Commissioner Tanguler Gray

When I think of the child support program, I think of one that serves and supports the whole family. Lifting up both parents helps ensure children receive the financial, emotional, and medical support they need. What's just as important as serving the whole family is serving all families. Equity is an essential part of administering child support to ensure we have quality services and fair outcomes. At OCSE, we strive to create an environment that advances racial equity for all, including people of color and others who have been historically underserved, marginalized, and held back by persistent poverty and inequality.

In spring 2021, the Administration for Children and Families launched Equity in Action , an ambitious agenda to eliminate inequities within federal programming and the administration of human services. As part of this effort, every ACF office committed to create an Equity Action Plan. ACF also outlined its commitment to advancing racial equity and strongly encouraged grantees to assess and address how their programs and policies may perpetuate systemic barriers for children and families of color.

OCSE’s commitment to racial equity 

ACF’s Equity in Action agenda gave OCSE a chance to work on one of my 3Ps of engagement: Process. We’re always open to revisiting how things are done to ensure we’re operating effectively and efficiently. Here are some strategies we’ve implemented to advance equity in the child support program:

• Supported equity in grants: We included equity impact clauses in new section 1115 grant opportunities so the recipient ensures that the grant approach, workplans, and deliverables follow a comprehensive approach to advancing equity for all.
   
• Developed a lived experience toolkit: We developed a Starter Kit for Engaging People with Lived Experience (PDF) for child support programs, grant recipients, and stakeholders to engage people with lived experience and enhance programs and practices.
   
• Promoted tribal successes: We published a tribal infographic (PDF) providing a national view of tribal child support collections and the growing number of programs operated by tribes. This tribal publication will complement what we’ve historically published only for state child support programs.
   
• Supported equity in legislation and regulation: We incorporated equity impact statements in the legislative and regulatory proposal process to pursue a comprehensive approach to advancing equity for all.

We’re proud of these efforts to promote a more equitable child support program, but we also know there’s more work to do. Moving forward, OCSE will:

• Make child support information and resources accessible in different languages on our website. This is an ongoing strategy.  
   
• Evaluate and provide opportunities for more flexibility for tribal programs within the next 12 months.
   
• Deliver training on the grant application process to tribal child support programs every 6 months to build their capacity to apply for and manage grants.
   
• Annually evaluate demographic representation in OCSE’s workforce and use those findings to target recruitment and promote diversity.

You can also read about a few state equity efforts in previous Child Support Report articles from Michigan, Colorado, and Illinois.

Please send any suggestions or comments on our plan to OCSEcommunications@acf.hhs.gov. Keep an eye out for our semiannual update about this effort. 

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Oregon Child Support Program

When the Paternity Establishment Percentage (PEP) was introduced as a federal performance measure, Oregon chose to report using the statewide measurement approach rather than the IV-D program measure. The statewide approach worked well with our outreach programs to educate the public about the importance of establishing paternity. Over time, the program developed a positive working relationship with the Oregon Health Authority, which stores vital records. 

Although the relationship between agencies remains strong and outreach continues, our PEP performance has struggled during the past five years. Like many state child support programs, we’ve seen a decline in paternity establishments. Oregon went from reporting more than 98% in federal fiscal year 2015 to less than 92% in fiscal 2020. 

The challenge we face has led us to reconsider how we report the PEP measure and to adopt the IV-D PEP approach. We’ve exhausted available options to improve performance using the current statewide measurement. 

Our drop in PEP performance coincides with a significant decrease in births during the past five years. Although the percentage of children born to unmarried parents remains the same, the decrease in overall births leads to that number being smaller each year. As the number of children needing paternity established decreases, the process of identifying those children becomes more difficult. The bottom line: With fewer children needing paternity established, we’ll struggle to meet the 90% benchmark when PEP performance relief ends. 

Transitioning to the IV-D PEP approach will allow us to easily identify children needing paternity established. The list of children needing establishment can be retrieved from Oregon’s new child support system, Origin, which provides case managers a starting point for their work. Additionally, the number of children born to unmarried parents in the IV-D caseload remains relatively stable from year to year. This approach will stabilize the PEP measurement and help case managers assist more families who need our services.

