOE and NASCSP reports. Together they reported $131 million less to DOE than to the NASCSP survey. Of that, 68 percent was LIHEAP efficiency investments not shown in the DOE leveraging reports. Nearly all the rest were private funds, largely from utility programs. Another 16 states discrepancies accounted for 40 percent of the remaining difference, predominately, but not entirely, a result of unreported LIHEAP used for Weatherization-related investments.

Since the new direction of the Weatherization Plus approach has become established, the importance of leveraging other programs, funds, and different activities that can be coordinated in low-income homes with WAP has grown. Data on such coordinated, or potentially coordinated, resources is available for those local WAP providers that are Community Action Agencies. The CSBG annual survey offers suggestive data on other Weatherization-Plus resources available to, if not already coordinated with, WAP by CAAs. The CSBG/IS collects data on the programs and clients of the 1120 local Community Action Agencies funded by the CSBG. About two-thirds of WAP subgrantees are members of the CSBG network; more than a third of CSBG state agencies are also the WAP administrative agency. Those states include most of the largest WAP grantees (California, Florida, Pennsylvania, New York, Texas, Ohio, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland among others).

Table 8 shows FY 1999 federal and state energy and housing resources reported by CAAs in 48 states. Their DOE grant funding was about 90% of the reported WINSAGA total, and their share of PY 1999 PVE funding was comparable. The CAAs also reported managing nearly $84 million in LIHEAP funds used for efficiency investments. These figures support the NASCSP Weatherization survey findings.

*Total is not a sum to due rounding

The data on the housing and community development resources shown in the table indicate funding managed by CAAs which may be regarded as potential (or actual) coordinated, Weatherization Plus support. While the survey does not distinguish the CAAs which have both WAP and housing funding from those that have just one type, the fact that CSBG system has about three times the housing/ community development resources as it has energy-efficiency resources indicates its potential for leveraging and coordinating comprehensive approaches to more sustainable low-income housing. All together, just under a billion dollars of energy or housing funding was being used by CAAs and was potentially accessible for joining in a variety of new partnerships and/or for affecting more of the difficult housing and energy conditions found in low-income communities.

Clearly, the existing data collection systems, including DOEs program reports, can be better designed and coordinated to collect a wider range of information without the degree of overlap or under-reporting that exists in the present design. The process for achieving this must be based on a clear understanding of elements in the current data collection design, which are discouraging programs from providing information that is demonstrably within their possession. It should focus on simple techniques for organizing existing information and concentrate on elements that will help program leadership measure and direct their efforts.

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