HHS Secretary Donna E. Shalala today announced the award of more than $1 million in grants to states and tribal organizations to strengthen their child support enforcement programs.

"These grants will provide opportunities to further improve state and local child support efforts," Shalala said. "We have seen dramatic increases in child support collections in the past five years, and we continue to encourage new ideas and innovations that help children receive the support they need and deserve."

The grants will fund projects in eight states (California, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Maryland, Rhode Island, Texas, and Washington); two tribes (Confederated Tribes of Colville and Puyallup Indian Tribe); and one county (San Mateo, Calif.). They include new enforcement services, paternity establishment initiatives, and closer collaborations with state Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and welfare-to-work programs.

In 1997, federal and state child support collections have increased 68 percent since 1992 from $8 billion to $13.4 billion, and paternity establishments have more than doubled to 1.3 million a year. Since the National Directory of New Hires was implemented a year ago, more than 1.1 million non-custodial parents who were delinquent in their child support payments have been located.

"Not paying child support is unacceptable, and we will do whatever we can to ensure that parents meet their financial responsibilities to their children," said David Gray Ross, commissioner, HHS Office of Child Support Enforcement. "We have made a great deal of progress in the past few years, but we still have a lot of work ahead of us."

The grant recipients are:

Idaho $59,176
Rhode Island $149,820
Texas $123,870
for new enforcement mechanisms

California $180,000
Illinois $149,686
for new paternity establishment procedures

Confederated Tribes of Colville (Wash.) $32,800
Puyallup Indian Tribe (Wash.) $69,531
for innovations in support enforcement

State of Washington $17,171
for a fatherhood initiative

Florida $25,864
Maryland $100,312
San Mateo County, Calif. $97,437
for TANF-related innovations