Giving Hope and Support to America's Children| Child Support Report | Vol. XXVII, No. 8, Aug 2005 |
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Child Support Report is a publication of the Office of Child Support Enforcement, Division of Consumer Services. CSR is published for information purposes only. No official endorsement of any practice, publication, or individual by the Department of Health and Human Services or the Office of Child Support Enforcement is intended or should be inferred. |
After Hurricane Katrina - As the Victims Disburse, the Child Support Community Pulls Together OCSE and NCSEA Hold Employer Symposium State Verification and Exchange System Match Provides More Money for Families Computer World Honors Pennsylvania CS Web Site Teleconferences Aim to Increase Collaboration on International Case Processing |
After Hurricane Katrina - As the Victims Disburse, the Child Support Community Pulls Together
On Aug. 31, Louisiana State IV-D Director Robbie Endris e-mailed her fellow state directors: "First, let me thank you for the many e-mails offering sympathy and help. I have been overwhelmed by your responses. We are heartbroken over the situations in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. In New Orleans, the water continues to rise. We fear that we have lost our beloved city. As I write, buses are en route to Houston, Texas ... How incredible! Thanks, Texas!"
Robbie went on to ask for "best practices" on behalf of child support and other benefit programs, from those of us who also had experienced disasters of this magnitude. However, the nation was quickly learning that Hurricane Katrina was perhaps the worst natural disaster our country has ever seen.
The national child support enforcement community has responded to this catastrophe like individuals and organizations everywhere: with sadness and compassion over the loss of life, despair, and devastation; and by immediately uniting to help.
I take pride in overseeing what previous OCSE commissioners have boasted of -the national child support enforcement program is built on effective partnerships among all levels of government and there is a tremendous willingness to cooperate to get the job done. I thank all of you for trusting in our collective experience to help our partners in the Gulf Coast area now.
Every state has offered to help in any way they can:
- Texas child support staff developed a form to handout in shelters to retrieve information from custodial parents. I was gratified to hear that Texas staff members also are helping to communicate information from noncustodial parents to the custodial parents and their children.
- Florida is providing assistance to child support offices in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi to help reduce the amount of normal case processing requests being sent to offices that cannot respond.
- Oklahoma is collecting and delivering goods such as prepaid phone cards, school supplies, clothing, and food to the Shreveport child support office and other communities. As we go to press, OCSE continues to host conference calls to provide information to IV-D Directors, State Disbursement Units, employers, and other Federal agencies. Federal staff have been deployed to affected areas. Regional offices have performed their role in an excellent manner. We are working with the United States Postal Service concerning mail delivery issues, and we've posted information on our Web site.
The Administration for Children and Families has deployed Central and Regional Office staff to join U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps representatives in command centers across Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas to help connect victims to the resources they need.
Our hearts are with Louisiana's Robbie Endris, Mississippi Director Walley Naylor, Alabama Director Diana E. McCampbell, and their staffs, and all who are struggling to heal during this crisis. With the extraordinary power of partnership between all levels of government, as well as the private sector, we can help to ensure the affected areas will once again function properly and that our customers-the children, mothers, and fathers-will be able to resume receiving crucial child support help. I have every confidence that, by the time you read this, the programs in the respective states will be back on their feet.
Margot Bean
OCSE and NCSEA Hold Employer Symposium
By: Nancy Benner
OCSE and the National Child Support Enforcement Association (NCSEA) sponsored the first National Child Support Employer Symposium in Cincinnati, OH. Employers from all over the country-representatives from Federal agencies, small employers, huge corporations, payroll service providers, and software companies joined child support professionals and court personnel. The symposium provided a unique, face-to-face opportunity for state child support professionals, judicial representatives, and employers to meet, discuss and appreciate the many challenges of the program from each other's perspective.
