Private firms vie for contracts to hunt deadbeat dads.

With the District Attorney's Office cracking down on deadbeat parents, companies are lining up to compete for what could be tens of millions of dollars in county contracts to wrest child-support payments from delinquent dads.

From giant Lockheed Martin Information Management Systems to small Marina del Rey investigators Global Projects Ltd., a dozen or more businesses are expected to compete for the right to participate in a pilot program early next year.

The outcome is expected to determine how much of District Attorney Gil Garcetti's $100 million family-support budget will be paid to private contractors. Those companies that perform well can expect to have a leg up when the actual contracts start flowing, perhaps later next year.

"The District Attorney's Office is overwhelmed with cases," said Garry Wong, director of special operations for Global Projects. "Our goal is to augment their staff on the caseload. We gain a business opportunity, while they get help in fast-tracking their cases and getting more results."

While the D.A.'s office has long contracted out some of its family-support operations - Lockheed Martin IMS already has an $8 million contract for payment processing - the move to privatize even more has gained momentum in recent weeks.

"A system that fails to collect child support for 90 percent of our children, and falsely bills individuals for children for whom they are not responsible, urgently needs to be overhauled," said Supervisor Mike Antonovich.

For the first time, a majority of supervisors now support privatizing substantially more of the D.A.'s child-support services. Although the board has no power to order the D.A. to do so, it can work with Garcetti to establish more privatization.

Such an agreement now seems to be in the offing. The only question now is, just how much will be contracted out and at what pace?

Some functions of the D.A.'s office, such as those currently handled by deputy district attorneys, cannot be handled by private contractors under state law.

The functions that could be privatized include using computer databases to track down deadbeat parents who owe child support and identifying their assets - as well as finding single parents to whom that support is owed.

"While contracting everything out is not on the table, we are looking at where we can give ourselves an assist in finding people and finding assets," said Wayne Doss, director of the D.A.'s Bureau of Family Support.

On Nov. 10, the supervisors passed a motion by Antonovich ordering Auditor-Controller Alan Sasaki to set up a 30-day "challenge test" in which private companies and the D.A.'s office would each get to track down a certain number of deadbeat parents.

The exact parameters of the test are expected to be hammered out next month between the supervisors and Garcetti's office, with the test itself beginning in January, Doss said.

"I would expect most of the dozen or so major players to come out for this test," Doss said. "It is, after all, their shot at landing the largest county in the country as a client."

Besides Lockheed Martin, Doss expects firms like TRW Information Systems and Equifax Inc. to enter the fray, along with several smaller companies.

"Government databases only go so far," he said. "They are not as extensive and as up to date as those that these companies have access to. For example, we use the Department of Motor Vehicles as one of our primary databases. But you'd be surprised at how few people actually notify the DMV when they move, even though it is the law. Private companies can access magazine subscriptions, insurance information and other data-bases that can be far more current."

He cited a pair of pilot projects now underway in the D.A.'s office in which companies are tracking down single parents -primarily mothers - who are owed child support. Currently, Garcetti's office is sitting on $25 million it has collected in child-support payments, but it has not yet located the single parents to whom that money is owed.

The move to privatize comes none too soon for child-support advocates like Susan Speir, president and founder of Single Parents United and Kids, or SPUNK.

"The D.A.'s office has done a lousy job," Speir said. "They have so many addresses that are bad and, even when they have a valid address, they are very slow to respond. The whole thing should have been privatized at least 10 years ago."

But Speir believes any privatization effort should have very stringent guidelines. "While I believe that private companies do a better job than the government, that does not mean they are immune to screw-ups," she said.

Indeed, the record has been mixed in child-support privatization nationwide, according to a recent report from the U.S. General Accounting Office. "Governments at all levels are struggling with the best way to hold service providers accountable for results," the report said. Among the biggest challenges, the report continues, is coming up with effective ways to monitor contractor performance.