Follow-up review. The distribution of Child Support Enforcement Program payment

FOLLOW-UP REVIEW

The Distribution of Child Support Enforcement Program Payments
January 2003

Russell W. Hinton, State Auditor Performance Audit Operations Division 254 Washington St. S.W.

Department of Audits and Accounts

Atlanta, GA 30334-8400

This is a Follow-up Review of the Performance Audit on The Distribution of Child Support Enforcement Program Payments conducted by the Performance Audit Operations Division in December 2000.
Background
The mission of the Child Support Enforcement Program (Program) is to reduce the public and private burden of raising financially abandoned children to adulthood. This is accomplished through locating absent parents, establishing paternity, establishing and enforcing support obligations, and distributing payments. The Program helps any custodial parent or caretaker of a child collect child support from a parent who should contribute. The money collected goes directly to custodial parents and their children or to the state and federal governments as reimbursement of public assistance (welfare) payments.
The Program is administered by the Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) within the Department of Human Resources (DHR). Services are provided through 67 local offices across the State and 1,189 staff positions (including 226 contract positions).
Synopsis of the Performance Audit
The original audit was initiated based on a legislative request. The legislator cited concerns based on requests for help he had received from his constituents. To outline his concerns, he provided a letter from the Atlanta Legal Aid Society that claimed its attorneys and clients had encountered certain "problems" in dealing with the Program. The Atlanta Legal Aid Society identified 10 problem areas which primarily related to distribution of child support payments.
The audit team requested that the Atlanta Legal Aid Society supply specific case information for the problems identified in their letter so we could independently research the problems and, if possible, identify their underlying causes as part of our audit. In response to this request, the

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audit team received adequate information to research only one problem case. Partial information was provided for six additional cases that were not directly related to the Atlanta Legal Aid Society's letter; however, the information that was provided was not sufficient to research these cases.
The original performance audit did not find any indication of problems in three of the 10 reported areas of concern. The audit found that clients that only received Income Deduction Order services were not incorrectly paying a $25 application fee to have their child support payments processed. Additionally, the audit found that the Program's automated systems were generating the required notices and were prompting agent action for all of the cases requiring enforcement action. Lastly, the audit found that payments were correctly made to multiple support groups on a pro rata basis.
The audit identified that action was needed to improve the Program's effectiveness and efficiency in the other seven problem areas. In addition, the audit identified an additional problem related to the Program's monitoring of customer inquires and complaints. These areas are discussed below.

Status of Audit Recommendations
Finding/Recommendation (as reported in 2000): While there only appeared to be a relatively small problem with payments being mailed to the wrong address, the Program needs to evaluate whether an interface problem exists between their computer system and DFCS' computer system. Current Status: The Program, DFCS, and DHR's Office of Information Technology (OIT) formed a workgroup to study interface issues between DFCS' and the Program's computer systems. The workgroup discovered two interface problems, which caused payments to be mailed to the wrong address. The Program issued a project request in June 2002 to correct one problem and OIT is currently working with the U.S. Post Office to correct the other problem.

Finding/Recommendation (as reported in 2000): Demand for the Program's Hotline services greatly exceeded its capacity and the Program was planning to expand its Hotline's hours of operation and number of operators. The Program needs to evaluate the impact that the implementation of these changes will have on its ability to handle Hotline inquiries and make additional changes as necessary. Current Status: The Program has expanded the hours of its Hotline to 24 hours a day and has added 10 operator positions increasing the total number of positions to 30. The Program has also added a new on-line service called "Where's My Child's Check" in October 2002, which allows non-custodial parents to verify the status of their last six child support payments through a secure website. Although the Program believes that this new service will reduce the volume of calls to the Hotline the demand for Hotline services still exceeds its capacity. It should be noted that the Georgia Technology Authority's Converged Communications Outsourcing Project (CCOP) will consolidate the Program's Hotline into a centralized call center for all of state government. The CCOP contract is scheduled to be awarded in April 2003, with implementation starting in July

