Child support.

Accomplishments

From its beginnings in 1975, child support enforcement has flourished into a comprehensive and effective federal-state partnership. Authorized in Title IV, Part D of the Social Security Act, the program has grown to be a tremendously successful means of providing both substantial financial support to single-parent families and reducing their dependence on other assistance programs, as well as helping repay states for expenditures incurred while a family was receiving assistance.

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In 2007, the Office of Child Support Enforcement released its preliminary report citing nearly 15.8 million cases currently in the IV-D program, with just over two million of those cases collecting TANF (Title IV-A) assistance dollars. All totaled, the program collected $25 billion in child support from non-custodial parents. On average, in 2007 IV-D programs generated $4.73 for every $1.00 spent.

Through the Deficit Reduction Act, Congress was able to open up considerably more options for child support enforcement programs, and for state human service agencies overall, by significantly enhancing states' ability to pass through more child support to families on TANF as well as those who had formerly been on TANF, However, this new-found flexibility is moot if states are unable to pass additional money through to families due to the states' own financial struggles.

Challenges

In these difficult financial times for states, there are challenging decisions that must be made; this is especially true when negotiating how collections for current and former assistance families will be handled and when those decisions will be implemented.

The amount of money saved by effective child support and passing through more money to families currently on assistance must be carefully considered in any comprehensive approach to supporting children and families. Policymakers must keep the interrelated nature of child support in mind when addressing these complicated issues.

Clearly, child support enforcement touches a significant percentage of families while managing a considerable amount of money. Today, the goal of child support has become more complex and nuanced. The program no longer focuses purely on collecting back debt that has accumulated to a certain threshold. If child support payments are to be effective and do the most good for the child, they must be received on a regular basis so that the custodial parent household can budget accordingly and avoid financial uncertainty. There is a growing need to work more with non-custodial parents, the majority of whom are men, who are unable to provide a reliable source of financial support for their children.

Today, child support enforcement shares common points with other assistance systems. State CSE offices are now working extensively to help NCPs who are in arrears and unable to pay child support to transition into steady employment and onto a consistent support payment schedule. CSE offices and the courts are now able to establish medical support orders not just for NCPs but for CPs as well, requiring greater coordination with colleagues managing Medicaid. Child support offices are now required to manage requests from their colleagues in child welfare for information housed in the massive federal parent locator service. These tasks come on top of the already consuming responsibility of ensuring that collected child support is delivered as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Policy Agenda

Funding Must Reflect the Steady Increase in CSE's Responsibilities

Child support has evolved into a program that provides greater financial stability for single-parent families and that has been making substantive strides in helping both custodial and non-custodial parents meet their financial obligations to their children. With this expanding role of child support comes even greater need for enhanced federal partnership to ensure that this national program--with its success depending greatly on solid interstate cooperation--maintains high-quality service, APHSA recommends the following changes:

Recommendations

* Restore the federal match of incentive payments for state child support programs as it existed prior to the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. This money would allow states to continue to reinvest in their child support programs and support continuing outreach to both custodial and non-custodial parents.

* Temporarily increase the federal match rate for acquisition of automated data systems to 90 percent. With a considerable amount of business in the IV-D program occurring across state lines, it is vital that all states be able to maintain up-to-date automated systems. The last mandatory systems upgrade occurred prior to the 1996 Welfare Reform legislation, and many systems are now aging and require considerable legacy maintenance. This increase in matching funds would allow states to upgrade their automated systems to more efficiently manage demand from other IV-D agencies as well as other requests receded from outside the program.

* The current work on promoting early intervention strategies to combat the build-up of arrearages has been beneficial, and should continue to be supported. States and tribes have used the flexibility inherent in the program to implement modification of orders to ensure obligations match ability to pay; more rapid communication with NCPs after a scheduled payment is missed; and other innovations that promote a culture of compliance rather than enforcement. All this has been done with the past encouragement of the federal child support program, and this support should continue.

Child Support Must Go to Families

The financial security of children must continue to be a priority for child support agencies. Placing higher emphasis on ensuring that more of the total support collected is distributed to families goes further in maintaining the stability children need. Such emphasis also helps reinforce the culture of compliance with NCPs, who need to know that the support they pay makes a difference. This is why money that is collected but retained, or funds recovered through fees, can be counterproductive in the interagency effort to promote responsible and self-sufficient households.

Recommendations

* The $25 fee charged to non-TANF families who receive more than $500 in child support should be removed.

* There should be greater incentives for states to pass through the full amount of child support collections to families receiving TANF assistance, without having to guarantee the federal share of child support collected on behalf of TANF families.

Medical Support Continues to Evolve and Requires Additional Guidance

The July 2008 implementation of regulations on enforcement of medical support is a significant administrative milestone. Giving the child support program the ability to enforce medical support that is both reasonable and accessible is quite timely, since the cost of health care continues to climb at the same time the number of employers providing coverage dwindles. Satisfactory administration of medical support for children at a high level requires specific changes that will help make the establishment and maintenance of medical support more efficient.

Recommendation

* Fee-for-service status should be changed so that cash medical support collected by child support agencies is applied to administrative costs borne by Medicaid, thus reducing federal and state outlays.