DCL-98103 Employer Outreach Articles

DCL-98-103 Oct 2, 1998

TO ALL IV-D DIRECTORS

Re: Employer Outreach Articles

Dear Colleague:

Employers play an important role in the child support program, but need more information about a whole range of child support issues, such as income withholding, medical support, and electronic transmission of funds and information. The enclosed articles, written by the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE), as well as the other outreach materials we have produced over the past couple years, are intended to meet some of these informational needs.

Both articles focus on the employer community. The first, "Federal Parent Locator Service Update," appears in the Child Support Quarterly, Summer 1998, Volume XXIX, No. 3, published by the National Child Support Enforcement Association (NCSEA). The second, "Insights into Child Support," appears in Paytech, September/October 1998, Volume 7, Issue 5, published by the American Payroll Association (APA).

The articles touch upon the benefits of the expanded Federal Parent Locator Service (FPLS), especially the National Directory of New Hires (NDNH). They discuss how new hire data is compared with child support case/order data to locate parents who owe child support; income withholding order issues; medical support orders; electronic funds transfer and electronic data interchange (EFT/EDI); and multistate employer reporting. The articles also describe current OCSE and State employer outreach efforts and recognize employer cooperation as critical to the success of the program.

We will send you copies of more articles as they are released to keep you abreast of our outreach efforts and to help prepare you for calls from employers in your State who may have questions about the published information. And we encourage you to continue and expand your outreach to the employer community. The results of these efforts, both at the Federal and State levels, should strengthen our partnership with employers and continue to increase child support collections.

If you have questions, comments, or requests, please call Carol Callahan at 202-401-6969 or e-mail her at ccallahan@acf.hhs.gov. Thank you for your cooperation and efforts as we strive towards our goal of improving the lives of our nation's children.

Sincerely,

David Gray Ross

Commissioner

Office of Child Support Enforcement

Enclosures

cc: State New Hire Contacts