18th OCSE Annual Report
OCSE 18th Annual Report Forward
FOREWORD
The Eighteenth Annual Report to Congress on the Child Support
Enforcement program details child support enforcement activities of
the past fiscal year and more importantly points to the challenge for
the future. I offer this report with my strong commitment to answer
that challenge.
For the fiscal year ending September 30, 1993, the child support
enforcement program established paternity for over half a million
children and collected nearly $9 billion in child support. However,
even this record setting performance is diminished by the magnitude of
the problem. As a Nation, we fail to protect the support rights of
millions of children--support often needed to meet the most basic
human needs of food, clothing and shelter.
Despite enhancements, the current system has clearly not kept pace
with the rising number of families who should receive child support,
and the demand for improvement cannot be met by stopgap measures. The
President's Work and Responsibility Act of 1994 provides for the
toughest child support enforcement program ever to make sure that
parents support their children.
The aim for child support reform in the President's plan is
three-fold: to establish paternity for every out-of-wedlock birth; to
ensure that children are awarded fair support amounts; and, to ensure
that support which is owed is paid. The Work and Responsibility Act
includes bold new steps which support this vision and ensure that
support is no longer viewed as an option.
In his State of the Union address, President Clinton said "People who
bring children into this world cannot and must not walk away from
them." I am committed to ensuring that the President's message is
heard and that the system designed to protect these children succeeds.
Donna E. Shalala
18th Annual Report Chapter 1
1. Child Support Enforcement - FY 1993
Program Description
The Child Support Enforcement program began when Congress enacted
title IV-D of the Social Security Act in 1975 for the purpose of
establishing and enforcing the support obligations owed by
noncustodial parents to their children and the spouse or former spouse
with whom the children may be living.
* FY 1993 SERVICES PROVIDED
During FY 1993, State Child Support Enforcement (CSE) agencies were
able to:
* Establish paternity for 554,205 children;
* Establish 1,044,517 support orders;
* Enforce or modify 5,372,591 support orders;
* Locate 4,484,231 parents or their employers, income or assets;
* Collect $8,908,123,000 in child support; and
* Recover 12 percent of AFDC payments.
In providing these services, the Federal and State governments shared
expenditures of $2,241,094,000.
* WHO RECEIVES SERVICES
The program serves families receiving assistance under the title IV-A
Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program; families
receiving assistance under the title IV-E Foster Care program;
families receiving assistance under the title XIX Medicaid program;
families who formerly received assistance under the above programs;
and any other families who apply for services.
Most of the child support collected for families in the AFDC and title
IV-E Foster Care programs is used to repay assistance that the
families receive under those programs. However, AFDC families receive
up to the first $50 of any current child support collected each month,
as well as any current support collected that is above the amount of
assistance received. For some families, the child support payments are
enough to enable them to leave the AFDC rolls. Child support collected
for families who are not receiving government assistance goes directly
to those families to help them remain self-sufficient.
* THE FEDERAL/STATE PARTNERSHIP
The Child Support Enforcement program is a joint undertaking involving
Federal, State and local cooperative efforts.
The Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE), Administration for
Children and Families (ACF), Department of Health and Human Services
is the Federal agency that oversees administration of the program. The
Federal government sets Federal program standards and policy,
evaluates States' performance in conducting their programs, and offers
technical assistance and training to States. It also conducts audits
of State program activities, and operates the Federal Parent Locator
Service, National Training Center and National Reference Center. The
Federal government pays the predominant share of the cost of funding
the program. OCSE acts as the agent of the Internal Revenue Service in
facilitating collection of overdue support from Federal income tax
refunds. OCSE prepares this annual report to Congress based on States'
reports of their activities.
State governments work directly with families through State CSE
agencies or their local counterparts. These agencies work closely with
officials of family or domestic relations courts or officials of
administrative processes to establish paternity, establish support
orders, collect support and distribute amounts collected. They also
work with prosecuting attorneys and other law enforcement agencies to
establish and enforce support orders. Each State CSE agency operates
under a State plan approved by OCSE. State governments and, in some
States, county governments participate in funding the program.
The Need for Child Support Enforcement
Today, when high divorce rates, growth in the number of out-of-wedlock
births and family poverty translate into a host of social problems, it
is more important than ever to reaffirm that both parents have a
responsibility to support their children.
The Child Support Enforcement program encourages parents to support
their children by establishing paternity and support orders where
necessary and assisting in the collection of support. More and more
families are finding themselves in need of these services.
* SINGLE PARENT FAMILIES
The number of single parent families has increased in recent years due
to high rates of divorce and separation and growing numbers of
out-of-wedlock births. According to Census data, in the spring of
1992, 11.5 million parents were living with their own children under
21 years of age where the other biological parent was not living in
the household. Over 86 percent of these single parents were women.
Not all custodial parents raising children without the other
biological parent present are single parents. In the spring of 1992,
nearly 30 percent of these custodial parents had remarried. The
remaining 70 percent were either widowed (less than 1 percent),
divorced (31 percent), separated (15 percent) or never married (23
percent). Over 95 percent of the 2.7 million never-married single
parents were women./1/
In 1992, 1.2 million divorces were granted in the United States, only
a 2 percent increase from 1991 but in total the largest number in
American history. The divorce rate of 4.8 per 1,000 in 1992 was down 9
percent from the peak of 5.3 per thousand in 1981./2/
The number of children involved in divorce in the United States was
estimated to be 1.0 million in 1988.
Generally, the number of children involved in divorce declined in the
1980's after steep increases in the 1960's and early 1970's.
However, the rate of children involved in divorce per 1,000 children
under 18 years of age was 16.4 in 1988, double that of 25 years
before, indicating that twice as many children per 1,000 experienced
their parents' divorce in 1988 than a generation before./3/
The number of births to unmarried mothers in 1991, 1.2 million, was
the highest number ever reported in a single year in the United
States. This number has risen 82 percent since 1980. The birth rate
for unmarried women rose to 45.2 per 1,000, an increase of 54 percent
from 1980.
While there have been substantial increases in nonmarital
childbearing, the number of births and the birth rate for married
women both declined. As a consequence of these divergent trends during
the 1980's, births to unmarried women as a proportion of all births
has risen rapidly, from 18 percent in 1980 to almost 30 percent in
1991.
The pattern of increase in nonmarital birth rates in 1991 differs
somewhat from that observed in recent years in that the increases were
much greater for women under 25 years old than for women 25-34 years
old. The reverse had been true from 1980 through 1990./4/
* FAMILIES IN POVERTY
The relative poverty of households comprised solely of women and their
children compared to other households points to the continued need for
child support enforcement.
Average poverty thresholds in 1991 varied from $6,932 for a person
living alone to $27,942 for a family of nine or more. The average
poverty threshold for a family of four was $13,359 in 1991.
The number of persons below the official government poverty level was
35.7 million in 1991, a figure 2.1 million higher than in 1990.
The poverty rate was 14.2 percent in 1991, significantly higher than
the 13.5 percent poverty rate in 1990.
Children are over-represented among the poor. Children under 18
comprised 40 percent of the poor in 1991. The poverty rate for
children under 18 was just under 22 percent in 1991.
The number of poor families increased by 613,000 between 1990 and 1991
and the poverty rate for families increased to 11.5 percent. The
increase in the number of poor families with a female householder
accounted for almost two-thirds of the net increase in poor families
between 1990 and 1991.
The mean amount of child support received by all women who received
payments was $2,995 in 1989. The mean amount received by poor women in
1989 was $1,889, 57 percent of the mean payment of $3,304 received by
women with incomes above the poverty level.
Child support payments, on average, were 37 percent of the total money
income of mothers living in poverty, compared with 17 percent for
other mothers./5/
* FAMILIES DEPENDENT ON WELFARE
About 44 percent of the poor received cash assistance from government
programs in 1991. About 27 percent of the poor received no assistance
of any type, whether in the form of cash or noncash benefits.
Some 29 percent of the poor reported in Census Bureau surveys that
they had no medical insurance in 1991./6/
Between 1970 and 1992, the number of recipients of Aid to Families
with Dependent Children increased 83 percent, from 7.4 million in 1970
to 13.6 million in 1992. The number of families receiving AFDC
increased by 150 percent over the same period, from 1.9 million to 4.8
million. AFDC benefit expenditures increased 51 percent, after
adjusting for inflation, from $14.8 billion in 1970 to $22.2 billion
in 1992. After accounting for inflation, the average monthly AFDC
benefit per family was $644 in 1970 and $388 in 1992, a 40 percent
reduction./7/
In 1991 twenty percent of AFDC families had nonassistance income.
About 8 percent of AFDC families had earned income with an average
monthly amount of $330. About 1 in 8 had unearned income averaging
about $161 per family. Thirty-four percent of the families with
unearned income, or less than 5 percent of the total caseload,
received the pass-through of up to $50 a month of current child
support./8/
Growth in Program Operations
In FY 1993 the IV-D child support enforcement caseload exceeded 17
million cases--9.6 million AFDC and Foster Care-related cases and 7.5
million non-AFDC cases.
The Child Support Enforcement program collected over $8.9 billion in
child support in FY 1993. Non-AFDC collections, which are paid to
families, accounted for $6.5 billion of that total.
The $2.4 billion in AFDC and Foster Care-related collections were
distributed in part to families and in part to Federal and State
governments. Payments of child support to families, over and above the
assistance they received, accounted for over $453 million of this
amount. The remaining AFDC and Foster Care-related collections went to
reimburse assistance payments ($777 million to the Federal government
and $847 million to the State governments) and to pay incentives to
States ($339 million).
Over 242,000 families who left AFDC in FY 1993 had child support
collections in the month of ineligibility. Over $364 million in
support was paid during the year to AFDC families under the $50
pass-through provision where up to the first $50 of current support
collected in a month is paid to the family and disregarded in
determining AFDC eligibility. Almost 2 million non-AFDC families
received some support during the year through the Child Support
Enforcement program.
The following chart compares percent increases in collections,
expenditures and caseloads over 10 years.
Focus on the Future
Much more needs to be done to ensure that both parents participate in
supporting their children. The Child Support Enforcement program needs
to:
* Raise paternity establishment rates.
Five years ago, in FY 1989, paternity was established by the Child
Support Enforcement program for about 339,000 children. In FY 1993
paternity was established for 554,205 children, but this amounts to
only a small proportion of the nearly 3.5 million children in the
program who needed this service.
* Improve the adequacy of support awards and update more awards to
meet changing circumstances.
Although every State uses guidelines to determine the amount of the
support obligation, the noncustodial parent's income typically
increases after the award is set and inflation reduces the value of
the award. Historically, many awards have never been changed once they
were set.
* More effectively enforce orders for support.
1992 census data show that only about half of those awarded support
received the full amount they were owed. About $11.2 billion was
collected from an estimated $16.3 billion due.
Meeting these challenges will require continued Federal, State and
local partnerships to implement approaches that widely improve program
results for greater numbers of cases.
Endnotes
1. U.S. Bureau of the Census, unpublished data.
2. National Center for Health Statistics, Annual Summary of Births,
Marriages, Divorces, and Deaths: United States, 1992. Monthly Vital
Statistics Report; vol. 41, no. 13. Hyattsville, MD: Public Health
Service. 1993.
3. National Center for Health Statistics, Advance Report of Final
Divorce Statistics, 1988. Monthly Vital Statistics Report; vol. 309,
no. 12, suppl. 2. Hyattsville, MD: Public Health Service. 1991.
4. National Center for Health Statistics, Advance Report of Final
Natality Statistics, 1991. Monthly Vital Statistics Report; vol. 42,
no. 3, suppl. Hyattsville, MD: Public Health Service. 1993.
5. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, Series P-60,
No. 181, Poverty in the United States: 1991, and unpublished data.
6. Poverty in the United States: 1991.
7. Committee on Ways and Means, U.S. House of Representatives, 1993
Green Book, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC. 1993.
8. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for
Children and Families, Characteristics and Financial Circumstances of
AFDC Recipients, FY 1991.