In opening the symposium, OCSE Commissioner Margot Bean recognized the child support enforcement community for thirty years of unflagging efforts to develop the program. She acknowledged the contributions of employers through new hire reporting, income withholding, and enrollment of children in health insurance plans. Vernon Drew, in his new role as President of NCSEA, challenged the participants to share ideas and solutions. Michael O'Toole, Senior Director of Publications and Government Relations for the American Payroll Association (APA), expressed the employers' appreciation for the opportunity to collectively discuss improvements to the program.
Thirty-seven state child support programs were represented at the conference. The diverse employer contingent included large institutions such as Wal-Mart, General Motors, Darden Restaurants, the U.S. Postal Service, Tyco Healthcare, the University of Cincinnati, and Verizon.
The symposium also focused on the significant role employers play in the success of the Child Support Enforcement Program. Employers report their newly hired employees; respond to verifications of employment; implement income-withholding orders; deduct child support obligations from their employees' paychecks and bonuses, then remit them to the state disbursement units (SDUs); and, finally, report terminations to state agencies. Of the $21.9B collected for child support in FY 2004, $15.3B (70 percent) was collected by employers.
The symposium showcased a new initiative that OCSE is conducting in Colorado, Texas, Oregon, and Indiana to electronically transmit income-with-holding orders to employers, including symposium participants Meijer Corporation, Labor Ready, and the Department of Defense Financing and Accounting Service (DFAS). The Electronic Income-Withholding Order project has sparked a lot of interest in the child support and employer communities as both look for innovative ways to facilitate withholding and get money to families faster. (See CSR, Volume XXVII, No. 6, June 2005.)
Other topics discussed included electronic payments, income withholding, verification of employment, new hire reporting, lump sum payments, data standardization, terminations, and medical support. The group shared information and ideas, and recommended short- and long-term goals for improving child support enforcement on the local, state, and national level.
The OCSE Employer Services team is compiling the recommendations and will disseminate a symposium report in the near future.
Nancy Benner is a member of the OCSE Employer Services Team.
State Verification and Exchange System Match Provides More Money for Families
By: Amy Ballenger
More and more families are reaping the benefits of the State Verification and Exchange System (SVES) information that is available to state CSE agencies via the Federal Case Registry (FCR) locate process.
SVES information comes from the Social Security Administration (SSA) and includes Title II-SSA Retirement, Survivors, Disability and Health Insurance benefits information; Title XVI-Supplemental Security Income benefits information; and prisoner data from Federal, state, and local correctional facilities.
Upon request from a state CSE agency, the FCR will match with SSA files and return SSA benefit and demographic information for FCR custodial and non-custodial parents. The SVES match is processed on a daily basis, allowing states to now receive information more frequently than the previous SSA locate match. In September, as a part of FPLS Release 05-02, a SVES locate response will also be available if a locate is requested for a child.
The number of states programmed to receive the SVES data have increased since it first became available in May 2002. Lately, more states are showing an interest in SVES as a result of the recent match between OCSE and the SSA. In November 2004, OCSE entered into an agreement with SSA to conduct a one-time match between obligors on the OCSE Debtor file and the SSA Title II beneficiaries on the SVES. This one-time match identified over 75,000 child support obligors who receive Title II benefits. The match further identified the dependent children that receive SSA Title II benefits through the obligors and their monthly benefit amounts.
States act quickly to begin processing, once they receive the obligor matches provided by OCSE. In addition to receiving information about benefits with held for child support payments, states also receive important address information for the non-custodial parent. SSA has received more than 20,000 new income-withholding orders, and states have already started receiving payments from SSA. Oregon, for example, has already established 33 new income-withholding notices (IWNs) with SSA for obligors receiving Title II benefits that they were not aware of before. These IWNs should bring in over $9,000 in monthly child support payments. Additionally, New York reported that 98 percent of the matches received are new reports of income to be withheld for child support purposes. Washington State has sent 162 income-withholding notices to SSA, over half of which are now receiving payments. State after state has reported similar success.
