In the late 1970s and early 1980s when Maine began to use administrative establishment of support obligations, the state found their circuit-riding, DSER hearing officers surprisingly under-occupied. On any given hearing day, service had not been completed on a quarter of the noncustodial parents whose hearings were scheduled. Another quarter showed up but agreed with the agency's proposed order. This left the hearing officers with no real hearings in at least half their scheduled cases.

DSER went to the legislature in the mid-1980s to request a procedure that would provide full due process hearing rights, but eliminate the need for a hearing in many cases. Noncustodial parents who agree with a proposed order would not need to take a day off work to attend to establishing a support obligation.

Now, the administrative establishment of support obligations in Maine follows this process:

If the noncustodial parent has provided information, his/her information is used. If none was returned, DSER agents contact any employer they can identify and the custodial parent to garner more information about his or her occupation and income. When individual information cannot be obtained, DSER agents use Maine Department of Labor data to estimate income based on occupation and geographical area of residence. If the noncustodial parent is a brick mason, data on average income of brick masons is used. If there is information that the NCP works in unskilled jobs, minimum wage is used. If there is no information about occupation and earnings history, the average wage for the state is used.

While more call to ask questions about how the order was calculated, only 10 percent of noncustodial parents ask for a hearing. Of those who do so, 90 percent appear for the hearing. Because the number of hearings is much smaller, appropriate time and attention can be devoted to resolving the issues which led to a hearing request.

Using this procedure, DSER is able to establish many more orders with available staff because much less staff time is required when orders are agreed to. Orders are obtained more quickly. Noncustodial parents owe less for back support at the time orders are entered. (Support may be ordered retroactively in Maine.) They do not face judgment for years of unpaid support. Custodial parents, children, and the state of Maine all get payment more quickly.

Administrative establishment of support obligations is used statewide. Maine's child support operations are centralized and state-administered.

Regular IV-D funding.

When establishing an administrative process, be sure that due process requirements are met at the beginning of the case and are protected all the way through. Establish a process where the noncustodial parent has a right to move the case to court at any point. The right will be exercised rarely.

Specialists trained in the establishment process are needed to handle these cases. They need to know the administrative procedures, state and federal statutes, and the state's child support guidelines. A great deal of time should be devoted to training these staff members.

Gerald Lindsay, Assistant Director, Division of Support Enforcement and Recovery, Station 11, State House, Augusta, ME 04333, phone 207-287-2886, e-mail Gerald.Lindsay@state.me.us.

Maine's expedited paternity establishment project has used three key tools in slashing its backlog of paternity cases since 1991:

With a backlog of 9,500 paternity cases in 1991, Maine developed several key goals: reduce the backlog substantially; expedite the 150 to 200 new paternity cases coming into the system each month; and establish paternity within one year of the date of birth of a child or location of a putative father. As a practical matter, a current additional goal is to maximize the incentive payments to the state through excellent performance on paternity establishment measures.

Starting with 9,500 cases requiring paternity establishment in 1991, Maine has reduced to approximately 3,400 (out of a total caseload of 65,000) the number of cases in which paternity needs to be established. In October 1999, the cases awaiting paternity establishment included over 700 interstate cases and 400 cases still in initial intake and processing phase. With 150 to 200 new paternity cases each month, the “backlog” continues to decline as the state draws nearer to its goal of establishing paternity in all cases within one year of the child's birth or location of the putative father.

At present, all but the 20 percent of the paternity caseload which has locate issues and the 10 percent which are new cases have a case in process being handled by a paternity specialist.

Perhaps most important of all, speedy paternity establishment is a key part of ASPIRE - Maine's welfare-to-work program - and its pass-through of 70 percent of collections to families receiving assistance. The first step in ensuring child support payments for many needy families is establishment of paternity.

The expedited paternity project is a statewide project. Maine's child support operations are centralized and state-administered.

Regular IV-D funding.

Design a system which makes it possible to transfer default or contested cases to court without necessity of additional service of process. Shift the burden of staying in touch onto the putative father from this point on.

Make sure to handle the due process requirements - e.g., service of process - properly at the beginning of cases. Re-serve at the outset if necessary to be sure of good service. Taking care on this point will win the respect of the courts as well as ensuring the ability to move forward effectively. Be sure it is possible to complete uncontested cases within the administrative process.

Gerald Lindsay, Assistant Director, Division of Support Enforcement and Recovery, Station 11, State House, Augusta, ME 04333, phone 207-287-2843, fax 207-287-6883; e-mail Gerald.Lindsay@state.me.us

Begun in 1993, Maine's license revocation was designed to reach the 17,000 plus cases in 1992 in which support had not been paid in 90 days. The process is entirely administrative unless court review of an administrative decision or modification of the underlying support award is sought. The process remains entirely within the Division of Support Enforcement and Recovery until certification of non-compliance with a support order is finally issued and sent to the licensing board.

Maine's license revocation process begins with a notice to the out-of-compliance obligor that his or her name will be submitted to the appropriate board as a licensee who is not complying with an order of support. This will result in license revocation. The notice is generic and does not specify which license or licenses will be revoked. The obligor has 20 days from the date the notice is served to make a written request for a hearing. The certification is put on hold if the obligor asks for a hearing or files a motion to modify support with the court or requests an amendment of an administrative support decision.

To come into compliance with the support order, the obligor must pay current support, meet his or her health insurance obligations and either pay all past due support or enter into a written payment agreement covering payment of the past due amount. When an obligor comes into compliance (at any stage of the proceedings) he or she is provided with written confirmation of compliance.

If a hearing is requested, issues are limited to whether the obligor is required to pay support under an order of support and whether the obligor is in compliance. The obligor may raise additional issues such as the reasonableness of a payment agreement in light of his or her current ability to pay. Once the department issues a decision, the obligor has 30 days to file a petition for judicial review.