OCSE 18th Annual Report Chapter 2
2. The Programs in the States
Implementation of the Family Support Act
The Family Support Act of 1988 made important changes to the Child
Support Enforcement program, many of which were to be phased in over a
period of time. As of the close of FY 1993, significant progress toward
implementation had occurred.
* APPROVED STATE PLANS
The table below shows the key provisions and the number of States and
other jurisdictions that have approved State plans (wherein the State
attests to having in place and using the tools called for in Federal
statute and regulations) for each provision as of September 30, 1993. A
State plan is approved if it meets both statutory and regulatory
requirements. "Interim" approval means that a State plan meets all
statutory requirements, but one or more regulatory requirements are
still to be met.
Implementation of Family Support Act
as of September 30, 1993
Provision
Number of States
with Approved
State Plans
Establishing paternity to age 18, 51 (remainder approved
effective 10-13-88 subsequently or granted waiver)
Genetic testing in contested cases,
effective 11-1-89
Genetic testing in contested
case, effective 11-1-89 54
Guidelines for support awards, 47 and
effective 10-13-89 6 interim
Wage withholding procedures, 20 and
effective 11-1-89 22 interim
Review and adjustment of orders, 37 and
effective 10-13-90 (review plan) 14 interim
and 10-13-93 (periodic review)
Monthly notice of support collected, 43
effective 1-1-93
States that do not have approved State plans typically have implemented
a procedure, but not in complete conformity with statutory and
regulatory requirements. This is the case with wage withholding, where
all States have implemented some type of wage withholding program. OCSE
continues to work with the States that have not yet met all
requirements.
The remainder of this chapter discusses in more detail specific State
program activities and innovations.
Innovations in State Child Support Programs
* PATERNITY ESTABLISHMENT
Paternity establishment can provide social, economic and medical
benefits to children. In FY 1993, over 554,000 children had paternity
established for them by the Child Support Enforcement program.
A legally established relationship can be a first step in creating a
bond between a father and his child, giving the child a sense of family
heritage.
Knowledge of a parent's medical history may help predict susceptibility
to certain medical disorders and aid in diagnosis in case of illness.
Establishing paternity for a child born out-of-wedlock and having that
parent contribute financial assistance for the child's upbringing
benefits society and the child. In addition to this source of income for
the family, noncustodial parents provide their children with legal
access to other important income security benefits such as Social
Security benefits, pension benefits, veterans' benefits, and other
rights of inheritance.
The Family Support Act of 1988 placed increased emphasis on paternity
establishment by setting standards of performance, mandating genetic
testing upon request, increasing Federal sharing in necessary laboratory
testing costs, and encouraging simple civil processes to establish
paternity. Some of the most exciting innovations in the program are in
this area. The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA) of 1993
capitalizes on some of the pioneering State innovations in paternity
establishment by requiring States to have programs for in-hospital
paternity establishment and administrative establishment of paternity.
In-hospital paternity establishment. By the end of FY 1993,
hospital-based paternity programs already existed or were under
development in about half the States, including Arkansas, Colorado, the
District of Columbia, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Virginia, Washington,
and West Virginia, although on less than a statewide basis in many
instances. Parents are presented with information about the benefits and
responsibilities of establishing paternity as well as their rights and
given the opportunity to acknowledge paternity voluntarily at the
hospital.
In Washington and West Virginia, hospital programs have been successful
in achieving voluntary acknowledgments of paternity for approximately 40
percent of out-of-wedlock births. The Virginia program has been able to
establish paternity in 25 to 30 percent of out-of-wedlock births.
Officials in the States believe that rates may go much higher as these
programs gain more experience.
The programs appear to be most effective when they establish contact
with the parents at the time of birth, have trained hospital staff
furnish information to both parents, and allow the parents to submit a
voluntary acknowledgment of paternity even after leaving the hospital
since most mothers now stay in the hospital for only a very short time.
Collaboration among several organizations in Ohio led to development of
the Ohio Paternity Establishment Program. PEP is the result of a joint
legislative effort by the Ohio Department of Human Services' Child
Support Enforcement Administration, the Ohio Department of Health, the
Ohio Hospital Association, and the Ohio Children's Defense Fund. In
1991, the Ohio Children's Defense Fund documented a striking increase
over a 10-year period in the percentage of Ohio's children who needed
child support because they were born to unwed mothers. Between 1980 and
1989, the percentage of out-of-wedlock births in the Ohio child support
caseload rose from 33 percent to 50 percent.
The PEP statute, effective on July 15, 1992, was enacted with the intent
of making major improvements in Ohio's paternity establishment rates. It
requires county child support agencies to prepare paternity
establishment compliance plans and to report regularly on their
progress. It also requires all hospitals to provide staff to disseminate
information on paternity establishment.
PEP is being implemented through contracts written between the Ohio
Department of Health and each hospital. The Child Support Enforcement
Administration has a fund which it allocates to the hospitals based on
their rates of births to unmarried women. Each hospital is reimbursed a
nominal amount for each paternity establishment information packet it
delivers to a birthing mother in the hospital setting.
Under the terms of the contract, hospitals are required to inform the
mother, and if possible, the father, of the benefits of establishing
paternity and the importance of the paternal relationship. Designated
hospital personnel, such as social services, medical records, and
nursing staff, discuss these matters with the parents, inform them of
their rights, and give them a packet of materials which includes a
voluntary acknowledgment form, information about genetic testing, birth
certificate information, and an application for child support services.
Fathers can acknowledge paternity in the hospital by signing the birth
certificate or a standard acknowledgment of paternity. Both create a
legal presumption of paternity and establish a duty of support. At
either parent's request, the hospital must send the acknowledgment to
the probate court in the county where the mother resides.
Administrative paternity establishment. Administrative establishment of
paternity is an innovation that has begun to take hold in several
States, including Colorado, Iowa, Maine, Montana, Ohio and Oregon. OBRA
1993 requires that States have expedited processes for establishing
paternity; at State option, this may be an administrative or a
quasi-judicial process.
The Ohio law that established PEP also set up an administrative
paternity process to be used in the Ohio child support program. On the
basis of the parents' signed birth certificate application,
acknowledgment, or signed genetic testing agreement (with test results
showing a 95 percent or greater probability of paternity), an
administrative hearing officer issues the paternity order. For the
non-AFDC mother, this remains in place and forms the basis of a later
support order if she seeks one. For the AFDC mother, an administrative
hearing for support is scheduled 30 to 60 days later. For 30 days after
the paternity order or the support order is issued, the parties have the
right to object by filing an action in court. If there is no objection,
the administrative order becomes final.
* SUPPORT ORDERS
Establishing a support order can be an important step toward
self-sufficiency and peace of mind for custodial parents who are
struggling on a daily basis to make ends meet. Orders for support cover
both money payments and medical support, the latter usually in the form
of health insurance coverage. In FY 1993 over 1 million new support
orders were established and nearly 5.4 million support orders were
enforced or modified by the Child Support Enforcement program. Almost 53
percent of newly established orders require health insurance coverage of
the children.
Many improvements in social programs result from State and local
innovations in program design and operations that directly affect the
individuals the program serves. An example of this is Illinois'
Expedited Child Support Center.
The Expedited Child Support Center, a pilot program in Chicago (Cook
County) that centralizes all child support enforcement functions in one
building, opened its doors on June 15, 1993. The Governor of Illinois
joined court and county officials at the opening ceremony for the
program. The system is designed to increase child support payments in
Cook County by at least $6 million next year.
The Center, located in the heart of Chicago's "Loop," is the culmination
of three years of cooperative efforts by the Illinois Department of
Public Aid (IDPA), the Chief Judge of the Cook County Circuit Court, the
Cook County State's Attorney, the Cook County Circuit Clerk, and the
Cook County Sheriff.
Building on Illinois' use of hearing officers in child support cases,
the Expedited Child Support Center is expected to ensure an efficient
team operation in case processing, increase child support payments to
single parents, and improve court efficiency in Cook County. It has set
goals of (1) freeing up judges' time and eliminating court backlogs of
paternity and support cases within two years; (2) eliminating most
continuances; and (3) reducing the time between filing and hearing
dates.
Working as a team, eight hearing officers will review evidence and
testimony and will make recommendations to the judges regarding
paternity and support establishment. Orders, once signed by the judges,
eliminate the need for the parties to appear in court. Parents who
cannot come to agreement with the hearing officer have the opportunity
to be heard by a judge, possibly the same day. Where blood testing is
needed for paternity establishment, there are on-site facilities and
technicians.
The Center's other features include state-of-the-art computer access, so
that each hearing room and courtroom can have the most recent case,
employment, and payment information available from the State's family
support information system. Computer processing also turns handwritten
material into a final typed document, for example, the order for the
judge's review.
Before the Center was opened, 34 judges in courtrooms throughout Chicago
and its suburbs handled the large caseload, which totaled 257,638 in the
Cook County CSE program. The Center will be able to handle an estimated
1,200 new filings a week. It is thought to be the largest child support
operation in one location in the country.
* SUPPORT AMOUNTS
The challenge of setting adequate child support orders and keeping those
orders up-to-date has emerged as an issue of concern for legislators,
policy makers, child support enforcement personnel, the judiciary, child
advocates and parents. Child support orders established prior to the
adoption of State guidelines may be grossly inadequate. The Federal
government first called upon States to establish child support
guidelines in the 1984 Child Support Enforcement Amendments; in 1988 the
Family Support Act mandated their use as a rebuttable presumption in
setting any child support order.
While all States now set orders using guidelines, their use in
establishing the initial award amount does not ensure that orders, over
time, continue to meet the support standards set by the guidelines. To
address this problem, the Family Support Act phased in requirements for
the periodic review and adjustment of support orders, in accordance with
the support guidelines in each State.
States were allowed considerable discretion in how they applied review
and adjustment between 1990 and 1993. Effective October 13, 1993, States
were required to have and use a process for reviewing child support
orders not later than 36 months after the establishment of the order or
the most recent review, and if appropriate, adjusting child support
orders that are in effect in the State. In non-AFDC cases, it should be
noted, orders are reviewed only upon the request of at least one party
to the order.
The new approach reflects a movement away from the restrictive standards
as to what constitutes a change of circumstance that many States
followed in the past for reviewing and adjusting award amounts. However,
States have flexibility in designating the forum(s) for conducting
reviews and adjustments of award amounts. The process may be conducted
in a State's judicial arena, in the administrative process structure of
an executive agency, in a combination of judicial and administrative
systems, or in any other forum the State selects.
The Family Support Act also provided for four State demonstration
projects "to test and evaluate model procedures for reviewing child
support awards." The results were submitted in a "Report to Congress on
Child Support Review and Modification Demonstration Projects" in August
1993.
The demonstrations produced positive results while showing that a
variety of methods in a mixture of State, judicial and administrative
environments can be successfully used to review and adjust child support
orders. Colorado and Florida used an out-of-court stipulation process,
Delaware conducted mediation sessions, and Illinois relied on the
judicial process.
In the four demonstration States over the two-year period of the
project, a total of 3,023 awards were modified, or 47 percent of the
6,408 cases reviewed. Ninety-two percent of the modifications resulted
in increased orders, while just 5 percent resulted in lower orders. In
the remaining 3 percent, no changes were made in the order amount, but
new medical support and/or immediate income withholding provisions were
added. The average net dollar value of the adjustments was $122 per
month for AFDC cases and $110 per month for non-AFDC cases.
One lesson learned from the demonstrations is that the review and
adjustment process can be a lengthy one, consuming over six months to
take a case from selection to adjustment. Generally, this was due to
factors such as case backlogs, the time needed for manual case
screening, case location, case clean-up activities, and the difficulty
in obtaining information needed to conduct the review. The resource
requirements for agency staff and the courts can be expected to vary in
accordance with the process used for review and adjustment, as well as
other operational factors.
Four-year review of State guidelines. In addition to requiring States to
have and use presumptive child support guidelines, the Family Support
Act requires States to review their guidelines at least once every four
years. Accordingly States are beginning to conduct their first reviews.
In reviewing its guidelines, a State must consider economic data on the
cost of raising children and must analyze case data that it has gathered
through sampling or other methods on the application of, and deviations
from, the guidelines.
