2007 Best Practices
Goals:
- To identify the obligors owning property that may meet the requirements for the filing of an administrative lien against the property.
- To better utilize data entry workers during the first of the month when the Support Enforcement Tracking System (SETS) is in read only mode and data entry is not possible.
Description: A report was generated which provided a list of default cases supplied with the SETS case number, order number, the full name and Social Security number (SSN) of the obligor. This report was offset by the existing lien database to exclude cases that already had a lien filed.
A list of potential candidates was developed for the lien project by using Microsoft Access to combine information from the Default Table, Case Management Detail Table and Address Table. A list of prisoners, SSI recipients and existing active liens was also kept. These tables were all linked using the SETS case number as a common field.
A query was generated from these tables. Criteria for the search were total arrears greater than $1,000 and no funds on hold. We searched first for IV-D cases and did not look at arrears only cases, eliminating these cases by type. We insisted on valid addresses within the zip code range. All our listed prisoners, SSI recipients and existing active liens were eliminated. The last collection occurred more than two months before the query was run. It is also our plan to revisit arrears only cases and SSI cases at a future date.
The query generated list was checked against our county real property database. Due to incompatibilities with the county database, a manual check was performed by our employees. The county database did not contain an adequate personal identifier, so any crosscheck would yield inaccurate results.
Training was then conducted to show workers how to check for real estate and/or property that may be in the name of the obligor by using cross-references between the addresses in SETS and searches with the county recorder's system.
If any hits were found, they were routed to the Legal Department for further review and determination. The liens are prepared by the Legal Department and sent by interoffice mail to the recorder's office for filing.
Dates of the project: May - December 2006.
Results: In 2005, 100 liens were filed and in 2006, 166 liens were filed. Payments from a lien will be made when the property is sold or refinanced.
Location: Lucas County is an urban county.
Funding: Regular IV-D funds were used.
Replication Advice: This process can be replicated easily, but is still a manual review process. If the data could be easily mapped from the two different systems, then an automated match could be run periodically to pick up any new child support cases or new property transfers.
The process could be automated and run on a regular basis or data elements could be matched from separate systems.