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2003. As of January 2003, the status of the CCOP contract is uncertain as Governor Perdue has put the contract on hold since one of the two bidders removed itself from consideration.
Finding/Recommendation (as reported in 2000): There did not appear to be a significant problem with delays in distributing payments from Income Deduction Orders as a result of cases not being opened in at timely manner. However, the Program should consider additional monitoring to identify attorneys that are not submitting new Income Deduction Orders in a timely manner. Current Status: To ensure that payments are not delayed by untimely case openings the Program has given presentations to local Bar Associations to educate attorneys on the proper handling of certain types of more complicated Income Deduction Orders (IDOs). The Program also provides attorneys with written instructions on how to process these types of IDOs. The Program reported that the number of instances of delayed payments for these types of IDOs now averages only two to three per month.
Finding/Recommendation (as reported in 2000): The audit team did not have sufficient information to determine if custodial parents were receiving child support payments in a timely manner after termination of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) benefits. Since the Program has acknowledged that such payments are sometimes delayed, it needs to determine the reasons these payments are delayed so that appropriate action can be taken. Current Status: In July 2002, the Program identified and corrected three system errors that were causing payment delays. These delays occurred when the effective date and case type were erroneously changing and when the case type history was not updating properly due to system glitches. The Program reported that it corrected 93,663 cases where the case type history was not updating properly. After these changes were implemented, the Program reviewed a random sample of 44 cases and found that these changes were effective in stopping delayed payments.
Finding/Recommendation (as reported in 2000): The original audit found that only approximately 65% to 70% of the Program's child support enforcement orders were established in at timely manner. The Program acknowledged the need to improve its compliance in the area of establishing support orders. Current Status: The Program closed approximately 60,000 cases as a result of a statewide Business Process project which has enabled it to work cases needing establishment services in a more timely manner. The Program is also working on a pilot project involving the Office of State Administrative Hearings to reduce the time required to process new orders. In addition, a rewrite of the Program's computer systems ($TARS) is scheduled to be implemented in January 2003. The Program has improved their compliance rate of establishing child support enforcement orders in a timely manner from 65% in federal fiscal year 1999 to 77% in federal fiscal year 2001 and is now within established federal requirements.

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Finding/Recommendation (as reported in 2000): Information was not available on the amount of time custodial parents have to wait for review/modification services. As a result of the audit, the Program started requiring offices to report on their review/modification waiting lists. Current Status: In October 2001, the Program required Child Support Enforcement offices to develop a list of child support orders eligible for review. The Program reported that in federal fiscal year 2002 there were 11,660 requests for reviews of orders and 1,503 of these requests (13%) could not be completed within the 180 days allowed by federal policy. The Program indicated that many of the orders, which took longer than 180 days to review, were delayed due to individuals not being properly served, individuals that could not be located (offices are now instructed to remove these cases from their logs), or to delays in the court system. To reduce delays, the Program has started working closely with law enforcement agencies, process servers, and judges to ensure that cases are processed as quickly as possible.
Finding/Recommendation (as reported in 2000): The Program needs to prioritize efforts to research cases with large undistributed funds so it can distribute these child support payments to the custodial parents. Current Status: The Program implemented a policy on researching and resolving undistributed funds in January 2001 which has helped reduce the amount of undistributed funds. Since January 2001, the Program has been able to reduce the amount of undistributed funds by 59% from $4.2 million to $1.7 million (as of September 2002).
Finding/Recommendation (as reported in 2000): At the time of the original audit the Program did not have a complaint and inquiry system that could identify trends or patterns that management could address to preempt future problems. Current Status: In July 2001, the Program's customer service unit began maintaining statewide statistics on complaints. Each Child Support Enforcement office is required to record the number of valid complaints received on a monthly basis. In fiscal year 2002, the offices reported receiving 601 valid complaints. The Program established a benchmark for their offices to receive no more than one valid complaint for every 15,000 cases handled by the office. In fiscal year 2002, 49 (73%) of the 67 offices met this benchmark. Initial analysis of customer complaints identified that most complaints involved missing payments or payment amounts and that privatized child support programs received more valid complaints than county and state administered programs.
For additional information or to request a copy of the Performance Audit, contact Paul Bernard at 404-651-8855.
Or see our website: www2.state.ga.us/Departments/AUDIT/pao/pao_main.htm

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