In gathering data, States may sample cases within a representative
sample of jurisdictions within the State. In analyzing data, the State
must determine whether the application of guidelines is adequate and
results in the correct amount of support paid, i.e., that the data
support no change, a reduction, or an increase in guideline amounts.
Guidelines must be revised if the State's analysis indicates a need to
do so. The data analysis must also be used to ensure that deviations
from the guidelines are limited.
According to a recent OCSE survey of State CSE directors, New York,
Kansas and Washington State have completed reviews of case data on the
application of guidelines and the amount, direction, and extent of
deviations from the guidelines. Several other States, including
Michigan, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Kentucky, have recently
surveyed judges and other court or administrative personnel concerning
guidelines.
Kansas is now conducting a comprehensive review of its child support
guidelines using the following features:
* a State Supreme Court Advisory Committee with published meeting
dates;
* public hearings at several sites throughout the State;
* distribution of questionnaires on the guidelines to lawyers,
administrators, judicial personnel and public interest groups that
use or are affected by guidelines;
* review and analysis of the economic data concerning guidelines by
Kansas State University with assistance from the Family Economics
Research Group of the U.S. Department of Agriculture; and
* a case-based study of deviations.
As part of the latter study, 179 cases were sampled from presumptive
guidelines cases. Of the 109 cases with work sheets on file, Kansas
found a deviation rate of 60 percent. Deviations varied from $2 to $215
per month; orders set at less than the guideline amount accounted for 88
percent of the deviations, and orders set at more than the guideline
amount accounted for 12 percent of the deviations. The primary reasons
for deviations included consideration of such factors as: income tax
exemptions, financial hardship, costs of long distance visitation, time
spent with the noncustodial parent, special needs, split custody,
fluctuating income, and cost-of-living differentials.
* IMMEDIATE WAGE WITHHOLDING
Another requirement of the Family Support Act, immediate wage
withholding, is now a key component of the Child Support Enforcement
program. Immediate wage withholding refers to the routine collection of
support by wage withholding beginning when a support order is entered.
Prior to the Family Support Act, wage withholding was required only when
support was past due.
Wage withholding is now the most powerful collection technique for
obtaining child support payments; it accounts for the highest proportion
of support collections. National wage withholding collections have
increased dramatically in recent years, from $26 million in 1985 to $4.7
billion in 1993. In FY 1993, wage withholding collections for child
support rose 19 percent over the previous fiscal year, and were 124
percent more than the FY 1989 figure of $2.1 billion.
The immediate wage withholding provisions of the Family Support Act
require that, with certain exceptions, in all new and modified child
support orders, child support payments are to be withheld from an
obligated parent's paycheck immediately--for all current and back
support. The statute allows exceptions to immediate withholding if there
is good cause or an alternative arrangement between the parties. States
can, at their option, apply withholding to income other than wages; for
example, commissions, dividends, retirement benefits, lottery winnings,
and other types of compensation.
Reporting of new hires. The lack of ready access to timely employment
information delays implementation of wage withholding and prevents child
support from being collected at its source before an obligor moves to
another job. To achieve this access, Alaska, California, Georgia,
Hawaii, Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Oregon, Texas,
Virginia, Washington and West Virginia have enacted new hire reporting
programs using the IRS's W-4 form, the Employee's Withholding Allowance
Certificate.
In a new hire reporting system, an employer immediately forwards a copy
of the W-4 or the W-4 information completed by a new hire to a State
data base housed at either the State Employment Security or CSE agency.
The information can then be used as a locate tool that is matched
against the State's support enforcement caseload to search for
noncustodial parents for whom employment or location information is
needed to establish an order or to enforce an existing order. A new hire
reporting system can reduce from months to days the time it takes to
locate the income source for someone who has moved to a new job.
Extension to non-IV-D families. By the end of FY 1993, several States
had already extended immediate wage withholding to non-IV-D families,
although the Family Support Act does not require this procedure until
January 1, 1994.
The following examples drawn from three States illustrate some of the
approaches to organizing immediate wage withholding in non-IV-D cases.
Other approaches which meet the Federal requirements are also possible.
Illinois - No CSE agency involvement. In Illinois, the IV-D agency has
no role in immediate non-IV-D wage withholding. For these cases, the
Clerk of the Circuit Court is responsible for receiving and distributing
child support payments withheld by employers unless the court orders
payments directly to the family. The Clerk collects and distributes the
payments, maintains records of the names and addresses of the parties,
and lists the amounts of the payments and the dates they are required to
be made.
The wage withholding order is a separate document from the support order
and is sent to the employer by the custodial parent or her/his attorney.
Generally, the Clerk performs no monitoring or enforcement other than
keeping a record of payments. In most counties, the custodial parent or
attorney has to take steps to reinstate the wage withholding when the
parent changes jobs. If the employer knowingly or willfully fails to
withhold or disburse income withheld for support, the obligee or
attorney can petition the court for a judgment and/or penalties against
the employer.
The obligor can be charged a $36 annual fee by the county for processing
support payments from wage withholding.
Michigan - CSE agency provides the full range of non-IV-D services in
addition to wage withholding. In Michigan, the entire non-IV-D process
for immediate wage withholding is the responsibility of the Friend of
the Court system. This is made up of local circuit court-based agencies
which are responsible for enforcing all IV-D and non-IV-D support and
visitation orders. The State has been using income withholding in all
orders issued in the State since 1983.
The Friends of the Court perform the entire range of withholding
services for non-IV-D cases as for IV-D cases, and in doing so, exceed
Federal requirements for non-IV-D cases. For instance, they:
* send notices to employers;
* take enforcement actions against employers;
* identify subsequent employers for wage withholding notification;
and
* suspend the withholding when the parties make alternative
arrangements.
In addition, the State applies several Federal requirements for IV-D
cases to non-IV-D cases, including allowable time frames from receipt of
payment to distribution, monitoring and enforcement remedies (except
those applicable to only IV-D cases, such as Federal tax offset).
Automation of the wage withholding process varies by locality.
Statewide automation is currently in development and will include
electronic funds transfer.
Vermont - CSE agency functions as a fiscal agent. For non-IV-D wage
withholding in Vermont, the CSE agency functions as a fiscal agent. It
receives support payments from the employer and distributes them to the
families. The IV-D Cash Receipts Unit is notified of wage withholding
orders by the Family Court, then:
* sets up the cases on its ADP system;
* sends immediate wage withholding notices to employers; and
* receives, records and distributes collections, on average, within
2-3 days of receipt.
While payment histories are kept for the purpose of verifying
collections and their distribution, if families do not receive payments
as ordered, no enforcement action is taken on their behalf by the CSE
agency. If the agency becomes aware of a change in the obligor's
employer, the wage withholding order is forwarded to the new employer.
One significant by-product of this limited service to non-IV-D cases is
that more custodial parents are applying for CSE services. When the CSE
agency sent notices to all non-IV-D custodial parents inviting them to
apply for services, informing them that as IV-D clients they would have
the full range of services available to them if needed, there was a
strong response and the State picked up a large number of new IV-D
cases.
* ENFORCEMENT OF ORDERS
A significant aspect of child support enforcement is finding ways to
collect support from those who seek to avoid their obligations. States
are exploring new techniques for pursuing support owed.
California's use of tax authority. In September 1992, California gave
its State tax agency, the Franchise Tax Board (FTB), the authority to
collect delinquent child support accounts.
Operating as a pilot program in six counties of varying population size,
the FTB will have access to the same information as the CSE agency, and
use the full array of collection methods available in delinquent State
personal income tax situations. The objective is to see if the FTB's
collection expertise, automated systems, administrative remedies, and
statewide jurisdiction can help lower costs and increase collections of
past-due child support.
The demonstration began in January 1993 and will continue through
December 1995. Participating counties are Los Angeles, Fresno, Nevada,
Santa Clara, Solano and Ventura.
License restrictions. In recent years, many States have enacted
legislation directing State licensing authorities to restrict
professional, trade, sporting, business, and/or vehicle driving and
registration licenses of people with child support arrearages. Arkansas,
Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota,
Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and
Vermont have some type of license restriction.
Restricting or revoking licenses for past-due child support is a
powerful enforcement remedy. It can be especially useful with parents
who depend on their licenses to earn a living, who are self-employed, or
earn income through means other than a regular paycheck from which child
support can be withheld. For some States, the trigger for the licensing
remedy is a 30, 60 or 90 day arrearage, while for others it is a
specific dollar amount. Other events triggering the license remedy
include failure to appear under a warrant; a court finding that the
arrearage was deliberate; or the custodial parent's petition alleging a
delinquency.
Procedures used by the States vary considerably. In Vermont, one of the
first States to adopt a licensing restriction law for child support
arrears, applicants for trade, business and professional licenses
complete a form in which they attest that they are in "good standing"
with respect to their child support payments. Failure to do so results
in a referral to the State CSE agency.
Interim provisions such as grace periods or the granting of temporary
licenses are common features of the remedy. Obligors in Montana have a
60-day grace period to appeal or make satisfactory payment arrangements;
in New York, the obligor has 45 days.
Because license restriction is a strong remedy, implementation must be
carefully planned with proper due process safeguards. Minnesota requires
that a hearing (only addressing mistakes of fact) be held in 30 days.
California's case reviews remain with individual licensing boards, and a
person always has the right to take a case to court.
At the same time, States generally hold that obtaining a license is an
individual's privilege, not a right, and that the State has an interest
in seeing that the license holder is law-abiding, and honors the State's
judicial orders.
Over 5 million people in California hold professional, business, trade,
commercial drivers, sporting, and other licenses from over 50 separate
licensing boards. The CSE agency has cooperative agreements with 47
boards and expects to add those that license notary publics, home health
care providers, and public school teachers. The law permits no
exceptions to classes of licenses for implementing the remedy.
License restriction for obligors owing child support is triggered after
the support is 30 days past due. So that the parent can continue
working, the licensing boards (with the exception of the State Bar) will
issue a one-time, temporary five-month license. The license will not be
made permanent unless the parent either pays the arrearage or makes an
agreement to do so with the CSE agency.
Names are submitted monthly by the State CSE agency to the licensing
boards. In June 1993, California submitted 284,000 names for matching by
the participating State boards. From July to September 1993, 3,004
individuals who owed support were identified as holding licenses from
these boards. During this period, payment agreements were successfully
negotiated with 1,067 of these individuals.
One of the first questions raised by many of the boards was that of
potentially hostile reactions from people informed that their licenses
would be restricted. Safety was of particular concern to the DMV, which
operates 185 satellite offices in the State for walk-in applicants. As a
security precaution and a privacy measure, when someone whose name is on
the CSE agency's list for license restriction enters a DMV office with
an application, the person's name comes up on the computer screen with a
flag. The DVM worker is told not to process the application, but is not
told why. The message simply instructs the worker to refer the applicant
to the central DMV office where he or she is directed to the County
District Attorney's Family Support Division (the focal point for support
enforcement in California).
* AUTOMATION
The Child Support Enforcement program is approaching the date, September
30, 1995, when all States must have operational, automated statewide
child support enforcement management information systems. The Family
Support Act mandated this undertaking and authorized 90 percent Federal
funding to help States accomplish it.
All 54 States and jurisdictions submitted approvable implementation
planning documents by the October 1, 1991 deadline, but moving from a
plan to an operational system is a major challenge. As of September 30,
1993, 48 States and jurisdictions have completed the planning phase of
their projects, 32 are in the development phase, and 2 are engaged in
implementation.
Conversion of cases to new statewide systems. Critical to the systems
development effort is the conversion of cases from the existing system,
whether automated or manual, to the new system. This may be the most
difficult and important aspect of implementing a statewide information
management system, as there is a tendency to underestimate the time and
resources needed for this part of the development. In general States
with successful conversion projects are those that are realistic about
the time and effort involved, and therefore begin their work early.
Arizona's data conversion project was essentially a manual effort
performed on-site, county by county, and included data clean-up and
verification of payments and arrearages. Conversion specialists
extracted case data from hard copy files, performed a financial
reconciliation of each case and calculated the debt before copying the
demographic and financial case data onto data entry forms. The State
stressed the importance of quality assurance and had several
verification check points throughout the process. When its quality and
accuracy were assured, the data was converted to the new statewide
system.
