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INFORMATION MEMORANDUM IM-03-06 ATTACHMENT: Department of Defense (DoD) Supplemental Pay Chart DATE: June 26, 2003 TO: State Agencies Administering Child Support Enforcement Plans Under Title IV-D of the Social Security Act and Other Interested Individuals SUBJECT: Reactivating the Federal Parent Locator Service (FPLS) External Locate Function for the Department of Defense (DoD) to eliminate the Need for Verification of Employment BACKGROUND: In September 2002, DoD officials announced that they would no longer respond to verifications of employment (VOEs) from state Child Support Enforcement (CSE) agencies (see IM 02-05). Their decision was based on the high volume of requests for information and the availability of most of the location and wage information through the National Directory of New Hires (NDNH). ISSUES: In lieu of responding to verifications for current address information, DoD and the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) are re-activating the external locate process. CSE agencies should submit locate requests with a locate source of "DOD" or “ALL" to the Federal Case Registry (FCR). DoD will provide address information on active duty military, civilians, and reservists, as well as information on both retired military and civil service personnel. OCSE's Procedure Prior to using the external locate, CSE agencies should investigate the proactive match data on their statewide system. DoD submits new hire information within 20 days of hire, and wage data each quarter to the NDNH. This information is automatically matched with the cases in the FCR. Resulting matches are returned to the CSE agencies for processing. DoD provides information on:
An automatic FCR-NDNH match is verification of employment and quarterly wages. Please refer to the DoD Supplemental Pay Chart which is enclosed, for an explanation of the supplemntal pay included in the quarterly wage amount. If you receive a match or a “hit” on a military person, additional verification of employment is unnecessary. The next step is to submit the income-withholding order to the Defense Finance and Accounting Service in Cleveland, Ohio to start withholding pay or to effectuate service of process to initiate a child support or paternity action. The DoD address for income-withholding orders is provided in the Employer Optional Address fields on proactive matches, or it can be obtained at: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cse/newhire/contacts/iw_fedcontacts.htm. If a current address for service of process is not available through the NDNH, CSE agencies should submit a locate request identifying "DOD" or "ALL" as the locate source. The DoD returns these requests on a monthly basis and provides the following information:
After the original decision to cease responding to VOEs, DoD continued to receive more inquiries than they could possibly answer. Many of the requesters have been identified as county child support offices that are not getting the available data from the CSE agencies. It may be appropriate to remind state child support workers of the availability of DoD information returned by the FCR via proactive matching and FPLS locate requests. OCSE is willing to provide additional training and information to assist CSE agencies in their efforts to use the available information most effectively. Since DoD will no longer process these requests, it is even more important that local and county child support offices use the information from the FCR as it pertains to employees of DoD. INQUIRIES: For further information and assistance, please contact Ella Lawson at 202-401-4963 or elawson@acf.hhs.gov, or the State Technical Assistance Liaison Team at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cse/newhire/contacts/fcrtscontacts.htm. Sherri Z. Heller, Ed.D. Enclosure cc: Regional Program Managers |