This recent match between the OCSE Debtor file and the SSA Title II beneficiaries has shown how valuable the SVES information is to state child support agencies. States also refer the families to SSA to determine benefit entitlement for the child.
If your state is ready to begin receiving SVES, or if you have questions about how to implement SVES, contact your state technical support liaison for more information. Join the other states that are increasing child support collections, locating non-custodial parents, and getting benefits for children by using the SVES information.
Amy Bellenger is a team liason on the Federal Parent Locator Service State Technical Support Team.
Computer World Honors Pennsylvania CS Web Site
By: John Clark
The Pennsylvania Child Support Web site (PACSES) was honored, June 2005, at the annual Computer World Honors program. Jay Poe received the award in which Pennsylvania was honored with the status of Laureate in the category of Government and Non-Profit Organizations. The winners were chosen from among 48 finalists from 10 countries, representing the most innovative and visionary applications of information technology (IT). A panel of distinguished judges selected the winners based on benefit to society, importance of IT, originality, success and difficulty. Case studies are posted online at www.cwheroes.org.
PACSES was designed to provide plaintiffs and defendants with access to their case and financial information in a flexible and cost-effective manner. Over time, the functionality of the Web site has been expanded to provide lien information to loan processors and docket information to the general public. In addition, an employer module was created to provide self-service functionality to employers of individuals that are members on child support cases.
By providing online child support information to plaintiffs, defendants, employers, attorneys, and lending institutions, a large number of routine customer service issues are now addressed via the Web site, allowing county-based child support case- workers more time to be proactive, improve overall customer service, cost-efficiency, and program performance. Further, self-service empowers child support clients by giving them 24-hour access to their case and member information and allows them to perform a variety of functions that had previously required the manual intervention of the county child support case workers.
For more information, contact Jay Poe at 717-705-5120. Or visit Pennsylvania's Web site at http://www.humanservices.state.pa.us/csws.
John Clark is a Program Specialist in Region III.
Teleconferences Aim to Increase Collaboration on International Case Processing
By: Kathleen Beckman
OCSE's Policy Division sponsored an innovative 90-minute teleconference series, April-June 2005, with three goals in mind:
- To facilitate information exchange and resource sharing for more timely and effective processing of international cases;
- To provide a structure for state-to-state dialogue and feedback from Federal and state resources on specific case processing policies and procedures;
- To consolidate shared information and make it available to IV-D specialists at the conclusion of the call series.
Anne Miller, a policy specialist, led a team to plan and implement the teleconference series based on 32 issues submitted by states. Team members included OCSE's Yvette Riddick and Katie Donley; Rob Velcoff, Chief, Interstate Central Registry (New York); and Susan Paikin, Center for Support of Families. The State Information Technology Consortium (SITC) provided call logistics, facilitation, and documentation.
Topics Presented and Speakers
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Implementation: Incoming Cases
Rob Velcoff, NY -
Establishing an International Case
Richard Sternowski, OCSE -
Currency Conversion
Tori Takayesu-Hamilton, HI
Barry Brooks, TX
Mary Dahlberg, CA -
Translation
Lucinda Woods, OR
Stephen Grant, OCSE -
Enforcement Procedures and Methods
Katie Donley, OCSE -
Federal International Case Processing Team
Lily Matheson, OCSE
Rob Cohen, OCSE -
OCSE Web site Resources
Rob Cohen, OCSE -
NCSEA Web site Resources
Ann Barkley, NCSEA -
Foreign Reciprocating Countries (FRC)
Mary Helen Carlson, U.S. Dept. of State -
Limited Services
Lily Matheson, OCSE -
Limited Services: Genetic Testing & Service of Process
LeAnn Wilber, UT
Elaine Cason, IL
Rob Velcoff, NY
Stephen Grant, OCSE -
Direct Applications
Barry Brooks, TX
Cyndy Lucas, OH -
Contested Cases
Robin Arnell, VT
Cyndy Lucas, OH -
Modifications
Mary Dahlberg, CA
Karen Torrisi, FL -
Hague Special Commission Modification Proposals
Margot Bean
Lily Matheson, OCSE
Mary Helen Carlson, U.S. Dept. of State
An average of 34 states participated each month. Federal and regional staff, and the National Child Support Enforcement Association also participated.