When Arizona began its case conversion project, managers anticipated the
entire project to be done in-house by CSE staff, augmented with
temporary personnel. The State successfully converted the pilot offices
using this approach. However, it became clear that to finish the work
within the implementation schedule, contractor support would be needed;
this was arranged for the remaining caseload. The project took 34 months
to complete and a total of 266,657 IV-D cases were converted. After
conversion, Arizona could pursue cases that had been labeled
"non-workable" under the prior system.
Massachusetts' case conversion was complicated because child support
data were spread among many State entities. Realizing that conversion
would be labor intensive, the Commonwealth began working on it four
years before the start of its systems transfer and implementation
project.
The Massachusetts CSE program has been in the Department of Revenue
(DOR) since 1987. At that time, to centralize all IV-D activities, it
was necessary to convert all the child support data from numerous courts
to a single DOR/CSE computer system. Reconciliation and purification of
the data was a secondary objective.
The conversion effort was extremely complex because CSE activities were
not supported by a single integrated computer system, but rather by
several computer systems and numerous manual files containing
contradictory information. Using only State staff, DOR/CSE initiated a
project with the Trial Courts to reconcile and convert the case data,
both manual and automated, then residing in 84 Commonwealth courts.
After a year of work, it was apparent that the effort would require
contractor assistance to be completed in a timely manner. The contractor
reconciled and converted 51,035 cases over a three-year period. Today,
DOR is able to implement some of its more innovative collection
techniques, such as bank account attachments, because of this single
converted file.
Rhode Island, with an existing statewide CSE system, began its systems
transfer and implementation project under more ideal conditions than
most States. Rhode Island developed an effective two-phase approach to
case conversion. Phase 1 involved the purification and automatic
conversion of case data from the old CSE system, and Phase 2 consisted
of the manual conversion of additional required data elements not
maintained on the old CSE system.
A key feature of this approach was to have State staff focus on cleaning
up the data on the old system before automatic conversion. Verification
software developed by the implementation contractor edited the old CSE
system files and produced error reports which enabled staff to identify
and correct errors efficiently as they continued to perform ongoing
program operations. The purification process took about nine months to
complete, at which time about 98 percent of the State's 61,000 IV-D
cases were converted automatically.
In the last step, each case file was reviewed to convert manually
additional data elements required by the new statewide CSE system. Rhode
Island used contractor support for this nine-month task.
Texas in 1993 was in the process of data purification and conversion.
Although Texas also had an existing statewide automated CSE system, it
lacked many of the data elements required by its new system. As soon as
the State identified what was needed, it devised a data acquisition
methodology to capture the new information.
About 1,600 Texas CSE field staff in 75 offices are involved in the data
conversion effort, augmented by a number of temporary employees and by
significant amounts of overtime among regular employees. While
continuing to work their own caseloads, caseworkers add the pertinent
new information to special data collection screens on the current
system.
Texas expects to have its statewide system in operation in 1994. The
early conversion effort will allow almost the entire caseload of 800,000
to be automatically converted upon implementation of the new management
information system.
Automated collection and distribution. Because collection and
distribution of child support payments is complex, it is an area that
benefits significantly from automation. Payments must be matched and
credited to the correct cases, the AFDC collections must be distributed,
and non-AFDC collections disbursed promptly. Other activities include
billing the paying parent and monitoring the payments on each case.
Currently, State CSE programs use several different agencies for
receiving and disbursing payments. However, these agencies, such as
county court clerks, the central IV-D agency, or a central payment
clearinghouse, may not be handling all cases or may not be conducting
case monitoring or billing.
Handling large numbers of payments, maintaining internal controls, and
decreasing the risk of errors and delays can be done more effectively
when States designate only one point for receiving, accounting for, and
disbursing child support payments. Colorado and New York have embarked
on initiatives to apply technology to centralized collections
operations.
Colorado's Family Support Registry (FSR) provides a single point of
contact for IV-D case payments and inquiries from parents, employers,
and other State CSE agencies. Now in the pilot phase, which began in
July 1993, the system is operating in six counties, comprising 25
percent of the State's payments, which number about 30,000 per month and
total $6.5 million. The FSR is expected to begin statewide
implementation in 1994.
The challenge for Colorado, a county-administered CSE program, was to
create a system that accurately supports reconciliation and the transfer
of funds between the FSR and 63 judicial jurisdictions and county CSE
units. Before the pilot began, Colorado authorities estimated that
workers spent over 78,000 hours per year on activities that were
duplicative. Another 10,000 hours were spent traveling to the 54
jurisdictions where courts maintained records manually, and staff had to
copy needed information from ledger cards, compile the data, and prepare
the reports mandated by State and Federal requirements.
In designing the FSR, the State has completely re-engineered the payment
processing function and integrated it into the CSE program. Payment
processing is conducted under contract to a fiscal agent and local CSE
units maintain control while taking advantage of technology and
economies of scale to enhance productivity.
In New York in calendar year 1990, the 58 support collection units
(SCUs) managed 291,000 payment accounts, processing 5,300,000 individual
payments totalling $360 million. In the same year, to improve efficiency
and reduce costs, the New York legislature passed a law requiring a
centralized payment and distribution system for all 58 local districts.
New York began a centralized collection pilot project in March 1993 in
two districts and expanded it to 11 districts in June. The pilot
districts comprise about 26 percent of the State's cases with support
orders. The processing is being performed by a private fiscal agent
under contract to the State Department of Social Services (DSS). The
contractor began working in January 1993 to develop procedures, design
forms and notices, and establish its operational facility.
The test period runs through March 1994, and is being assessed by an
independent evaluator. If the evaluation shows that the centralized
system is cost-effective and meets standards for accuracy, timeliness,
and accountability, the contract will continue with statewide
implementation beginning in June 1994.
Under the pilot, noncustodial parents and employers send child support
payments directly to the fiscal agent, which records each payment, then
transmits the payment information electronically each day to the DSS
Child Support Management System (CSMS) to update the collection account
records. Each morning, CSMS provides an electronic data file to the
fiscal agent containing disbursement information, which the fiscal agent
uses to print and mail support checks.
CSMS is New York's automated on-line child support case management and
accounts tracking system. It is operated through mainframe computers in
Albany and New York City. Each district SCU manages its enforcement
caseload with a telecommunications link between its office's computer
terminals and the mainframe.
New York's contractor also designed and operates an interactive voice
response system, the Child Support Information Line which provides
information to a large volume of callers. Information on the most recent
collections and disbursements is updated daily by CSMS and is provided
to callers on a 24-hour basis. It also describes general child support
program services and gives the addresses of local child support units
where services are available.
* MANAGEMENT IMPROVEMENTS AND QUALITY ASSURANCE
Federal time frame standards for processing child support cases have
been in effect since October 1990. Recognizing their value as a
management tool for improving program effectiveness, efficiency, and
service to clients, State IV-D agencies have adopted a variety of
approaches to implementing the standards. The time limits apply to
requests to locate noncustodial parents, establish paternity, initiate
proceedings to establish and collect support awards, and distribute
amounts collected as child support.
Many States have developed systems to actively review and monitor their
own programs, including California, Connecticut, Delaware, Mississippi,
Missouri, Montana, and Washington. These seven States are at varying
stages of developing, modifying and implementing their statewide
automated CSE management information systems.
All seven have established teams of specialized staff dedicated to
monitoring IV-D case processing. Variously called auditors, quality
assurance or quality control workers, most are based at the State level.
The basic process includes selecting a case sample, reviewing those
cases, reporting the results, developing corrective action plans to
remedy problems uncovered, and follow-up activity. In some States, like
Washington and Delaware, much of the process is automated. In others,
like Mississippi, the process is a manual one.
Some States have gone beyond monitoring for compliance with time frame
standards. California has developed a two-tiered, performance-based
financial incentive system. The first tier provides a base incentive
payment for counties that meet case processing time standards. The
second tier provides an additional financial incentive to counties for
performance in certain program areas, such as paternity establishment,
and for collection increases. [California's IV-D program is
State-supervised and county-administered.]
Although most of the seven States have only been actively monitoring
time frame requirements since 1990, all report improvements in
compliance rates. While firm statistics are tentative, benefits have
been widely reported such as: increased uniformity in case activity and
better working relationships between IV-D offices and the agencies with
which they have cooperative agreements to conduct certain enforcement
functions. These results translate into enhanced public service and
increased collections.
OCSE 18th Annual Report Chapter 3
3. Federal Program Support
Capacity Building Initiatives
* AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION (ABA) CHILD SUPPORT PROJECT
OCSE's contract with the ABA Child Support Project continued in 1993
to serve as a link to the legal community nationwide, including court
personnel, through technical assistance, training, and articles and
publications. The Project conducted 10 one-day interstate case
processing courses for court personnel; provided six continuing legal
education programs for the private bar; and sent speakers to seven
national and State CSE conferences. Project personnel chaired OCSE's
work group to revise the mandatory Federal interstate forms; the
project co-sponsored with OCSE the Third National Child Support
Enforcement Training Workshop; and through its clearinghouse, it
provided technical assistance to public and private attorneys, judges,
other child support personnel, parents, and legislative staff on child
support legal issues.
In addition, the ABA Child Support Project published a quarterly
newsletter, "The Child Support Prosecutors Bulletin", as well as a
paper entitled "A Summary of the Differences between the Revised
Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act and the Uniform
Interstate Family Support Act".
* MONITORING OF STATE INITIATIVES
Throughout the year, OCSE has been monitoring State legislative
activity and implementation of W-4/employer reporting of new hires, a
relatively recent innovation described in Chapter 2. W-4 reporting
allows CSE agencies to quickly obtain information about changes in the
obligor's income and employment and can minimize the likelihood of
delays in child support payments when the noncustodial parent changes
employers.
Thirteen States had enacted new hire reporting programs by the end of
FY 1993.
As discussed earlier, many States are restricting or revoking the
licenses of people with child support arrearages.
By the end of FY 1993, 15 States had enacted legislation to revoke or
impose restriction on a wide range of licenses issued by States. Some
of the licenses affected include driver's licenses (individual and/or
commercial), vehicle registration, professional licenses (medical,
legal, real estate, etc.), commercial business licenses, trade
licenses (plumbers, electricians, beauticians, etc.) and sporting
licenses (hunting, fishing, gun ownerships, etc.).
OCSE maintains a State-by-State matrix on the status of State
revocation legislation, the license affected, the "trigger criteria",
the match process and the interim penalty provisions. Status reports
were mailed to all States and an article on the initiative appeared in
the Child Support Report.
* PROMOTION OF ELECTRONIC FUNDS TRANSFER (EFT) AND ELECTRONIC DATA
INTERCHANGE (EDI)
Pilot projects sponsored by OCSE in Iowa and Nebraska tested the use
of EFT/EDI technology for transmitting wage withholding payments. They
showed that EFT/EDI can eliminate the preparation and transmission of
checks by employers, eliminate manual posting and deposit of checks by
the CSE agencies and, due to the speed of electronic transmission,
reduce mail time to less than two days.
As a result of these efforts, OCSE is actively promoting the use of
EFT/EDI by employers and CSE agencies. OCSE established a work group
comprised of employers, CSE agency personnel, and personnel from
financial institutions and the payroll industry to develop a standard
EFT/EDI format. Once approved by the National Automated Clearing House
Association (NACHA) and the American Banker's Association EDI Council,
the EFT/EDI format was sent to State CSE directors in early summer,
1993. In addition, OCSE is developing a standard income withholding
form which incorporates the EFT/EDI elements. OCSE is working with
NACHA, payroll associations, and bankers' groups to obtain their
cooperation in promoting this technology.
* IN-HOSPITAL PATERNITY ESTABLISHMENT WORK GROUP
As required by the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, States
must establish hospital-based programs for the voluntary
acknowledgment of paternity around the time of the child's birth. To
assist States, OCSE planned and conducted a work group meeting of
representatives from 5 States (West Virginia, Washington, Michigan,
Virginia, and Ohio) to discuss and learn from their experience as
pioneers in the implementation of in-hospital paternity establishment
programs.
