AT-01-09, The Office of Child Support Enforcement's Annual Data Report, the OCSE-157

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Administration for Children & Families
Office of Child Support Enforcement

ACTION TRANSMITTAL

OCSE-AT-01-09

DATE: June 5, 2001

TO: STATE AGENCIES ADMINISTERING CHILD SUPPPORT ENFORCEMENT PLANS UNDER TITLE IV-D OF THE SOCIAL SECURITY ACT AND OTHER INTERESTED INDIVIDUALS

SUBJECT: The Office of Child Support Enforcement's Annual Data Report, the OCSE-157

CONTENT: This Action Transmittal contains revised instructions for completing the above form, which is to be used to report program status and accomplishments under title IV-D of the Social Security Act. State agencies administering child support enforcement programs under title IV-D of the Social Security Act are required to submit the OCSE-157. The information from this form will be compiled and presented in the Child Support Enforcement Annual Report to Congress and will be used to compute individual State incentive and program performance measures.

This AT makes the following revisions to the instructions to the OCSE-157 as they appeared in
AT-99-15. None of these revisions require reprogramming of state systems.

The answers to the Q & A's have been incorporated into the instructions under the related section or line number. They are in Italics in the report.

The address to mail the report to has been changed. Reports should now be sent to the Division of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (DPRE).

The Variances section has been removed.

The Start-up section has been removed.

The section on Revised Reports has been revised. This now reads:
States are expected to submit accurate reports on time. However, States may revise previously submitted reports by submitting new ones. Revised reports must be submitted within 90 days of the end of the fiscal year for which the report was due, therefore all final data reports must be received in OCSE by December 31st of each year. Revised data will not be used to calculate State incentive measures and will not be included in the Child Support Enforcement Preliminary or Annual Reports for the year in question, if the revised report is received after the deadline.
The section on Consequences of Reporting Unreliable has been revised. It now reads:

Legislation requires that state-submitted data, used to calculate incentive measures, be reliable and complete. Data to calculate individual State incentive measures will be taken from ten of the OCSE-157 line items. These lines will be audited for completeness and reliability and include: Lines 1 and 2 for the Support Orders measure, Lines 5 and 6 or 8 and 9 for the Paternity Establishment measure, Lines 24 and 25 for the Current Support measure, and Lines 28 and 29 for the Arrears measure. Refer to OCSE-AT-99-12 for detailed information on incentive formulas and requirements.

As requested in Dear Colleague Letter DC-00-77, States must have an audit trail available that consists of the case information used to compile the line items that will be used to calculate incentive measures. A section on Online Reporting has been added on page 5. If audit results determine that a State's data are incomplete or unreliable, the State will not be eligible for an incentive payment for measures reliant on that data and the amounts otherwise payable to the State under title IV-A may be reduced by 1 to 5 percent.
The following sentence has been added to the end of the Signature Section.

Approving the electronic OCSE-157 under these IDs and password indicate that the appropriate person has reviewed and approved the report.
Lines in the instruction and on the form that were formerly blacked out or marked "Do not report " are now marked as "Reserved."
A place has been provided next to line 9 for States to provide the reporting time period they are using to report that line--if they are not using the Federal Fiscal Year.

RELATED MATERIAL:	DC-00-77	DC-99-114	DC-99-17
	DC-00-19	AT-00-05

SUPERSEDED MATERIAL:

OCSE-AT-99-15

DC-99-108

ATTACHMENTS: Instructions for completing form OCSE-157 and form OCSE-157.

EFFECTIVE DATE: Agencies began using the OCES-157 to report for the Federal Fiscal year beginning October 1, 1998.

INQUIRIES TO: ACF Regional Administrators

___________________________
Frank Fuentes
Acting Commissioner
Office of Child Support Enforcement

Instructions for Completing Form OCSE-157, The Child Support Enforcement Annual Data Report

Child Support Enforcement Annual Data Report