The child support agency may certify in writing to the appropriate board(s) that the obligor is not in compliance with an order of support. The certification may be based upon the lack of a request for a hearing after notice, an administrative finding of non-compliance after a hearing, or a court finding of non-compliance after judicial review. In addition, failure to comply with a written payment agreement without proving inability to do so may result in certification of non-compliance with a support order to a licensing board. Written confirmation of compliance must be submitted by the obligor to avoid revocation or obtain re-issuance of the license.

The focus of the procedure is collecting child support, not revoking licenses. Although over 23,500 notices of intent to revoke have been sent to non-compliant obligors since 1993, 3,400 licenses actually have been revoked. In fact, obligors are often given at least two chances to come into compliance before a certification of non-compliance is issued. Even after a certification is issued, licensing boards may send yet another warning, sometimes paid for by the Division of Support Enforcement and Recovery (DSER).

Cooperation between DSER and licensing authorities - ranging from the Motor Vehicle Administration to Bureau of Marine Resources (lobstering and fishing licenses) and the Board of Professional and Business Regulation (100 professions)--has been excellent. Licensing authorities provide an annual list of license holders to DSER. Over the years, as these authorities have been developing or upgrading automated systems, DSER has met with systems planners to ensure that the data elements needed by DSER were captured.

Since 1993, Maine has sent out 23,500 notices of intent to revoke licenses. Over the eight-year period through October 1999, over $116 million has been collected from these once non-compliant obligors. Further, this procedure has contributed to Maine's overall child support performance including a doubling of collections since 1993 and a payment rate on current support for intrastate cases of 60 percent.

Statewide. Maine's child support operations are centralized and state-administered.

Regular IV-D funding.

Maine DSER managers strongly recommend the adoption of an administrative process for license revocation, housed within the child support agency. They also recommend a manual review of each target case prior to commencing revocation action for non-compliance.

Gerald Lindsay, Assistant Director, Division of Support Enforcement and Recovery, Station 11, State House, Augusta, ME 04333, phone 207-287-2886, e-mail Gerald.Lindsay@state.me.us.

An administrative discovery process, beginning with a Notice to Appear and Disclose, has become Maine's opening wedge in collecting in the 20 percent of its cases involving chronically non-paying support obligors. Some of these noncustodial parents are self-employed, some are employed in the underground economy, some are disabled. Finding a way to assure payment by members of this hard-to-collect-from group is the goal of the process.

Maine relies heavily on administrative processes in both the establishment and enforcement of support obligations. These procedures are generally carried out without attorneys, since Maine child support agents are authorized to present evidence in court on behalf of the Commissioner of Maine's Department of Human Services. Agency attorneys become involved only in complex cases where points of law must be argued.

As with other child support administrative processes in the state, this one is designed to begin with proper service of the administrative Notice to Appear and Disclose, followed by an administrative hearing, and a seamless transfer to court if the child support matter cannot be resolved by voluntary action on the part of the NCP. The transfer to court may be made without re-serving the obligor. (Notice is provided.) The Notice requires the obligor to bring all financial records to a scheduled administrative hearing. In many cases, license revocation proceedings may be commenced at the same time.

Often, the Notice alone results in payment of arrearages. Reportedly, this is particularly the case for self-employed obligors and those who are in a partnership or corporation with others.

At the administrative hearing a child support agent deposes the obligor about his or her income, assets and financial circumstances. While some of the standard questions have a distinctively local flavor -- “Do you go hunting? What do you have for guns? Do you have a four-wheeler to haul out the moose? Do you have a camp?” - the approach is broadly applicable. Hearings are recorded and transcribed. Transcriptions are kept for future reference even if not used at that time.

Next steps in the enforcement process depend on what is discovered at the hearing. In a case involving an apparently unemployed, but able-bodied noncustodial parent, a motion will be filed in court for a seek work order, typically in effect for six months. This requires the noncustodial parent to report job-finding efforts to the child support agency weekly. In many cases, it is believed, noncustodial parents find a job as soon as the order is issued.

When assets are discovered, appropriate collection actions are taken. These may include filing a lien, seizure and sale, turnover order from the court or other action. (Because Maine does not have an automated land title registry, discovery is necessary to identify real property to which a lien may be attached.) Some enforcement methods require court action; some do not.

For non-paying obligors who are determined to be unable to work, the agent schedules an administrative modification hearing or files a motion to amend a court order. Informally, agents may refer obligors to other government agencies (for social security disability or SSI payments), to GED programs, to job training programs or to other resources based on the circumstances of the case. Collection action is deferred in these cases.

Legislation creating the administrative appear and disclose process was passed in 1995. Augusta, Maine was the site of early efforts to work with this procedure between 1996 and 1998. In 1999, training was provided very broadly throughout the state on the use of this effective enforcement technique. Now, self-directed training on the use of this technique is available on-line to child support staff.

The results in the initial Augusta cases using this technique:

Statewide throughout Maine; use of the technique was initially developed in Augusta.

Regular IV-D funding.

The ability to begin the process in the administrative arena without the necessity of court action is a plus. The ability to move the case to court for further enforcement action without additional service of process also is advantageous, as is the admissibility in court of transcripts made of the administrative disclosure hearing. Also helpful is a limitation on matters that can be raised at the hearing on the order to appear and disclose; these are limited to the debt and enforceability of the debt. Obligors may not raise modification or paternity issues at this hearing, for example.

Gerald Lindsay, Assistant Director, Division of Support Enforcement and Recovery, Station 11, State House, Augusta, ME 04333, phone 207-287-2886, e-mail Gerald.Lindsay@state.me.us