The meeting yielded an array of legislative, programmatic, and policy
issues that should be considered by States when designing an
in-hospital program. The information obtained from this meeting was
documented and distributed to State CSE agencies to assist them in
their implementation efforts.
* PRO SE PROJECT IN SOUTH CAROLINA
OCSE and the State Justice Institute (SJI) jointly funded a "Pro Se
Modification of Child Support Awards Through the Courts" demonstration
project in South Carolina. The purpose of the project, which is
directed by the American Bar Association, is to determine how well pro
se (self-representation in court) works for the review and adjustment
of child support orders.
The South Carolina project is developing simplified forms and
procedures for parents not represented by counsel to update their
support orders without creating undue burdens on the courts. The
project will also look at the impact of pro se procedures on the
courts and litigants' satisfaction with the procedures as a fair,
effective and cost-efficient way of updating their orders. All of the
materials developed and information learned from this project will be
shared with other States to assist them in implementing pro se
procedures.
* PHILADELPHIA PERFORMANCE ENHANCEMENT PROGRAM (PPEP)
OCSE staff conducted a program improvement project in the Domestic
Relations Branch (DRB) of the Philadelphia Family Court to identify
ways to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the CSE program in
Philadelphia. The cornerstone of this program review project was to
involve a number of core DRB staff and train them in management
analysis techniques through both formal instruction and demonstration.
The intention was to provide local office personnel with the skills to
continue the process of self-analysis and improvement.
The team examined organizational structure, staffing, work flow, case
processing and management procedures to determine their impact on the
office. The team went on to identify opportunities for improvement and
formulate recommendations. As a result of this project, the DRB has
initiated a long-term quality improvement effort to enhance the
delivery of CSE services in Philadelphia. Based on improvements
recommended in the report, the locate unit has experienced a 34
percent increase in the number of noncustodial parents located.
Federal Collection Programs
* FEDERAL INCOME TAX REFUND OFFSET
OCSE acts as an intermediary between the States and the Internal
Revenue Service (IRS) in the operation of the Federal income tax
refund offset program for the collection of past-due child support.
Federal income tax refund offset is the second most effective
collection method resulting in nationwide collections of over $609
million in 1993. $442 million was offset on behalf of families
receiving public assistance and $167 million was offset on behalf of
non-AFDC families. Actual distributed collections from this technique
are lower, reflecting delays in distribution and refunds IRS makes to
certain parents or their spouses under post-offset procedures.
Total collections for 1993 from Federal income tax refund offsets
decreased 3.8 percent from $632 million collected in 1992. The
decrease is attributable to the decrease in withholdings at the
beginning of the tax year, which reduced the amount of money available
for offset. The IRS charged a fee of $5.19 per offset for 1993 to
administer the program.
Since the beginning of the offset program in 1982, total collections
amount to $4.5 billion, representing nearly 8.9 million offsets. These
figures demonstrate the magnitude of the success of this program.
* IRS FULL COLLECTION PROCESS
When States' attempts to recover delinquent child support have failed,
the law provides State CSE agencies with a collection mechanism
referred to as the full collection process. This mechanism is used
only when there is a good chance that the IRS can make a collection
and only for cases in which a child support obligation is delinquent
and the amount certified is at least $750.
Historically, the IRS full collection process has been used sparingly.
OCSE and IRS are now conducting a full collection pilot project to
assess how to improve this process. In September 1993, OCSE submitted
698 full collection cases to the IRS representing over $14 million in
arrearages. Twelve States are participating in the pilot project:
Arkansas, California, Delaware, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New
York, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Washington. Collections
will be monitored and recommendations for improvement of the current
process will be developed during FY 1994.
The current full collection process is operating simultaneously with
the pilot project. In FY 1992, 30 new full collections cases were
certified and 409 collections were made totaling $293,420. In FY 1993,
20 new cases were certified and 327 collections were made totaling
$160,000.
The FPLS and Other Federal Systems
* FEDERAL PARENT LOCATOR SERVICE (FPLS)
The FPLS is a computerized national location network operated by OCSE
to provide social security numbers, address information, and employer
and wage information to State and local CSE agencies which assists
them in locating noncustodial parents to establish or enforce a child
support order. The Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act of 1980
broadened the use of the FPLS to include providing information in
parental kidnapping and child custody cases.
The FPLS receives information from the Social Security Administration,
Internal Revenue Service, National Personnel Records Center,
Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs, Selective
Service System, and State Employment Security Agencies. The
information the FPLS receives is the most current information
available from these agencies. During FY 1992 and 1993, the FPLS
processed nearly four million requests for information from State and
local CSE agencies.
* FPLS/STATE EMPLOYMENT SECURITY AGENCIES (SESA) CROSSMATCHES
The FPLS obtains employer addresses, wage and unemployment
compensation data from the SESAs. This information is extremely useful
in assisting CSE agencies to process interstate cases where the
custodial parent and children reside in one State and the noncustodial
parent lives or works in another State. The data from the SESAs are
the most current data available; the employment data are updated
quarterly, and the unemployment data are updated continually.
The FPLS began quarterly crossmatches with the SESAs in 1990. However,
the number of cases processed was limited to 200,000 a quarter, a
fraction of the approximately 4 million cases that could benefit from
this crossmatch. Since the SESA information is the most current data
available and proved to be valuable in helping CSE agencies locate
noncustodial parents, OCSE negotiated with the SESAs to expand the
frequency of the crossmatches and eliminate the restriction on the
number of cases submitted. Beginning in FY 1993, the frequency of the
SESA crossmatches was expanded from quarterly to monthly; and the case
limit was eliminated to accommodate processing all of the cases
submitted by the CSE agencies. In FY 1993, approximately 2.2 million
cases were processed with the SESAs.
* PROJECT 1099
In October 1984, OCSE began participating in Project 1099 which
provided all earned and unearned income information reported to IRS by
employers and financial institutions. In 1988, the project was
expanded to include wage and employer information. Project 1099
information can facilitate States' efforts to locate income and asset
sources of self-employed and nonwage earning obligors, as well as to
locate additional nonwage income and assets of regular wage earning
obligors. Such information is useful in determining the noncustodial
parent's ability to pay; reviewing and modifying child support orders;
and/or levying financial accounts, real or personal property to pay
delinquent child support.
In FY 1992, over 4.2 million cases were submitted to Project 1099;
nearly 3.2 million were matched resulting in a 75 percent match rate.
For FY 1993, the match rate was equally successful with nearly 4.3
million cases submitted to Project 1099 and over 3.2 million cases
matched, a rate of 76 percent. States have begun using this
information on a large scale to verify employment and wages and
identify other assets. For example, New York plans to use a one-step
process to attach accounts from various sources which will allow them
to verify the account and levy and freeze it. States are encouraged to
utilize the Project 1099 information to the maximum extent possible.
* ENUMERATION VERIFICATION SYSTEM (EVS)
The EVS is a multi-purpose social security number (SSN) verification
system. While States may use the FPLS to identify SSNs for
noncustodial parents, the EVS verifies and corrects SSNs and
identifies multiple SSNs.
The EVS is comprised of two systems. The first system provides a State
with multiple SSNs for an individual who has been legally issued more
than one SSN. The second system provides a corrected SSN in cases
where the State has made a transposition or slight error in the SSN
that they already have for an individual. Submittal of these cases to
EVS can help ensure the accuracy of SSNs for use in location,
enforcement, and collection of child support. States may continuously
submit cases for the EVS to verify and/or correct SSNs. In FY 1993,
3.3 million SSNs were submitted to EVS; nearly 186,000 SSNs were
corrected and over 13,700 multiple SSNs were identified. These
verified and corrected SSNs represent a significant potential increase
in collections.
The EVS system has also been expanded to verify SSNs for the Federal
Income Tax Refund Offset Program. Each year a significant number of
no-match cases fall out of the offset program because of invalid SSNs;
these SSNs were processed through EVS. In FY 1993, over 330,000 tax
refund offset cases were submitted through the EVS system and over
70,000 cases were returned with corrected SSNs. Based on the tax
refund offset rate of 28 percent of submitted cases with an average
offset of $658, if these corrected cases are resubmitted for a tax
refund offset the next processing year, there is a potential for
collecting almost $13 million in additional offsets.
National Training Center
In FY 1993, OCSE's National Training Center continued to operate an
information services and publications component, a training resources
library, and a speakers bureau. The Center also sponsored and
participated in training workshops and conferences and provided
oversight for contractual and in-house program initiatives.
* INFORMATION SERVICES
The information services and publications component of the National
Training Center continued to respond to inquiries and requests for
technical and Child Support Enforcement program information. This
component routinely distributed publications, Action Transmittals, and
Information Memoranda to 5,000 State and county CSE agencies, and upon
request, to Federal personnel, members of Congress, State and county
governments, and the general public.
OCSE issued an updated list of the Center's publications which
resulted in over 4,400 requests for such materials. Since many
requests were for multiple copies of several publications, nearly
200,000 copies of publications were distributed during the year.
The National Training Center continued to promote its services and
publications through articles in the Child Support Report, and, as a
result, was frequently responsible for providing assistance in the
selection of materials for requestors' own constituents and conference
agendas.
* TRAINING AND CONFERENCES
Third National Child Support Enforcement Training Workshop - OCSE
co-sponsored with the American Bar Association the Third National
Child Support Enforcement Training Workshop. Approximately 180 State
and local CSE trainers from 40 States attended the workshop which
focused on interstate case processing, review and modification, and
Federal CSE initiatives. A primary objective was to give participants
an introduction to and understanding of the new Uniform Interstate
Family Support Act (UIFSA).
Training of Trainers Workshop - OCSE conducted a Training of Trainers
(TOT) Workshop for 22 State CSE trainers from 5 States, which provided
training in curriculum design, delivery, and evaluation. The TOT
courses achieve a significant multiplier effect, since those trained
return to their home jurisdictions with the specific task of educating
other program staff.
Association Conferences - Training Center staff made presentations at
the annual conferences of the American Payroll Association (concerning
electronic funds transfer of State child support collections and
mandatory income withholding), the National Child Support Enforcement
Association, the Eastern Regional Interstate Child Support Association
as well as numerous State training conferences.
Public Awareness
In FY 1993 OCSE continued to extend its outreach efforts to parents
who need child support services, with special emphasis on Federal
government employees.
With the cooperation of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), OCSE
conducted outreach seminars at several Federal departments and
agencies in the Washington metropolitan area: the Departments of
Justice, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, and Veterans
Affairs; the National Labor Relations Board; and the Social Security
Administration. Employees in attendance were given an overview of the
child support program and helpful printed material.
In addition, during the fiscal year, OCSE made a training video aimed
at Federal workers outside of the Washington metropolitan area. The
video was distributed to OPM Employee Assistance Program
representatives across the nation for showing to Federal employees in
their areas.
OCSE also initiated a mentor program, offering assistance to
individual employees in its parent Administration for Children and
Families who needed help with their own child support enforcement
cases.
Public inquiries to OCSE increased substantially in the last year.
OCSE received 4,500 written inquiries in FY 1993, three times the
number received in FY 1992.
In addition OCSE:
* Worked with the news media on stories dealing with child support
program performance and program improvements.
* Prepared a handbook on State best public awareness practices.
* Reprinted our popular Handbook on Child Support Enforcement, a
"how to" guide for custodial parents. The number of copies in
circulation exceeds a million.
* Reprinted the publication, Wage Withholding for Child Support: An
Employer's Guide, another commonly requested publication.
Publications
The following is a list of publications written and/or widely
distributed by OCSE in FY 1993.
* "Directory for Genetic Testing: Third Edition"--a reference guide
to assist States in identifying laboratories that perform legally
and medically acceptable genetic tests to determine parentage.
* "Genetic Testing for Paternity Establishment"--a monograph and
training tool to provide front line CSE caseworkers and other
interested persons a short, nontechnical introduction to the
science of genetic testing as it applies to establishing
paternity in child support cases.
* "State Advancements in Paternity Establishment: Legislative,
Gubernatorial, and Program Initiatives"--a monograph for sharing
information, ideas, and approaches currently being implemented
and/or tested by States in establishing paternity.
