|
|||||||||||||
Home| Services|Working with ACF|Policy/Planning|About ACF|ACF News | Search | ||||||||||||
Giving Hope and Support to America's Children
REPORT TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS
AND THE
SENATE COMMITTEE ON FINANCE
USES OF THE NATIONAL DIRECTORY OF NEW HIRES
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
THE OFFICE OF CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT
October 1998
INTRODUCTION The Child Support Performance and Incentive Act of 1998 (P.L.105-200) requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) within 90 days after the date of enactment of the Act, to notify the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Finance of the Senate of the specific purposes for which the new hire and the wage and unemployment compensation information in the National Directory of New Hires (NDNH) is to be used. BACKGROUND Sections 452 and 453 of the Social Security Act (the Act) require the Secretary of HHS to establish and conduct the Federal Parent Locator Service (FPLS). The FPLS is a computerized national location network which provides address and social security number information to State and local Child Support agencies for the purpose of locating parents to establish or enforce a child support order and to assist authorized persons in resolving parental kidnapping and child custody cases. Section 453 of the Act, as amended by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, and the Taxpayers Relief Act of 1997, directed the Secretary to expand the FPLS in order to improve States' abilities to locate parents and collect child support. The expanded FPLS includes the NDNH, which became operational October 1, 1997, and the Federal Case Registry of Child Support Orders (FCR), which will be operational October 1, 1998. The NDNH contains new hire information on employees; quarterly wage data on private and public sector employees, and information on unemployment compensation benefits. The FCR is a Federal data base that will contain identifying information on all individuals involved in cases where a child support order has been established or modified after October 1, 1998 and on all individuals involved in cases where the State is providing child support services pursuant to Title IV, Part D of the Act, whether or not an order has been established. The FCR will contain abstracts of support orders and other information described in section 453(h)(2) of the Act with respect to each case and order in each State Case Registry maintained pursuant to section 454A(e) of the Act, as furnished and regularly updated pursuant to section 454A(f) of the Act, by State Child Support agencies. The purpose of the FCR is to assist States in administering Title IV-D (Child Support) programs and Title IV-A (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families) programs under the Social Security Act. The FCR is intended to be used in conjunction with the NDNH to assist States in identifying individuals with child support obligations who are working in other States.
The NDNH and FCR databases will conduct automatic data matches against each other on an on-going basis. These automatic matches will enable the FPLS to determine if a newly hired employee is a participant in a child support case or order anywhere in the country. These automatic matches will also enable the FPLS to alert States when other States have registered the same individuals in cases or orders on the FCR. USES OF THE NATIONAL DIRECTORY OF NEW HIRES With limited exceptions, all requests for NDNH information must be made through the State Parent Locator Service (SPLS) of a particular State. The uses of information contained in the NDNH, as a component of the expanded FPLS, are specified in section 453 of the Act, as amended by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, the Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996, the Balanced Budget Reconciliation Act of 1997, the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, and the Child Support Performance and Incentive Act of 1998. Information from the FPLS, including NDNH information, may be requested for the following specified purposes: I. Child support purposes, which include:
II. Location of an individual who has or may have parental rights to a child:
III. Enforcement or determination of child custody pursuant to section 463 of the Act, which includes:
IV. Administration of the Title IV-A Program: V. Verification purposes: VI. Administration of the Social Security Program VII. Tax Purposes: VIII. International child abduction purposes: IX. Research purposes: CONCLUSION Information contained in the NDNH, a component of the FPLS, may only be disclosed for purposes authorized by Federal legislation, and to legislatively specified persons. Applicable Federal statutes, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Bulletins, Federal Information Processing Standard Publications, and HHS policies establish specific requirements for confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information in the expanded FPLS. Safeguards that support legislation are in place to ensure the accuracy of the expanded FPLS information and to restrict access to authorized persons only, for authorized purposes.
Download FREE Adobe Acrobat® Reader™ to view PDF files located on this site.
OCSE Home
|
Press Room
|
Events Calendar
|
Publications
|
|