United States: ACS Awarded $21 Million Contract to Process Child Support Payments in South Carolina.

Byline: shiv03

Affiliated Computer Services, Inc. today announced it has been awarded a contract from the South Carolina Department of Social Services (DSS) to manage and operate the state's child support payment processing center.

ACS will work with the state to modernize and centralize its method of collecting and distributing child support by creating a state disbursement unit (SDU) for payment processing and customer care, expected to handle approximately 3.5 million transactions each year. Custodial parents will now have the option to receive child support payments on a debit card, which offers fast, convenient and safe access to funds and is accepted at thousands of retailers and ATMs. ACS will also provide call center services to respond to general child support questions. The center will be available on weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

"The SDU is a federal requirement for all states, so the federal government provides approximately 60 percent of the funding," said Dr. Kathleen Hayes, state director, South Carolina Department of Social Services. "As South Carolina modernizes its child support services, our work with ACS will ensure that the program is tailored for the needs of our state. ACS will provide us with the tools to better serve our constituents." The program will begin in October 2011 as a pilot in a small number of South Carolina counties, and scheduled to be fully operational across the state later that year. South Carolina is the final state in the country to move to a centralized child support structure. The seven-year contract is valued at $21 million.

"Our new partnership with South Carolina is another example of why ACS is a leader in human services, processing more than half of the nation's child support payments," said Joseph Doherty, executive vice president and group president of ACS Government Solutions. "Our innovation and subject matter expertise will immediately make a difference for the state and those who rely on its services." As the largest provider of business process solutions and one of the largest information technology service providers to the nation's public sector, ACS serves as an operational partner to more than 1,700 government agencies on the federal, state, county and local level.

The work of ACS touches millions of people every day. ACS manages 24 electronic payment card programs for state and federal clients, disbursing government payments and benefits; processes nearly 570 million Medicaid claims each year totaling more than $50 billion in provider payments; saves state child care programs millions of dollars; services student loans for more than 11 million borrowers; and facilitates more than 75 million online searches for unclaimed property per year.

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