DCL-9901, Electronic Funds Transfer/Electronic Data Interchange

DCL-99-01

Date: Jan 4, 1999

TO: ALL STATE IV-D DIRECTORS

RE: Electronic Funds Transfer/Electronic Data Interchange

Dear Colleague:

The purpose of this letter is to bring you up to date on the Electronic Funds Transfer/Electronic Data Interchange (EFT/EDI) Project and to apprise you of a trade publication article on centralized collections and EFT/EDI. Our last Dear Colleague letter to you on EFT/EDI was dated September 28, 1995.

The Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement includes information about EFT/EDI as part of its outreach to employers. One such effort is an article on centralized collections and EFT/EDI that we contributed to the December 1998 issue of the American Payroll Association's newsletter, PVN. The article is directed at payroll processors and payroll managers responsible for withholding child and medical support from the wages paid to employees who are noncustodial parents. As a result of this article, we anticipate that you may receive inquiries from employers interested in submitting income withholdings electronically. In the article, we advise employers to contact the appropriate State before sending any child support payments electronically. A copy of the article is included with this mailing.

In addition to the article, we have enclosed three other items for your use. The first is a one-page summary of EFT/EDI guidelines, which you may adapt to your State’s procedures and disseminate to employers. The second is an update on recent EFT/EDI activities, including information on new certification requirements. The third is our most recent EFT/EDI State contacts/status report matrix for your review and reference. If your State has not yet implemented EFT/EDI, we encourage you to contact States that have, so that you, too, may benefit from their experiences.

We want to hear from you! Let us know how you use EFT/EDI--lessons learned and best practices--as well as any problems you or your State's employers have encountered in implementation. Please contact Nancy Benner by telephone at (202) 401-5528, by fax at (202) 401-5558, or by email at nancy.benner@acf.hhs.gov (Contact Information Updated 07/03/2008) if you have any questions or comments related to this correspondence.

Sincerely,

David Gray Ross
Commissioner
Office of Child Support Enforcement

Enclosures

cc: State CSES Project Directors
State EFT/EDI Contacts
Regional Program Managers
Regional New Hire Contacts