Delivering help where it’s needed, when it’s needed

The New Jersey Department of Community Affairs (DCA) and New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU)  are state agencies created to provide administrative guidance, financial support and technical assistance to local governments, community development organizations, businesses and residents.

Their process was manual, paper-based and fragmented, with agencies having separate systems that didn’t communicate. This inefficiency made the evaluation of benefits requests overly complex, and benefit approvals were taking more time than desired. Residents often underused these services because of unclear guidance and limited access.

The department sought a comprehensive view of their residents and households—a “data mosaic”—to streamline and modernize the application, adjudication and administration of benefits. And in more detail, the agency wanted to build a new portal that integrated the customer relationship management (CRM) systems, reporting and dashboards used by residents, New Jersey DCA adjudicators, utility vendors, community-based organizations (CBOs) and other stakeholders.

IBM Consulting^®, the New Jersey DCA and NJBPU joined forces to build the Utility Assistance Program (UAP) portal. This site streamlines the management of several state programs, namely:

• The state-funded Universal Service Fund (USF) program and federally funded Home Energy Assistance program (USFHEA), which offer financial aid for heating and cooling costs for low-income and moderate-income New Jersey residents. ​
• The Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP), which provides federally funded energy efficiency improvements for low-income households.
• Lead-Based Paint Hazard Assistance Program (LRAP), which deals with lead paint hazards.

IBM has also created portals to facilitate temporary programs:

• American Rescue Plan (ARP)
• Low Income Household Water Assistance Program (LIHWAP)

As part of this IBM Consulting for Microsoft project, the IBM team applied IBM Design Thinking methodology to design a solution that would provide unified case management along with:

• Resident self-service. Using Microsoft Power Pages to create a user-friendly portal that offers guided, online applications and rapid data import for faster submissions
• Case management. Enhancing Microsoft Power Platform capabilities for faster application processing and more effective payment benefits
• Document automation. Leaning on Microsoft Azure AI Document Intelligence to review and extract key data from required documentation
• Single source of truth. Creating a unified source of data, documentation, reporting and outreach that’s security-focused and hosted on Microsoft Azure Cloud
• Data lakehouse. Unifying various systems and NJBPU data sources into a comprehensive data lake supported by Microsoft Azure Databricks
• Consumption. Delivering robust, real-time analysis tools paired with Microsoft Power BI

The IBM Consulting delivery teams also used IBM Consulting Advantage for Cloud Transformation built with IBM watsonx®, a generative-AI-infused platform, to create key program support materials, internal workflows and project management documents. This solution boosted accuracy and led to faster, better-informed decisions.

The UAP portal delivers a game-changing experience to residents and DCA adjudicators. The outcome is faster and more accurate processing of the benefits and includes:

• Expanded access and convenience with increased outreach as residents can complete a self-guided application on their own and in the comfort of their own home.
  • 60% reduction in the average time it takes a resident to complete a USFHEA application
• Reduced adjudication time by 88%
• Increased adoption of UAP by 4 times
• Implemented reusable, centralized framework for the seamless creation of innovative programs and the efficient pulling of data and documentation across different applications, further completing the data mosaic of the residents and their households
  • Added 2 recent programs for WAP and LRAP
  • Reused USFHEA data and documentation that can be pulled in to create LIHWAP, LRAP and WAP applications and vice versa
  • Increased data insights of the residents and their households to provide more benefits
• Created access to business intelligence dashboards and reporting tools, promoting deeper insight into and analysis of the support programs and empowering DCA and its stakeholders to deploy and adjudicate future initiatives faster

“The IBM team has configured a solution for NJDCA that drastically decreases the time it takes to process utility assistance applications, which gets that assistance to the families and residents of New Jersey faster, enhancing their financial security and quality of life.” John Harrison, Division Director Department of Community Affairs, Information Technology

Moving forward, IBM Consulting is helping to integrate generative AI functions directly with the UAP portal. With Microsoft Copilot Studio, the IBM team will be developing agentic AI to better answer questions and evaluate applications against established policies.

The New Jersey DCA is the state agency created to provide administrative guidance, financial support and technical assistance to local governments, community development organizations, businesses and individuals to improve the quality of life in New Jersey. The organization offers programs and services that respond to issues of public concern, including fire and building safety, housing production, community planning and development, and local government management and finance.