Administrative Rules of the State of Montana

(1) The benefit matrices in (1)(c) and (1)(d) are used to establish the benefit payable to an eligible household for a full heating season. The benefit varies by household income level, type of primary heating fuel, the type of dwelling (single family unit, multi-family unit, mobile home), the number of bedrooms in the dwelling, and the heating districts in which the household is located, to account for climatic differences across the state.

(a) The benefit payable to an eligible household will be computed by multiplying the applicable amount in the table of base benefit levels found in (1)(c) by the applicable matrix amount in the table of income/climatic adjustment multipliers found in (1)(d).

(b) Applicants may claim no more bedrooms than household members except that single elderly and disabled individual households are entitled to claim two bedrooms if their dwelling unit contains more than one bedroom.

(c) The following table of base benefit levels takes into account the number of bedrooms in a house, the type of dwelling structure, and the type of fuel used as a primary source of heating:

TABLE OF BENEFIT LEVELS

(i) SINGLE FAMILY

# BEDROOMS	NATURAL GAS	ELECTRIC	PROPANE	FUEL OIL	WOOD	COAL
ONE	$ 359	$ 438	$ 549	$ 676	$ 367	$ 184
TWO	522	637	798	982	533	268
THREE	712	868	1,087	1,339	726	365
FOUR	979	1,194	1,496	1,842	999	502

(ii) MULTI-FAMILY

# BEDROOMS	NATURAL GAS	ELECTRIC	PROPANE	FUEL OIL	WOOD	COAL
ONE	$ 304	$ 371	$ 464	$ 718	$ 310	$ 156
TWO	458	558	699	1,082	466	234
THREE	672	819	1,026	1,587	684	344
FOUR	785	957	1,199	1,854	799	402

(iii) MOBILE HOME

# BEDROOMS	NATURAL GAS	ELECTRIC	PROPANE	FUEL OIL	WOOD	COAL
ONE	$ 303	$ 369	$ 463	$ 597	$ 309	$ 155
TWO	443	540	676	873	452	227
THREE	587	716	897	1,157	599	301
FOUR	655	799	1,001	1,291	668	336

(d) The following table is based upon the household's income as a percentage of the federal poverty guideline and adjusted for climatic differences in the ten human resource development council service areas in the state of Montana:

TABLE OF INCOME/CLIMATIC ADJUSTMENT MULTIPLIERS

PERCENT OF POVERTY	AEM	IV	V	VI	VII	VIII	IX	X	XI	XII
0 - 11	1.00	1.08	0.98	0.99	0.93	1.02	1.08	0.90	0.92	1.09
> 11 - 23	0.95	1.02	0.94	0.94	0.89	0.97	1.03	0.86	0.87	1.04
> 23 - 35	0.90	0.97	0.89	0.89	0.84	0.92	0.98	0.81	0.82	0.98
> 35 - 47	0.85	0.92	0.84	0.84	0.79	0.87	0.92	0.77	0.78	0.93
> 47 - 59	0.80	0.86	0.79	0.79	0.75	0.82	0.87	0.72	0.73	0.87
> 59 - 71	0.75	0.81	0.74	0.74	0.70	0.77	0.81	0.68	0.69	0.82
> 71 - 83	0.70	0.75	0.69	0.69	0.65	0.71	0.76	0.63	0.64	0.76
> 83 - 95	0.65	0.70	0.64	0.64	0.61	0.66	0.70	0.59	0.60	0.71
> 95 - 107	0.60	0.65	0.59	0.59	0.56	0.61	0.65	0.54	0.55	0.65
>107 - 119	0.55	0.59	0.54	0.54	0.51	0.56	0.60	0.50	0.50	0.60
>119 - 131	0.50	0.54	0.49	0.49	0.47	0.51	0.54	0.45	0.46	0.55
>131 - 143	0.45	0.48	0.44	0.44	0.42	0.46	0.49	0.41	0.41	0.49
>143 - 150*	0.40	0.43	0.39	0.39	0.37	0.41	0.43	0.36	0.37	0.44

*This category also applies to those whose income exceeds 150% of the poverty guideline and meets the criteria of ARM 37.70.406(1)(a).

History: 53-2-201, MCA; IMP, 53-2-201, MCA; NEW, 1982 MAR p. 732, Eff. 4/16/82; AMD, 1982 MAR p. 1771, Eff. 10/1/82; AMD, 1983 MAR p. 131, Eff. 2/11/83; AMD, 1983 MAR p. 1362, Eff. 9/30/83; AMD, 1984 MAR p. 1481, Eff. 10/12/84; AMD, 1985 MAR p. 1412, Eff. 9/27/85; EMERG, AMD, 1986 MAR p. 362, Eff. 3/14/86; AMD, 1986 MAR p. 1606, Eff. 9/26/86; AMD, 1987 MAR p. 1805, Eff. 10/16/87; AMD, 1988 MAR p. 2042, Eff. 10/1/88; AMD, 1989 MAR p. 1571, Eff. 10/13/89; AMD, 1990 MAR p. 2307, Eff. 10/26/90; AMD, 1991 MAR p. 1857, Eff. 10/1/91; AMD, 1992 MAR p. 2201, Eff. 9/25/92; AMD, 1993 MAR p. 2437, Eff. 10/15/93; AMD, 1994 MAR p. 2642, Eff. 9/23/94; AMD, 1995 MAR p. 2157, Eff. 10/13/95; AMD, 1996 MAR p. 2887, Eff. 10/25/96; AMD, 1997 MAR p. 2296, Eff. 12/16/97; TRANS, from SRS, 1998 MAR p. 2059; AMD, 1999 MAR p. 414, Eff. 3/12/99; AMD, 1999 MAR p. 2575, Eff. 11/5/99; AMD, 2000 MAR p. 2707, Eff. 10/6/00; AMD, 2001 MAR p. 401, Eff. 3/9/01; AMD, 2001 MAR p. 2037, Eff. 10/12/01; AMD, 2002 MAR p. 3635, Eff. 11/28/02; AMD, 2004 MAR p. 1026, Eff. 4/23/04; AMD, 2004 MAR p. 2818, Eff. 11/19/04; AMD, 2005 MAR p. 1786, Eff. 9/23/05; AMD, 2005 MAR p. 2078, Eff. 10/28/05; AMD, 2007 MAR p. 974, Eff. 7/6/07; AMD, 2007 MAR p. 1948, Eff. 11/22/07.