Add New Jersey LIHEAP regular heating assistance

[hua7450]

Adds New Jersey's FY2026 regular LIHEAP heating benefit using the county, fuel, income and household-size grid. A qualifying one-person Sussex County household with $12,000 annual countable income receives the published $961 deliverable-fuel payment.

Implementation

• Reuses federal SMI size factors. All twelve published monthly limits reconcile; larger households use the separately rounded additional-person increment. Flooring and monthly half-up rounding are numerical reconciliations, not express rounding instructions.
• Counts qualified members toward size without SNAP-specific immigration bars. Applies the handbook's $500 monthly disregard to each nonqualified member's income, then counts the excess. The per-member interpretation remains explicit because the handbook mixes singular and plural wording.
• Uses parameterized income sources, existing net business income without additional business/work-expense deductions, child/student earnings exclusions, child Social Security and veterans-benefit exclusions, and monthly half-up rounding. Dividends use ordinary_dividend_income; the annual tanf aggregate counts WFNJ receipt once and applies take-up.
• Uses existing housing, heating and county inputs; adds no empty input. Unsubsidized heat-in-rent uses the renter panel, including unknown fuel. Subsidized direct payers use the fuel panel as an interpretation of the handbook's general rule; the specific regulatory renter-level exception remains unresolved. No bill cap or regular-heating asset test applies.
• Represents all 192 printed cells with 128 distinct combinations by combining identical initial income bands. Keeps the anomalous $961 cell. Missing county information leaves the payment unsupported at zero without making the legal eligibility calculation false.
• Uses undated formulas and verified_years: "2026"; earlier estimates remain unverified.

Source conflicts and remaining coverage

Two direct differences and one interpretation remain open:

Topic	Codified text	FY2026 handbook and draft behavior
Income ceiling	Section 5:49-2.3(a): 175% FPG, capped at 60% SMI	Section 2.3.A: 60% SMI; the draft reproduces the published limits.
Nonqualified member's income	Section 5:49-2.2(a)(5): $268 monthly disregard	Section 2.2.5: $500 monthly disregard; applied per member as an explicit interpretation. For one member earning $1,000 monthly, the two rules count $732 versus $500.
Subsidized tenant with a heating bill in their name	Section 5:49-2.2(d)(1)(i): renter benefit level when the subsidy does not cover all heating costs	Section 3.2.F gives a general fuel-based rule but does not expressly remove this exception. The draft uses the fuel panel; that choice is not an express handbook instruction for subsidized direct payers.

The official notice readopted Chapter 5:49 without change effective September 22, 2025, through September 22, 2032. DCA/BPU's 2021 announcement independently supports the operating 60% SMI policy. Neither source reconciles the differences above. Follow-up research found no amendment or agency clarification settling them; the codified comparison was retrieved through Cornell LII, not a separately verified current Lexis edition. This draft's source choices remain provisional.

Actual Medicare Part B deductions remain deferred; counted Social Security can exceed the agency calculation. Other limitations include the four-week income window, SSI Lifeline supplements, detailed utility-allowance coverage, striker/institutional exclusions, landlord fuel billing and some income sources. Unsupported direct fuels return zero. Cooling, crisis, equipment and separate utility programs are excluded.

Validation

23 current program YAML cases verified, including every distinct matrix combination, all published limits, rounding, housing, mixed-status income and TANF take-up. The corrected eligibility file passed all five cases on focused rerun. Every case specifies heating_type; formatting/lint and diff checks passed. PR remains draft.

Official sources

• FY2026 LIHEAP Handbook — sections 2.2–2.3 and 3.2, pages 5–12, 17–18
• FY2026 Benefit Matrix
• FY2026 USF/HEA Factsheet — income limits, page 2
• FY2026 LIHEAP State Plan — pages 5–7, 9–10
• 2025 notice readopting Chapter 5:49 without change — PDF page 6, Register page 2402
• DCA/BPU October 2021 announcement of expanded 60% SMI eligibility

[codecov]

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
✅ Project coverage is 100.00%. Comparing base (909176a) to head (3b7e373).
⚠️ Report is 123 commits behind head on main.

Additional details and impacted files

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  Coverage   100.00%   100.00%           
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  Files            4         8    +4     
  Lines           76       129   +53     
  Branches         2         1    -1     
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+ Hits            76       129   +53     

Flag	Coverage Δ
unittests	100.00% <100.00%> (ø)

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