* "Essentials for Attorneys in Child Support Enforcement: Second
Edition"--a legal reference manual for program attorneys to help
them understand the various legal concepts in child support
enforcement and to aid them in their legal research.
* "Child Support Report (CSR)"--a newsletter with a distribution of
15,000 nationally that highlights best practices and other child
support enforcement topics for the support enforcement community
across the country.
* "Compendium of State Best Practices in Child Support"--a
compendium of best practices in support order establishment and
enforcement to facilitate the sharing of ideas on successful
program practices which States view as exceptionally effective or
innovative.
* "Information Materials on In-Hospital Paternity Establishment"--a
compendium of informational materials to assist States in
developing in-hospital programs as required by the Omnibus Budget
Reconciliation Act of 1993.
* "For Your Child's Sake...Establish Paternity"--a brochure on
paternity which complements the outreach efforts of State and
local CSE agencies and encourages dissemination of information on
paternity establishment and CSE services via the medical
profession.
Federal Financing of the Program
* FEDERAL MATCHING FUNDS
Except as noted below, the Federal Government matches 66 percent of
costs incurred by States in the administration of the program. It
matches 90 percent of the laboratory costs of establishing paternity
and, through September 30, 1995, 90 percent of the costs of developing
comprehensive Statewide automated management information systems.
* STATE PERFORMANCE INCENTIVES
To encourage States to operate effective programs, the Federal
Government pays States an incentive amount ranging from 6 to 10
percent of AFDC and non-AFDC collections. These incentive payments
must be shared with political subdivisions that contribute to the
costs of operating the program, taking into account their efficiency
and effectiveness.
* NET FEDERAL COST
Overall, for every one dollar spent on the Child Support Enforcement
program, four dollars of support was collected in FY 1993. However,
because of the statutory configuration for financing the program and
distributing collections as well as other factors, Federal
expenditures are not offset by the Federal portion of collections, and
there is a net program cost to the Federal Government. Without
accounting for cost avoidance, Federal expenditures exceeded revenues
by $740 million in FY 1993.
* DISTRIBUTED COLLECTIONS
Collections are distributed among the Federal and State governments
and families in AFDC cases, and to families in non-AFDC cases. AFDC
families receive up to the first $50 of current support collected on
their behalf each month. States retain up to 50 percent of
AFDC-related support monies collected to offset the State costs of
AFDC. The actual rate retained is based on the State's Federal
matching rate for AFDC assistance payments. The Federal portion of
collections in AFDC cases is used to pay States incentives and to
offset Federal AFDC costs. In FY 1993, 12 percent of AFDC assistance
payments were recouped through child support collections.
* COST AVOIDANCE
The Child Support Enforcement program produces indirect taxpayer
benefits through cost avoidance.
Cost avoidance refers to savings in public assistance programs (i.e.,
AFDC, Food Stamps or Medicaid), in which benefits are either reduced
or not paid as a result of the receipt of child support. For example,
services are provided to non-AFDC families who, without income from
child support, might be forced to turn to public assistance.
Similarly, sufficient support is collected on behalf of some AFDC
families to eliminate their dependence on welfare and related
assistance programs. We do not have current estimates of cost
avoidance savings as it is difficult to determine for a variety of
reasons how much might have been spent on various assistance programs
had it not been for child support income.
OCSE 18th Annual Report Chapter 4
4. Federal Regulations and Audits
FY 1993 Regulations
During FY 1993, OCSE published one proposed regulation and four final
regulations.
* PROPOSED REGULATION
A proposed regulation was published on September 9, 1993 which would
amend the Child Support Enforcement program regulations governing the
audit of State Child Support Enforcement programs and the imposition
of financial penalties for failure to substantially comply with the
requirements of title IV-D of the Social Security Act, including
requirements resulting from the Family Support Act of 1988. The rule
would redefine substantial compliance to place greater focus on
results and streamline existing audit regulations by removing
unnecessary sections. This proposed regulation would be effective for
audits conducted for periods beginning subsequent to publication of
the final rule.
* FINAL REGULATIONS
A final regulation published on August 4, 1993, extends indefinitely
the use of the Federal income tax refund offset process to non-AFDC
cases. It also allows use of this process for non-AFDC cases in which
support is due on behalf of certain disabled adults with a current
support order; and on behalf of a spouse when the custodial parent is
living with the child and spousal support and child support are
included in the same support order. In addition, this final regulation
amends the safeguarding information requirements to permit disclosure
to the appropriate agency or official of information that involves
known or suspected instances of mental or physical injury, sexual
abuse or exploitation, or negligent treatment of a child receiving
AFDC.
A final regulation published on December 28, 1992, requires periodic
review of child support orders and adjustment, as appropriate, in
accordance with State guidelines for support award amounts. These
regulations implement the requirement that States have a process under
which child support orders in IV-D cases are, with certain exceptions,
periodically reviewed not later than 36 months after the establishment
of the order or the most recent review, and adjusted, as appropriate,
in accordance with State guidelines. These regulations also implement
the requirement that States notify each parent subject to a child
support order in the State, being enforced under title IV-D, of the
right to request a review of the order.
A final regulation published on November 19, 1992, revises the time
frames for distribution of the $50 pass-through payments made by
either the State IV-A or IV-D agencies, other child support
collections to families receiving AFDC, and certain collections in
title IV-E Foster Care cases.
Another final regulation published on November 19, 1992, specified
that Federal funding under the Child Support Enforcement program is
not available for the costs of guardian ad litem in IV-D cases. This
change makes clear in regulation OCSE policy that costs of guardians
ad litem are not necessary expenditures under the IV-D program and,
therefore, are not eligible for Federal financial participation under
title IV-D of the Social Security Act.
Program Audits
* THE AUDIT PROCESS
OCSE audits State CSE programs to ensure that they meet Federal
requirements. Federal law specifies that a State that has been audited
and found not to be in substantial compliance is subject to a
financial penalty. The penalty may be held in abeyance for up to one
year to allow a State the opportunity to implement corrective actions
to remedy the program deficiency.
At the end of the corrective action period, a follow-up audit is
conducted in the area of deficiency. If the follow-up audit shows that
the deficiency has been corrected, the penalty is rescinded.
If it is determined that the State remains out of compliance with
Federal requirements, a graduated penalty, as provided by law, is
assessed. The penalty ranges from one to five percent of the total
payments made to the State by the Federal government for the AFDC
program. The actual amount of the penalty depends on the severity and
duration of the deficiency. If a State is under penalty, a
comprehensive audit is conducted annually until previously cited
deficiencies are corrected.
* FY 1993 AUDIT RESULTS
The OCSE Division of Audit issued final reports to 19 States based on
comprehensive audits of their programs during FY 1993. Also, during FY
1993, OCSE sent notices to 15 States to inform them that audits of
their programs indicated that they were not in substantial compliance
with Federal requirements. Twelve of these notices were based on the
final audit reports issued during FY 1993, and three were based on
reports issued during FY 1992. In addition, five States' programs
achieved substantial compliance with the Federal requirements during
FY 1993. The remaining two States with reports issued in FY 1993 will
be notified of any areas of noncompliance in FY 1994, after the final
audit report results are evaluated as to whether or not they warrant
penalty determinations.
Two of the 15 notices of noncompliance were based on 1988 audits, 2
notices were based on 1989 audits, three notices were based on 1990
audits, and two notices were based on 1991 audits. The remaining six
States received notices based on annual audits. All 15 States that
received notices of noncompliance during FY 1993 were within their
permissible corrective action period at the close of FY 1993.
* FY 1993 DEFICIENCIES
Altogether, 20 types of deficiencies were identified among the 15
States that received notices of noncompliance. Six areas were
repeatedly cited as deficient:
* Medical support enforcement;
* Services to non-AFDC families;
* Wage or income withholding;
* Reports and maintenance of records;
* Provision of services in interstate cases; and
* Distribution of support collected.
Twelve States were deficient in facets of medical support enforcement,
i.e., obtaining noncustodial parent health insurance coverage
information or obtaining and enforcing health insurance coverage
provisions in child support orders.
Nine States were deficient in providing CSE services to individuals
who applied for services or who continued to be part of the CSE
caseload after leaving the AFDC rolls.
Six States were deficient in enforcing delinquent orders through wage
withholding or ensuring that a provision for wage withholding was
included in new or modified child support orders.
Six States were deficient in maintaining adequate documentation
necessary for accurate reporting, and for proper and efficient
operations.
Five States were deficient in providing or requesting services to meet
Federal interstate support enforcement requirements.
Distribution of child support collections was not handled in
accordance with Federal requirements in six States.
Other areas of deficiency identified in one or more States were
failure to:
* Use appropriate enforcement techniques, such as State income tax
refund offset, withholding of unemployment compensation, etc;
* Have required guidelines for imposition of liens or posting
security, bond, or guarantee to secure payment of overdue
support;
* Implement internal controls for separation of cash handling and
accounting functions at child support collection centers;
* Provide basic CSE services to locate noncustodial parents or to
establish paternity;
* Establish child support orders in all appropriate cases or take
basic enforcement actions on delinquent cases;
* Provide notices of collections to recipients who had assigned
their rights to support to the State;
* Make required payments to the family, to the resident parent,
legal guardian, or caretaker relative having custody of, or
responsibility for, the child or children;
* Make all IV-D services and functions available statewide;
* Maintain a program to account for the recovery of direct
payments; and
* Have adequate procedures as required for obtaining payment of
past-due support from Federal or State income tax refunds.
* AUDIT PENALTIES RESCINDED AND IMPOSED
During FY 1993, follow-up audit reports were issued to seven States
that had been sent notices of substantial noncompliance in prior
years. Five of these States achieved substantial compliance with
criteria on which they had previously failed. As a result, penalties
were rescinded in these States. The remaining two States that received
follow-up review reports will be evaluated to determine if the penalty
should be rescinded or imposed during FY 1994.
In addition, during FY 1993, two States' penalties were rescinded
during the appeal process.
Seven comprehensive annual audit reports were issued in FY 1993. One
State's penalty of one percent was rescinded as a result of the appeal
process. However, two States received two percent penalty notices for
failing to achieve substantial compliance with the same unmet criteria
cited in their previous penalty notices. Two States had a two percent
penalty rescinded and the remaining two States' status remained
pending at the end of FY 1993.
Also, of two States with audit reports issued late in FY 1992, one had
a two percent penalty rescinded and one State had a three percent
penalty imposed.
* AUDIT APPEALS DECIDED
If a penalty is imposed after a follow-up review, a State may appeal
the audit penalty to the Departmental Appeals Board (DAB), HHS's
administrative process for dispute resolution. Payment of the penalty
may be delayed while the appeal is being decided. The DAB reviews the
written records (which both parties are given ample opportunity to
develop), consisting of relevant documents and statements submitted by
both parties. In addition, the written records may be supplemented by
both informal conferences and evidentiary hearings.
Three States appealed an audit penalty before the DAB in FY 1993. The
DAB upheld two of the three penalties and one of these cases was
withdrawn by the end of FY 1993. During FY 1993, the U.S. District
Court upheld the penalty assessed for one of the cases pending from FY
1992. In one other case where the State had previously appealed the
District Court decision, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed
the case at the States' request: this State also withdrew its appeal
of a subsequent penalty case pending with DAB from FY 1992. Three
additional cases pending at various appeal levels from FY 1992 were
withdrawn by the two States during FY 1993. In addition, in two cases
where penalties were pending appeal with DAB at the end of FY 1992,
the appeals were dismissed by DAB during FY 1993 after OCSE rescinded
the penalties based on further review of additional case
documentation. Penalties and associated interest paid to the Federal
Government totaled $7,950,405 in FY 1993.
OCSE 18th Annual Report Chapter 5
5. FY 1993 Summary of Program Results
This chapter presents selected financial and program data aggregated for
the United States as a whole. The data are from reports completed by
State CSE agencies. The appendices contain individual State data.
There are various ways to measure performance and trends in the Child
Support Enforcement program. The following series of charts and graphs
with accompanying analyses highlight selected program information for FY
1993 or show five year programmatic trends.
