DEAR COLLEAGUE LETTER

DCL-06-06

DATE: February 13, 2006

TO:  ALL STATE IV-D DIRECTORS

RE:  Meeting Regarding the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005

Dear Colleague:

First, I want to thank you for your participation in the conference call we held last Friday, February 10, 2005 to discuss the Deficit Reduction Act (DRA) of 2005. As you indicated, implementation of the DRA will have an impact on various areas of the Child Support Enforcement program that will require changes in policy, procedures, automated systems, and financial reporting.  Distribution rules, mandatory fees, and the ending of Federal matching of State spending of Federal incentive payments are examples of such changes.

For the leadership of the CSE community to discuss this important legislation, the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) will host a one and half day meeting where we can share information and ask and answer questions.  Because your attendance is important, OCSE will pay your travel costs via the State Information Technology Consortium (SITC). Unfortunately because of lack of space in the hotel that is available, it looks like we will only be able to accommodate one person per State.

Where:

Dallas, TX. SITC will disseminate registration and travel procedures on Thursday, February 16th with the subsequent deadline to make hotel (to be announced) reservations no later than Monday February 27th.

When: 

The meeting will be conducted all day Tuesday, March 14th and half a day Wednesday, March 15th. This Thursday, SITC will provide registration and travel instructions.

Please note that OCSE will disseminate an Action Transmittal as soon as possible to explain the child support provisions of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005.

Sincerely,

Margot Bean
Commissioner
Office of Child Support Enforcement

cc: ACF Regional Administrators
    ACF CSE Regional Program Managers