Statement of Frank Fuentes
Acting Commisioner
Office of Child Support Enforcement
Administration for Children and Families
Department of Health and Human Services
Before the
U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial Management and Intergovernmental Relations
 June 6, 2001

Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the Subcommittee, thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify on the child support enforcement program. I am Frank Fuentes, the Acting Commissioner of the Office of Child Support Enforcement. The Child Support Enforcement program is a very successful Federal/State partnership effort aimed at fostering family responsibility and promoting self-sufficiency by ensuring that children are supported financially and emotionally by both parents.

To accomplish this goal, we work in partnership with States in providing four major services: locating non-custodial parents, establishing paternity, establishing child support obligations, and enforcing child support orders. Welfare reform made dramatic improvements in our ability to achieve these goals and I would like to take this opportunity to share with you the promising results we are witnessing. As you requested, I would then like to share our initial thoughts on Mr. Bilirakis's proposal to further strengthen child support enforcement, H.R. 866, the Subsidy Termination for Overdue Payments Act of 2001.

Child Support Enforcement Program Record

In FY 2000, a record $17.9 billion in child support was collected. In addition, the number of child support cases in which collections were made rose to 7.2 million. I think you will agree that these results are impressive.

The record is similar with respect to establishment of paternity. The number of paternities established or acknowledged reached a record of 1.6 million in FY 2000. Of these, over 688,000 paternities were established through in-hospital acknowledgement programs. An additional 867,000 paternities were established through the Child Support Enforcement program. In addition to being the first step in collecting child support, paternity establishment engages fathers in the lives of their children, creating the emotional bonds and security that are crucial to their children's health and well being.

Through enactment of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA), unprecedented tools have been provided to the child support enforcement program. The legislation strengthened and improved child support collection activities by establishing a national new hire and wage reporting system, streamlining paternity establishment, creating uniform interstate child support forms, computerizing statewide collections, and authorizing tough new penalties for non-payment of support, such as driver's license revocation.

These tools promise to secure for many of our nation's children the emotional and financial support that they need and deserve and they are having a dramatic impact. For example, using the expanded Federal Parent Locator Service we were able to provide States information on 3 million interstate cases, and using the Passport Denial Program, we have collected over $7 million in lump sum child support payments in the last year. Further, the Federal Tax Refund and Administrative Offset programs collected over $1.4 billion in calendar year 2000.

We are excited about the dramatic results these changes are generating and are convinced that the future of child support enforcement will continue on this successful path.

I would like to turn now to a brief discussion of H.R. 866. First I would like to acknowledge the importance of the goal of the legislation -- to strengthen child support enforcement. While we are proud of the inroads we have made on this issue for America's children, we certainly realize that there is room for improvement and look forward to working with Congress on possible avenues to build on our record.

The Administration has not taken a formal position on H.R. 866 at this time, however I would like to share some serious technical concerns with the bill.

The Subsidy Termination for Overdue Payments Act of 2001 - H.R. 866

As we understand it, the intent of H.R. 866 is to help improve our record in collecting support. The bill would, with some limited exceptions, require applicants for any form of Federal financial assistance to certify that they are not more than 60 days delinquent in payment of child support in order to qualify for the benefit. If applicants were delinquent, they would be required to be in compliance with a repayment plan or agreement as a condition of receiving other Federal benefits. The bill provides exceptions if the assistance is subject to garnishment for payment of overdue child support or if the assistance agency determines the applicant has good cause for failing to pay the support or enter into or comply with a repayment agreement.

Our comments focus on two concerns -- first, what we believe are structural difficulties that would impede the effectiveness of the bill and second, questions on the efficacy of potentially targeting the low-income population for nonpayment of child support. With respect to the first issue, the sole enforcement tool envisioned is self-certification of compliance. That is, there would be no mechanism to verify an applicant's certification of payment of child support. While this might serve as an incentive for some to become current on their support or to enter into a payment arrangement, the value of this approach without subsequent verification seems unclear. Further, even if verification were required, its effectiveness would be hampered by the fact that many cases remain outside of the title IVD child support system. On the other hand, modification of a child support order following a change in circumstances, such as job loss, can take significantly longer than 60 days, and arrearages often build up during this time period. Withholding federal financial assistance at this point may only worsen the impact of the change that necessitated the modification request. We note that the bill provides "good cause" exemptions, presumably to address issues like these, however these provisions are currently undefined and thus ambiguous. Also undefined is the broad reference to "federal financial assistance programs." There are a wide range of such programs and the implementation and impact of this bill would vary greatly depending on the breadth of this definition.

With respect to the second broad issue, the lack of clarity in the bill raises the potential of focusing on applicants for basic federal assistance. In potentially targeting those parents who themselves are impoverished and least able to pay child support rather than those who can provide support but refuse to do so, the result could be denying assistance to destitute individuals without increasing payments for children who are owed support.

The Administration is committed to supporting efforts to improve the child support program. However, we are concerned about whether the approach taken in H.R. 866 will accomplish its intended goal.

In closing, I would like to reiterate the positive impact existing enforcement tools are having in helping to improve the lives of our Nation's children. We look forward to building on these successes with Congress and the States to ensure that the program is most effective in addressing children's and families' needs.

Thank you. I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have.