Total Caseload
States report to OCSE the number of noncustodial parents who are now or
may eventually be obligated under law for the support of one or more
dependent children. These noncustodial parents constitute the CSE
caseload. CSE cases where the custodial parents are referred to the CSE
agency because they are receiving AFDC, title IV-E Foster Care or
Medicaid are classified as AFDC CSE cases and, with the exception of
IV-E cases, these custodial parents must cooperate in establishing
paternity and securing support. CSE cases where the custodial parents
have applied for CSE services are called non-AFDC CSE cases.
In FY 1993, State IV-D agencies reported an aggregate caseload of 17.1
million noncustodial parents, an increase of 12.9 percent over the prior
year and 44.1 percent since FY 1989. During this five-year period, the
non-AFDC portion of the caseload increased by 75.6 percent, while the
AFDC portion grew by only 26.4 percent.
Paternities Established
Legal establishment of paternity is a prerequisite for receiving child
support. States have put increased effort into paternity establishment
as a result of the Family Support Act and as an out-growth of previous
audit failures.
A record 554,205 children had their paternity established by the CSE
program in FY 1993. This represents an increase of 7.4 percent over the
prior year and a 63.4 percent increase in five years.
The average number of children in the CSE caseload requiring paternity
establishment was 3.5 million in FY 1993.
Data include in-hospital paternity
acknowledgments in IV-D cases only
Support Orders Established
Legal establishment of an order to pay is another prerequisite for
collecting child support.
In FY 1993, the CSE program established over 1 million support orders,
an increase of 17 percent over the prior year. Note that figures for
years before FY 1991 are not comparable due to a change in reporting
requirements. Current figures do not include modifications of orders,
whereas pre-FY 1991 figures were comprised of both new orders and
modifications.
The average number of CSE cases requiring a support obligation to be
established was 3.0 million in FY 1993.
Cases With and Without Orders
Last year the CSE caseload grew at a faster rate than the number of new
support orders established (a 13 percent growth in caseload versus a 8.7
percent increase in support order establishment in FY 1992). In FY 1993
this trend was reversed and order establishment proceeded at a faster
rate (17 percent) than the growth in caseload (12.9 percent).
Of the total CSE caseload, 9.5 million cases or 55.4 percent have
orders. Just over half of AFDC cases have orders (51.3 percent), while
60.7 percent of non-AFDC cases have orders.
Cases for Which a Collection Was Made
One of the measures of effectiveness in the CSE program is the number of
cases with collections. States report the number of cases in which a
collection was made during the second month of each quarter and the data
are averaged to get an estimate for the year of the average number of
cases per month that had collections.
In FY 1993 there was an average of 3.1 million cases per month with a
collection. This is an increase of 10 percent over the prior year and 48
percent over the figure for FY 1989. Of the cases with collections, 62.7
percent were non-AFDC and 37.3 percent were AFDC/FC and AFDC arrears
only cases.
Paying cases accounted for 18.2 percent of the CSE caseload; this figure
has remained fairly stable since FY 1989 when paying cases comprised
17.7 percent of the total caseload. Collections per paying case averaged
$2,856 in FY 1993, increasing from $2,809 in FY 1992, $2,660 in FY 1991,
$2,627 in FY 1990 and $2,487 in FY 1989.
Total Collections
Total child support collections are the amounts collected by the program
and distributed during the year on behalf of (1) families receiving
benefits from the AFDC, title IV-E Foster Care and Medicaid programs and
(2) families who have applied for child support services (non-AFDC).
In FY 1993 collections reached a record high of over $8.9 billion, a
11.8 percent increase over the prior year. This percent increase in
collections is lower than the percent increase of recent prior years
when collections grew by 14.7 percent (FY 1989 to 1990), 14.6 percent
(FY 1990 to 1991) and 15.7 percent (FY 1991 to 1992). Non-AFDC
collections accounted for 72.9 percent of the total collected in FY
1993.
Collections are compared to the amount of support owed in the Accounts
Receivable chart appearing later in this chapter.
AFDC Collections
AFDC collections, including title IV-E Foster Care and Medicaid
collections, amounted to $2.4 billion in FY 1993, an increase of 7.0
percent over the prior year and 51.7 percent since FY 1989. In FY 1993
AFDC collections were 27.1 percent of total collections compared to 30.4
percent of total collections in FY 1989.
Distribution of AFDC Collections
AFDC collections are distributed partly to the Federal and State
governments and partly to families. The Federal and State governments
retain collections to reimburse themselves for the AFDC payments they
have made to families on whose behalf the support is collected. AFDC
families receive up to the first $50 of current child support collected
on their behalf each month, as well as support payments collected in
excess of monthly AFDC payments.
In FY 1993 AFDC families received over $453 million in support
collections through the CSE program. A total of $364 million of this
amount was paid as a result of the $50 monthly pass-through; $89 million
was support collected in excess of monthly AFDC payments. States
retained $847 million as their share of past AFDC payments and received
an additional $339 million in collection incentives from the Federal
share of past AFDC payments. The Federal government retained the
remaining $777 million of the over $2.4 billion collected in AFDC cases.
AFDC $50 Disregard Collections
Distributed to Families
A pass-through of up to $50 a month is paid to AFDC families from
current child support payments collected by the CSE agency. The families
receiving these pass-through payments benefit from the extra income each
month, which is disregarded in determining their continued eligibility
for AFDC. Prior to the creation of the pass-through, these support
collections were retained by the Federal and State governments to
reimburse AFDC payments made to these families.
Under the pass-through provision, AFDC families received $364 million in
FY 1993, 15.1 percent of the total AFDC collections for the year.
Pass-through payment totals increased by 3.5 percent over the prior year
and by 35.3 percent over five years.
Percent of AFDC Recovered
The percent of AFDC assistance payments recovered through child support
collections is the amount of AFDC and title IV-E Foster Care support
collections in a year, divided by the the amount of AFDC and title IV-E
Foster Care assistance payments in the same year (excluding AFDC
unemployed parent payments) .
This proportion has risen slowly. The percent of AFDC recovered rose to
a high of 12.0 percent in FY 1993, from 11.4 percent the year before and
10.0 percent in FY 1989.
Non-AFDC Collections
Non-AFDC distributed collections are the portion of total collections
made on behalf of families who have applied for CSE services (those not
receiving assistance under the AFDC, title IV-E Foster Care or Medicaid
programs) and distributed to those families during the year.
Non-AFDC collections in FY 1993 rose to $6.5 billion, an increase of
13.8 percent from the prior year and 78.0 percent over five years. This
growth in collections for non-AFDC cases closely parallels the growth in
the non-AFDC caseload (75.6 percent in five years).
Interstate Collections
Interstate collections, or collections made on behalf of other States,
totaled a record $725 million in FY 1993, an increase of 15.8 percent
compared to a 11.8 percent increase in overall collections during the
year. In five years, interstate collections rose by 79 percent.
Despite the increases, interstate collections amounted to only 8.1
percent of total collections, while the interstate caseload is estimated
to be about 30 percent of the total CSE caseload. This disparity
reflects the many problems in successfully working interstate cases.
Total Collections by Method of Collection
The most successful techniques for collection of support are wage
withholding, Federal tax refund offset, withholding of unemployment
compensation and State tax refund offset. Together these four techniques
accounted for 63.6 percent of total collections in FY 1993.
Wage withholding was by far the most effective collection technique,
bringing in 53.1 percent of all collections. Federal and State income
tax refund offset resulted in collections of 6.4 percent and 0.9 percent
of the total, respectively. Withholding of unemployment compensation led
to 3.2 percent of total collections.
We do not know how the remaining 36.4 percent of collections were
obtained. Most may have been received from parents who sent their child
support payments directly to the State IV-D agency as ordered or who
sent in voluntary payments without an order. To an unknown extent, on
the other hand, these collections may have been obtained through the
methods described above without being reported as such.
Accounts Receivable
Accounts receivable data represent the total dollar amount of current
and prior year child support owed by noncustodial parents whose cases
were being handled by IV-D agencies.
Reported data indicate $13.0 billion receivable for current support in
FY 1993 and $26.9 billion receivable for prior years support. $6.9
billion or 52.7 percent of the current support due was collected. This
was a decrease from 55.4 percent in FY 1992. Of the prior years support
receivable, only $2.0 billion or 7.5 percent was collected, up from 7.4
percent in the prior year. Overall, 22.3 percent of all reported
receivables were collected in FY 1993. This compares with 22.8 percent
in FY 1992, 21.5 percent in FY 1991, 23.3 percent in FY 1990 and 20.9
percent in FY 1989.
Please note that the total amount of receivables States report to have
collected is slightly less than the total collections figure reported by
States in a separate data element. This discrepancy occurs because some
States do not report accounts receivable and accounts collected data.
Comparisons of States' accounts receivable data are complicated by the
fact that States count arrearages differently based on State laws and
practices. For example, some States include unreimbursed assistance as a
debt and others do not. Some have statutes of limitations governing
collection of debts and some have policies for writing off bad debts.
Total Expenditures
Total expenditures are expenditures for program administration that are
eligible for Federal funding and claimed by the States during the year.
Total expenditures were $2.2 billion in FY 1993, an increase of 12.4
percent over the prior year, up from an increase of 10.6 percent in FY
1992. The State share was $724 million or 32.3 percent of the total.
Increases in expenditures are consistent with increasing caseloads and
phasing in of requirements imposed by the Family Support Act of 1988.
Total Collections per Dollar of Administrative Costs
During the five-year period FY 1989 to FY 1993, the ratio of total
collections of child support to total administrative costs for the
program has increased slowly from $3.84 in collections per $1 spent to
$3.97 in collections per $1 spent. The increase is a function of the
growth in non-AFDC collections compared to total expenditures.
Collections in AFDC cases per dollar of total expenditures have declined
during this period.
The nearly 4 to 1 collections to cost ratio for FY 1993 is virtually the
same as the ratio for FY 1992.
