Nate Jenkins / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Saturday, October 1, 2005 7:00 pm
Low-income Nebraskans are about to get slammed with higher heating bills that could dwarf at-the-pump motor vehicle fuel prices that have caused so much grousing. And a state-by-state comparison shows that weathering the barrage of big bills could be more difficult in Nebraska than almost any other state, at least by one measure.
Only four states have tighter eligibility requirements for heating assistance tied to income, the comparison shows. Three of those four states have warmer climates than Nebraska.
Gov. Dave Heineman was asked to widen the eligibility window so people with higher, but still poverty-level incomes, could be in line for aid. He turned down the request, believing it might strain the program and leave some of the neediest without aid, he said through a spokesman.
The strain on lower income residents in Nebraska and elsewhere is expected to be especially harsh this winter. Natural gas costs for people in Nebraska and other states in the western Midwest could swell by more than 50 percent from last fall and winter, according to the most recent estimates from the U.S. Department of Energy. .
Should that estimate hold true, the average Midwest household will pay roughly $500 more for natural gas during upcoming cold-weather months than last year.
Other estimates range from 30 percent to 70 percent growth in natural gas costs.
“It’s going to hurt a lot of families,” said Diane Vesely-Robb, who oversees a utility assistance program at Lincoln Action Program.
A primary, longtime source of heating-bill relief in Nebraska and across the country is a $2 billion-a-year federal program, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. Over the last few years, Nebraska’s cut of LIHEAP has ranged from between $16 million and $19 million annually.
Last year, the money helped 35,500 households in the state pay their bills, according to Mike Kelly, a state employee who administers LIHEAP in Nebraska.
But, compared to other states, accessing the program in Nebraska is especially difficult. Nebraska has unusually stringent eligibility requirements related to income.
“One-sixteen?,” said Jerry McKim, chief of the Iowa Bureau of Energy Assistance, upon hearing of Nebraska’s income threshold. A family can earn no more than 116 percent of federal poverty guidelines to be eligible.
“I think that’s too low,” said McKim. “I mean, good God, that’s low.”
In Iowa, the income threshold is higher, 150 percent — which is also the average among states that border Nebraska, and a common mark throughout the country.
In dollars, 150 percent of the poverty mark means $29,025 for a family of four. Four-person Iowa households that make that much and less may qualify for LIHEAP; those who make more don’t.
By comparison, the same family of four in Nebraska can make no more than $22,453, or $6,572 less than in Iowa, to qualify for the program.
“It’s low compared to other states,” Kelly said, “but Nebraska is one of the few out of 50 (states) that not only does a heating program, but also has a cooling program and crisis program.”
“I wish it could be higher,” he said. “But we want to be able to run a year-round program.”
Nebraska is making headway toward another policy that could help low-income residents that struggle with heating bills. The Public Service Commission is slated to vote on a measure that would bar utility companies from turning off the heat of low-income households from Nov. 1 through March 31.
The PSC could vote on the measure within the next month; if approved, it could go into effect before the end of the year.
With regard to the federal heating assistance program, Nebraska was closer to the mainstream until about 10 years ago. Its income threshold was 130 percent of poverty, a percentage picked because it is used to decide who can get food stamps — a correlation that made sense to state officials.
Then the federal government significantly reduced the dollars it handed out. State officials responded by narrowing income eligibility from 130 percent of the poverty guidelines to 116 percent.
But when the federal government anted up more for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, Nebraska didn’t restore the 130 percent income mark.
Now, only Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina and Oklahoma have lower income eligibility levels than Nebraska.
Former Gov. Mike Johanns declined to broaden eligibility.
So, too, has Gov. Dave Heineman.
Heineman declined a request from the state department of Health and Human Services to increase the eligibility mark to 130 percent of the federal poverty guideline, according to his spokesman, Aaron Sanderford.
“Families across Nebraska will feel the pinch of increased energy costs this winter,” Sanderford said. “…Increased costs make now an imprudent time to consider such a move.
“Dramatically expanding the number of people receiving this form of public assistance could put the entire year-round program at risk financially,” Sanderford said. “It might also abandon the neediest Nebraskans at a time when they cannot afford instability.”
Nebraska is especially careful about making sure the LIHEAP fund stays flush with money. Last year, between $1.1 million and $1.2 million, or more than 6 percent of the money in the program, went unspent.
The fact that money is carried over is not unusual — federal rules require some move from one year to the next. The money comes in handy, said Kelly, at the beginning of the cold-weather season, before new federal appropriations land in the laps of states.
But compared to Iowa, whose program is often cited as a good model, Nebraska’s carryover rate is high.
In Iowa, said McKim, the state carried over about the same amount as Nebraska even though it got about twice as much of the federal money, $39 million.
States can carry over a maximum of 10 percent, McKim said.
“The money you’re carrying over is money you could be using to help somebody,” McKim said. “You need to carry over a little for start-up costs, I understand that. But if you’re carrying over too much, and you know people are suffering, that’s unconscionable.”
The income threshold could be a topic for state senators to discuss during the upcoming session, which begins in January.
The Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest, which pushed for the rule against utility disconnection, is lobbying for Nebraska to have the LIHEAP eligibility level set at 150 percent of federal poverty guidelines, like Iowa. The group is also suggesting lawmakers take a look at possibly supplementing the federal program with state dollars or forcing utilities to pitch into the program.
“Nebraska just hasn’t addressed energy policy in a systematic, comprehensive way,” said Danielle Nantkes, an attorney for the Appleseed Center.
“We’ve been unable to get any traction through…the governor’s office, so we’re going to try something else,” she said.
Raising the income lid from 116 percent to 150 percent might cause the program to run out of money before the year was over, said Kelly, the state administrator of the federal heating assistance program, but 130 percent could be sustainable.
Reach Nate Jenkins at 473-7223 or njenkins@journalstar.com