What we intend to do

We’ve embarked on a multi-year project to move to the IV-D reporting method. The first task will be data cleanup. Frontline staff will review birth and paternity information and verify that correct coding exists in the system for each child. Staff will also get the appropriate supporting documents for every paternity established.

Behind the scenes, trainers and procedure writers will update their materials. Switching to the IV-D PEP methodology also requires creation of and alterations to system reports for case management. We’ll update permanent reports to reflect IV-D PEP numbers and create temporary reports to track the data cleanup progress. The reports will support staff as they move into the new PEP methodology.

What we hope to achieve

Despite this reporting change, the mission of educating all families about the benefits of paternity and parentage establishment remains the same. The program will continue outreach to families who need its services and continue to offer paternity establishment services to those who request it. Oregon has a paternity-only process it plans to continue.

Ultimately, the goal is to make it easier for us to identify a set group of children who need paternity establishment and reliably meet the federal performance measurement.

If you have IV-D PEP wisdom you’d like to share, please contact Oregon by emailing gene.gustin@doj.state.or.us.

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Alice P. Jacobsohn, Esq., Government Relations, American Payroll Association

Payroll professionals, child support staff, and representatives from OCSE, including the Employer Services Team, participated in the National Council of Child Support Directors (NCCSD) Employer Symposium in Boston this summer. 

“The Employer Symposium was a great opportunity to bring together state, federal, and employer representatives to collaborate and share insight related to child support topics,” said Corrinne Flores, Director of Government Affairs — Wage Garnishments for ADP. Participants discussed managing lump-sum payments, creating a national employer database, and enhancing communication capabilities.

Lump sum payments

Payroll professionals identified processing issues about withholding from lump sum payments, including these:

• Payroll departments may not know the date or amount of an upcoming lump sum payment at the time of reporting.
   
• A delay in response from agencies may cause a delay in the payment to employees.

Despite the burden on employers and payroll departments, ideally a state considering introducing legislation to require lump sum reporting and withholding will adopt the model  (PDF) developed in 2019 through NCCSD’s Employer Collaboration Workgroup. The model:

• Identifies employer reporting requirements
   
• Requires child support agencies to notify the employer to withhold from the lump sum payment or release the payment to the employee within 15 days of employer notice
   
• Establishes that an employee receives either the full amount of the payment based on a response from the agency to release the payment or 15 days have elapsed without notification from the agency, or a reduced amount based on a legal document to withhold from the child support agency. The reduced amount must fall within the federal Consumer Credit Protection Act’s withholding limits (preferably no more than 50% of the lump-sum payment).

National employer database

States identify information about employers and employees for purposes of child support through many federal and state data systems. During the symposium, several states said the process of collecting and storing information is inefficient. Yet, the idea of developing a national employer database all states could use seems daunting. 

State program staff identified a collaborative effort to use existing state systems to share information. States interested in this project agreed to meet to begin the process of identifying how to share data. 

Improving communication and processes

Attendees identified areas needing communication improvements. They talked about creating a way for employers without available servers to take advantage of OCSE’s e-IWO process and addressing numerous employment verification requests received by some employers.  

Handling private cases is another area that needs better guidance and clarification. Employers receive non-IV-D withholding notices/orders from courts, attorneys, and entities other than child support agencies. These notices/orders may not always be on the Office of Management and Budget’s approved Income Withholding for Support Order (IWO) and may contain multiple withholding amounts and payment dates that are difficult for employers to process. A few states have opted to issue non-IV-D IWOs, making it easy for employers to process them.  

“Often, we see things from just our vantage point—state, employer, and service provider—but the symposium reminds us of and gives us insight into the other viewpoints,” said Michael Brown, Ceridian HCM’s Associate Product Manager. “I am already looking forward to the next one.”

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Have questions about the electronic National Medical Support Notice? Check out OCSE’s new FAQ page.

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