OCSE 18th Annual Report IV-D Agencies
State Child Support Enforcement Agencies
ALABAMA
Phillip Browning, Director
Department of Human Resources
Division of Child Support
50 Ripley Street
Montgomery, AL 36130-1801
(205) 242-9300
FAX: (205) 242-1086
ALASKA
Mary Gay, Director
Child Support Enforcement Division
550 West 7th Avenue, Suite 310
Anchorage, AK 99501-6699
(907) 269-6800
FAX: (907) 269-6813
ARIZONA
Iuliana Vaughn, Assistant Director
Division of Child Support Enforcement
P.O. Box 40458, Site Code 021A
3443 N. Central Avenue, 4th Floor
Phoenix, AZ 85067
(Street Address: 3443 N. Central Avenue, 4th Floor, Phoenix, AZ 85012)
(602) 274-7646
FAX: (602) 274-8250
ARKANSAS
Judy Jones Jordan, Administrator
Office of Child Support Enforcement
P.O. Box 8133
Little Rock, AR 72203
(Street Address: Donaghey Building, 7th and Main, Little Rock, AR
72203)
(501) 682-6047
FAX: (501) 682-6002
CALIFORNIA
Leslie Frye, Chief
Child Support Enforcement Unit
744 P Street, Mail Stop 9-010
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 324-5173
FAX: (916) 324-2960
COLORADO
Kathryn A. Stumm, Director
Division of Child Support Enforcement
1575 Sherman Street, 2nd floor
Denver, CO 80203
(303) 866-5992
FAX: (303) 866-2214
CONNECTICUT
Anthony DiNallo, Director
Department of Social Services
Bureau of Child Support Enforcement
25 Sigourney Street
Hartford, CT 06105-5033
(203) 424-5251
FAX: (203) 951-2996
DELAWARE
Barbara A. Paulin, Director
Division of Child Support Enforcement
Biggs Building, DSS campus
P.O. Box 904
New Castle, DE 19720
(Street Address: 1901 North Dupont Hwy)
(302) 577-4800
FAX: (302) 577-4873
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Norris Shepherd, Director
Bureau of Paternity and Child Support Enforcement
613 G Street, NW, 10th Floor
Washington, DC 20001
(202) 724-5610
FAX: (202) 724-5154
FLORIDA
Joyce McGee, Director
Child Support Enforcement Program
Department of Revenue
P.O. Box 8030
Tallahassee, FL 32314
(904) 922-9542
Fax: (904) 488-4401
GEORGIA
Jerry Townsend, Director
Child Support Enforcement
2 Peachtree Street, N.W., Suite 15-107
P.O. Box 38450
Atlanta, GA 30334-0450
(404) 657-3851 or 3856
Fax: (404) 657-3326
GUAM
Karen E. Keeler, Program Coordinator
Child Support Enforcement Unit
Family Division
238 Archbishop F.C. Flores Street
Suite 701, Pacific News Building
Agana, GU 96910
(671) 475-3360 -63
Fax: (671) 477-6118
HAWAII
Norma Doctor Sparks, Esq., Administrator
Child Support Enforcement Agency
Department of Attorney General
P.O. Box 1860
Honolulu, HI 96805-1860
(Street Address: 680 Iwilei Road, Suite 490, Honolulu 96817)
(808) 587-3698
Fax: (808) 587-3716
IDAHO
Teresa Kaiser, Bureau Chief
Bureau of Child Support Services
Department of Health and Welfare
450 West State Street
5th Floor
Boise, ID 83720-5005
(208) 334-5711
Fax: (208) 334-0666
ILLINOIS
Dianna Durham-McLoud, Administrator
Child Support Enforcement Division
Illinois Department of Public Aid
201 South Grand Avenue East
Springfield, IL 62763-0001
(217) 524-4602
Fax: (217) 524-4608
INDIANA
Patricia Perkins, Acting Director
Child Support Bureau
402 West Washington Street, Rm W360
Indianapolis, IN 46204
(317) 232-4894
Fax: (317) 233-4925
IOWA
Jim Hennessey, Director
Bureau of Collections
Department of Human Services
Hoover Building - 5th Floor
Des Moines, IA 50319
(515) 281-5580
Fax: (515) 281-4597
KANSAS
James Robertson, Administrator
Child Support Enforcement Program
Department of Social & Rehabilitation Services
P.O. Box 497
Topeka, KS 66601
(Street Address: 300 S.W. Oakley Street, Biddle Building, Topeka, KS
66606)
(913) 296-3237
Fax: (913) 296-5206
KENTUCKY
Steven P. Veno, Director
Division of Child Support Enforcement
Cabinet for Human Resources
275 East Main Street, 6th Floor East
Frankfort, KY 40621
(502) 564-2285; ext. 410
Fax: (502) 564-5988
LOUISIANA
Gordon Hood, Director
Office of Family Support
P.O. Box 94065
Baton Rouge, LA 70804-4065
(Street Address: 618 Main Street)
(504) 342-3947
Fax: (504) 342-4252
MAINE
Colburn Jackson, Director
Division of Support Enforcement and Recovery
Bureau of Income Maintenance
Department of Human Services
State House Station 11 Whitten Road
Augusta, ME 04333
(207) 287-2886
Fax: (207) 287-5096
MARYLAND
Kenneth Rumsey, Acting Executive Director
Child Support Enforcement Administration
311 West Saratoga Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
(410) 767-7674
Fax: (410) 333-0392
MASSACHUSETTS
Jerry J. Fay, Deputy Commissioner
Child Support Enforcement Unit
Department of Revenue
141 Portland Street
Cambridge, MA 02139-1937
(617) 727-4200, ext. 482
Fax: (617) 727-4367
MICHIGAN
Wallace Dutkowski, Director
Office of Child Support
Department of Social Services
P.O. Box 30037
Lansing, MI 48909
(Street Address: 235 South Grand Avenue, Suite 1406, Lansing, MI
48933)
(517) 373-7570
Fax: (517) 373-4980
MINNESOTA
Laura Kadwell, Director
Office of Child Support Enforcement
Department of Human Services
444 Lafayette Road, 4th floor
St. Paul, MN 55155-3846
(612) 296-2754
Fax: (612) 297-4450
MISSISSIPPI
Carolyn Bridgers, Director
Division of Child Support Enforcement
Department of Human Services
P.O. Box 352
Jackson, MS 39205
(Street Address: 750 N. State Street, Jackson, MS 39202)
(601) 359-4863
Fax: (601) 359-4415
MISSOURI
William R. LaRue, Director
Department of Social Services
Division of Child Support Enforcement
227 Metro Drive
P.O. Box 1527
Jefferson City, MO 65102-1527
(314) 751-4301
Fax: (314) 751-8450
MONTANA
Mary Ann Wellbank, Administrator
Child Support Enforcement Division
Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services
P.O. Box 202943
Helena, MT 59620
(Street Address: 3075 N. Montana Ave., Suite 112, Helena, MT 59620)
(406) 444-4614
Fax: (406) 444-1370
NEBRASKA
Mary Ann Miller, Administrator
Child Support Enforcement Office
Department of Social Services
P.O. Box 95026
Lincoln, NE 68509
(Street Address: 301 Centennial Mall South, 5th Floor, Lincoln, NE
68509)
(402) 471-9390
Fax: (402) 471-9455
NEVADA
Kay Zunino, Chief
Child Support Enforcement Program
Nevada State Welfare Division
2527 North Carson Street, Capitol Complex
Carson City, NV 89710
(702) 687-4744
Fax: (702) 687-5080
NEW HAMPSHIRE
William H. Mattil, Administrator
Office of Child Support
Division of Human Services
Health and Human Services Building
6 Hazen Drive
Concord, NH 03301
(603) 271-4578
Fax: (603) 271-4787
NEW JERSEY
Marion E. Reitz, Director
Division of Family Development
Department of Human Services
Bureau of Child Support and Paternity Programs
CN 716
Trenton, NJ 08625-0716
(609) 588-2401
Fax: (609) 588-2354
NEW MEXICO
Ben Silva, Director
Child Support Enforcement Bureau
Department of Human Services
P.O. Box 25109
Santa Fe, NM 87504
(Street Address: 2025 S. Pacheco, Santa Fe, NM 87504)
(505) 827-7200
Fax: (505) 827-7285
NEW YORK
Joan Keenan, Director
Office of Child Support Enforcement
Department of Social Services
P.O. Box 14
Albany, NY 12260
(Street Address: One Commerce Plaza, Albany, NY 12260)
(518) 474-9081
Fax: (518) 486-3127
NORTH CAROLINA
Michael Adams, Chief
Child Support Enforcement Section
Division of Social Services
Department of Human Resources
100 East Six Forks Road
Raleigh, NC 27609-7750
(919) 571-4120
Fax: (919) 571-4126
NORTH DAKOTA
William Strate, Administrator
Department of Human Services
Child Support Enforcement Agency
P.O. Box 7190
Bismarck, ND 58507
(Street Address: 1929 North Washington Street, Bismarck, ND
58507-7190)
(701) 224-3582
Fax: (701) 221-5497
OHIO
Loretta Adams, Deputy Director
Office of Child Support Enforcement
Department of Human Services
30 East Broad Street, 31st Floor
Columbus, OH 43266-0423
(614) 752-6561
Fax: (614) 752-9760
OKLAHOMA
Paula Davidson Wood, Acting Administrator
Child Support Enforcement Unit
Department of Human Services
P.O. Box 53552
Oklahoma City, OK 73125
(Street Address: 2409 N. Kelley Avenue, Annex Building, Oklahoma City,
OK 73111)
(405) 522-5871
Fax: (405) 522-2753
OREGON
Phil Yarnell, Director
Recovery Services Section
Adult and Family Services Division
Department of Human Resources
P.O. Box 14506
Salem, OR 97309
(Street Address: 260 Liberty Street N.E., Salem, OR 97310)
(503) 986-2417
Fax: (503) 373-1151
PENNSYLVANIA
John F. Stuff, Director
Bureau of Child Support Enforcement
Department of Public Welfare
P.O. Box 8018
Harrisburg, PA 17105
(Street Address: 300 North Second St., 17101 Commerce Bldg., 12th
Floor, Harrisburg, PA 17105-8018)
(717) 787-3672
Fax: (717) 787-9706
PUERTO RICO
Miguel Verdiales, Assistant Secretary for Child Support Enforcement
Department of Social Services
P.O. Box 3349
San Juan, PR 00902-9938
(Street Address: Majagua Street, Bldg 2, Wing 4, 2nd Floor, Miramar,
PR 00902-9938)
(809) 725-0753
Fax: (809) 723-6187
RHODE ISLAND
Jack Murphy, Agency Head
Rhode Island Child Support
Department of Human Services
77 Dorrance Street
Providence, RI 02903
(401) 277-2847
Fax: (401) 277-6674
SOUTH CAROLINA
Larry J. McKeown, Director
Department of Social Services
Child Support Enforcement Division
P.O. Box 1469
Columbia, SC 29202-1469
(Street Address: 3150 Harden Street, Columbia, SC 29202-1469)
(803) 737-5870
Fax: (803) 737-6032
SOUTH DAKOTA
Terry Walter, Program Administrator
Office of Child Support Enforcement
Department of Social Services
700 Governor's Drive
Pierre, SD 57501-2291
(605) 773-3641
Fax: (605) 773-4855
TENNESSEE
Joyce D. McClaran, Director
Child Support Services
Department of Human Services
Citizens Plaza Building, 12th Floor
400 Deadrick Street
Nashville, TN 37248-7400
(615) 741-1820
Fax: (615) 532-2791
TEXAS
Cecelia Burke, Director
Child Support Division
Office of the Attorney General
P.O. Box 12548
Austin, TX 78711
Street Address: 300 West 15th Street, Suite 1401 M, Austin, TX 78704)
(512) 463-9888
Fax: (512) 477-0015
UTAH
Jim Kidder, Director
Bureau of Child Support Services
Department of Human Services
120 North 200 West, 4th Floor, P.O. Box 45011
Salt Lake City, UT 84145-0011
(801) 538-4400/4401
Fax: (801) 538-4619
VERMONT
Jeffrey Cohen, Director
Office of Child Support
103 South Main Street
Waterbury, VT 05671-1901
(802) 241-2319
Fax: (802) 244-1483
VIRGIN ISLANDS
Angela Brown, Acting Director
Paternity and Child Support Division
Department of Justice
GERS Building, 2nd Floor
48B-50C Krondprans Gade
St. Thomas, VI 00802
(809) 774-5666
Fax: (809) 774-9710
VIRGINIA
Michael R. Henry, Director
Division of Support Enforcement
Department of Social Services
730 East Broad Street
Richmond, VA 23219
(804) 692-1501
FAX: (804) 692-1543
WASHINGTON
Meg Sollenberger, Director
Office of Support Enforcement
DSHS
P.O. Box 9162
Olympia, WA 98507-9162
(Street Address: 712 Pear St., SE, Olympia, WA 98507)
(206) 586-3520
Fax: (206) 586-3274
WEST VIRGINIA
Martha Hill, Director
Child Advocate Office
Division of Health & Human Services
Building 6, Room 817
State Capitol Complex
Charleston, WV 25305
(304) 558-3780
Fax: (304) 558-4092
WISCONSIN
Mary Southwick, Director
Division of Economic Support
P.O. Box 7935
Madison, WI 53707-7935
Street Address: 1 West Wilson Street, Room 382, Madison, WI 53707)
(608) 267-0926
Fax: (608) 267-3240
WYOMING
James Mohler, Acting Director
Child Support Enforcement Section
Division of Public Assistance and Social Services
Department of Family Services
Hathaway Building, 2300 Capital Avenue
Cheyenne, WY 82002-0490
(307) 777-6948
Fax: (307) 777-7747
OCSE 18th Annual Report Glossary Appendix D
Appendix D
Glossary of Financial and
Statistical Terms
PROGRAM COLLECTIONS
Total Distributed Collections (Form OCSE-34, Line 13(A+B+C))
Total amount of collections distributed during the year on behalf
of both AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) and
non-AFDC families. Total collections can be calculated as the sum
of AFDC/Foster Care and non-AFDC collections as defined below.
Distributed AFDC/Foster Care Collections (Form OCSE-34,
Line 13(A 
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