TO:	Commissioners; TA Directors; FS Directors; WMS Coordinators

FROM:	Patricia A. Stevens, Deputy Commissioner, Division of Temporary Assistance

SUBJECT:	Change to FS ABEL SUA coding and HEAP auto-payment process

EFFECTIVE DATE:	Monday, May 5, 2003

CONTACT PERSON:	1-800-343-8859:  Food Stamps:  Gene Reilly, extension 4-2342
	HEAP:  Paula Cook, extension 6-3591;  ABEL:  Tom Walkuski, extension 3-9780

This GIS notifies local districts of a change in FS ABEL coding scheduled to begin May 5th, 2003 for effective dates of June 1, 2003 or later.  Heating/Cooling Standard Utility Allowance (HT/AC SUA) codes 2-9 will no longer be allowable entries on the FS ABEL budget.  TA and FS workers must begin using a new ABEL Food Stamp HT/AC SUA code “Z” for secondary households sharing living quarters and heating/cooling expenses with another household that is the primary Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP) recipient.  This includes TA households that are budgeted cooperatively together, but are not all in the same FS household.  The primary HEAP recipient household in shared living situations should be coded with a FS HT/AC SUA indicator of “X” instead of 2-9 when it incurs heating/cooling costs.

Built into the federal Food Stamp Act, and USDA supporting regulations, is a close correlation between receipt of HEAP payments and the use of the HT/AC SUA in calculating a shelter expense deduction for Food Stamp households.  While all FS households in receipt of HEAP are entitled to use of the HT/AC SUA, the reverse is not true.  Not all households in receipt of the HT/AC SUA can receive a HEAP payment.  However, the HEAP auto-pay process does rely on information contained in the household’s Food Stamp budget to identify eligible households.  A change in FS Policy effective October 1, 2002 that eliminated proration of SUA’s for shared living situations has affected HEAP auto-payments.  In past years, the HEAP program has prorated the HEAP benefit among the households based on indicators in the FS budget that revealed shared energy expenses.

In the next HEAP auto-pay, benefits will be authorized only once per HEAP household.  New York’s HEAP program defines a HEAP household as any group of individuals who:  are living together, and sharing expenses, for whom residential energy is customarily purchased in common; or who make undesignated payments for energy in the form of rent.  Although entitled to use of the FS HT/AC SUA as part of the HEAP household, the secondary household in HEAP eligible shared living situations must now be coded in a manner that identifies them so that duplicate direct HEAP benefits are not authorized.  In these situations the direct HEAP benefit will be granted only to the primary tenant / customer of record, for the benefit of the entire HEAP household including the secondary tenant household.

For more detailed information on FS SUA codes, and the associated basis for granting a FS SUA or not, see the table titled “Upstate ABEL:  Food Stamps Standard Utility Allowance (SUA) Table”.  That table was last distributed as a handout in association with a September 6th, 2002 “FS Reauthorization Teleconference”.  It is available at the OCFS training site which can be accessed either via the intranet address http://sdssnet5/ohrd/distancelearning/satellite/ or the internet address http://www.dfa.state.ny.us/ohrd/satdefault.htm .  Select “program archive”, scroll to the September 6, 2002 FS Reauthorization Issues topic, click on “handouts”, and scroll down to page 10 of the handout.  An updated version of this chart, eliminating codes “2-9” and incorporating code “Z” will soon be distributed as part of a forthcoming Upstate ABEL Transmittal.