OCSE provided an International CSE ListServ so that participants could ask questions and share information between calls. A report consolidating the information and practical tips from the spring 2005 series will be released to the International CSE ListServ and posted on the OCSE Web site.
The teleconference series will resume fall 2005, extending an invitation to international partners, perhaps starting with Canada, to join the calls.
For further information, contact Anne Miller, OCSE Division of Policy at anmiller@acf.hhs.gov.
Kathleen Beckman is a Consultant for the State Information Technology Consortium.
COLORADO - INCREASING HEALTHCARE COVERAGE FOR CHILDREN
By: Dan Welch
The Colorado CSE program was awarded a section 1115 demonstration grant to test methods to improve the establishment and enforcement of child support orders that contain a medical support provision. The project has implications for all states given the possible addition of medical support as a mandated performance measure.
The demonstration, "Increasing Healthcare Coverage for Children: A New Coordinated Approach," ran from October 2002 until September 2004. It was conducted in two of the larger Colorado counties, Denver and Mesa, and evaluated by Policy Studies, Inc. A total of 1,925 cases, evenly divided into control and experimental groups, were in the demonstration. The test involved placing a Medical Support Facilitator (MSF) in each county to work with parents, employers, and representatives from the Medicaid program and SCHIP to ensure the children in the experimental group had healthcare coverage, either public or private.
In addition to providing for the new facilitator position, Colorado reviewed its policies regarding reasonable cost of health insurance, and the current workflow regarding medical support. The purpose of the review was to identify and remove barriers, and to streamline processes. The State also contracted with outside vendor to data-match Colorado CSE case information with multiple healthcare providers to determine whether the children had healthcare coverage and if it was known, or reported to the Colorado CSE.
The demonstration found value in the match and in the work of the MSF. The match rate was 23 percent prior to verifying the validity of the information. After verification, 26 percent of the matched cases had useful information (either not previously known or verification that the healthcare information was still current). The data match was useful for 6 percent of the total CSE cases.
The MSF made a positive difference, particularly in obtaining private coverage. There was an increase of 11 percent in private coverage over the control group - yielding a potential annual $7.9M savings in Medicaid expenditures had the demonstration been implemented statewide. The MSF also helped in referring and enrolling a percentage of cases in the Medicaid program or in SCHIP, and most importantly, helped to open communication lines among CSE, Medicaid and SCHIP program staff, parents and employers, leading to improved performance in assuring medical coverage for children in the CSE caseload.
Colorado has taken several steps to implement the research findings: the State (a) concluded that the processes developed by the MSF could be incorporated into the daily activities of each CSE worker; (b) determined that automation and policies could continue to be monitored and improved to enhance the enforcement and information gathering, for example, Colorado will soon implement a yearly mass mailing to custodial parties asking for an update on the healthcare coverage for their children; and (c) is redesigning the automated National Medical Support Notice to facilitate its use and to reduce its 25 percent no-return rate from employers.
For a copy of the complete report, visit http://www.childsupport.state.co.us, and click on Publications. Dan Welch is Grant Manager for Colorado CSE.
The National Child Support Enforcement Strategic Plan, FY 2005-2009, is available on the OCSE Web site at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cse/. Printed copies can be ordered through OCSE's National Reference Center at 202-401-9383.
Administration for Children & Families
Office of Child Support Enforcement
15th National Child Support
Enforcement Training Conference
October 24-26,2005
Hyatt Regency Crystal City
2279 Jefferson Davis Highway
Arlington, VA 22202
703-418-1234
For more information, contact Charlene A. Butler at 202-401-5091 or cbutler@acf.hhs.gov
Download FREE Adobe Acrobat® Reader™ to view PDF files located on this site.
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