States Get Creative with Child Support Enforcement

Child Support Project

States Get Creative with Child Support Enforcement

State Legislatures Magazine, December, 1998
Article by Teresa A. Myers

With reform under way, states are searching for new and better ways to collect child support.

Four years ago, the Urban Institute released a disturbing report on the nation's child support enforcement programs. The study found that only 38 percent of all single mothers received any child support in 1989. It also estimated that the gap between what was being collected and what could be collected under an ideal system was many billions of dollars.

Reports like this one and growing constituent complaints thrust child support enforcement to center stage in capitols across the nation. As legislators struggled to rectify the dismal collection numbers and force more parents to accept financial responsibility for their children, they resorted to new ways to establish and enforce child support orders.

By 1996, Congress decided to enact major changes as part of a sweeping welfare reform package. The law included dozens of pages of mandated reforms of state programs for child support enforcement. Failure to enact the required reforms could result in a complete loss of federal welfare funds. This breathtaking penalty was further encouragement for state legislators to sit up and take notice of child support, and many knew little about it. During the state legislative debates over the federal requirements, they were treated to a crash course on the failure of the nation's enforcement system.

Two years later, nearly every state has enacted a reform package based roughly on the federal mandates. And now that millions of people have left the welfare rolls, child support is more important than ever for low-income families. Despite steady improvements in state services in the last five years, the latest numbers confirm that there is still work to do: Only 20.5 percent of families in state caseloads received any child support in 1996.

"I don't think most state legislators needed to have a very broad knowledge of child support before the federal mandates forced us to examine our programs in more depth," explains Representative Matt Entenza of Minnesota. "In my mind, one of the unexpected benefits of having to swallow those mandates was that legislators had to better educate themselves about child support in order to wisely consider the legislation necessary under the mandates."

Armed with that education, state lawmakers and agency administrators continue to experiment with new and sometimes controversial methods of locating parents, collecting support and establishing paternity.

"I think we're looking for the next great child support idea," explains Representative Entenza, "and we're willing to be creative to get this money to the kids who need it. Some of us have been committed to this issue for a while, but now we also have the support, understanding and interest of our colleagues, who were initiated under fire during welfare reform. The kinds of reforms in the federal mandates were a good start in many ways, but now we have to look further."

LOOKING FOR IDEAS
Officials nationwide are casting about for ways to update and improve their child support programs and are looking to their sister states for ideas. Many innovations are not created explicitly in law, but stem from broad statutory authority and supportive legislative oversight. Many predate the federal mandates and already have a positive track record, while others are still in their infancy. Some build upon the federal mandates, but most are entirely outside the 1996 requirements. Whatever their origin, they have one thing in common: Legislators want and need to know about them. These initiatives and others like them are sure to generate the next round of legislative reforms.

PUTTING KIDS FIRST IN VIRGINIA
Virginia's KidsFirst Campaign has attracted a lot of attention in its first year, and with reason. Exasperated with growing delinquencies and the suspicion that many Virginia parents could afford to pay and chose not to, state officials got tough-really tough. For example, parents with outstanding warrants for noncompliance with child support orders were arrested, and new warrants were issued on many others. A second round of apprehensions and issuances brought in $4.4 million of overdue child support in September 1997. That November, Virginia introduced yet another attention-getting device-car boots. Many states use such boots for traffic violations, but Virginia is the first to employ them for child support enforcement. And they added another twist: blue and pink boots based on the gender of the child awaiting support payments. State officials insist that the boots are not intended to humiliate remiss parents, but to get their attention. With $25 million in additional collections credited to the KidsFirst Campaign, it has certainly gotten the attention of state officials nationwide.

HAVE A CIGAR-AND A PATERNITY FORM
Several states, including Florida, North Carolina and Wisconsin, have recruited the help of local sports stars to promote parental responsibility. North Carolina's public service announcements feature Carolina Panther Eric Davis extolling the virtues of fatherhood and encouraging men to acknowledge legal paternity and financially support their children. Massachusetts is using high school seniors as lecturers in their school-based outreach program called Dads Make a Difference. The project, aimed at ninth- and 10th-grade boys, stresses the responsibilities and pressures of fatherhood and the importance of a father in a child's life.

Illinois and West Virginia are both piloting paternity outreach programs for men incarcerated in their state prisons. The Illinois project has been operating since November 1997 and has generated impressive results. In six months, the project established paternity in 830 cases. Project staff rely on a liaison with the state department of corrections to set up meetings with the prisoners and pursue proof of paternity only for children receiving public assistance. Genetic testing and mediated videoconferencing are offered for contested paternity situations. Project administrators have lobbied for inclusion of child support information in prisoners' pre-release packages. According to Joe Mason of the Illinois Department of Public Aid, the prison population has welcomed the program. "People don't believe it," he reports, "but these guys want to do the honorable thing by these kids."

Many Illinois prisoners are employed by the state-operated prison industries, but income withholding isn't allowed, so all child support payments are voluntary. Even so, many fathers volunteer to participate. Project staff work with prisoners to set reasonable child support amounts and help them understand the obligations.

"It's a matter of pride for these men to be able to say that they're supporting their kids," Mason explains, "and that's really important to them because they may not have a whole lot else to take pride in. Besides, it's great for the kids to know that, even in prison, their dad is trying to take care of them."

Of course, it's uncertain how much these fathers may be able to contribute financially over the life of the child. But, as Joe Mason points out, "There's more to being a dad than writing a large check."

Despite being much smaller than the Illinois project, West Virginia's prison outreach is also getting attention. Since the summer of 1997, at least 75 paternities have been verified in six regional jails. "This project has been much more successful than we'd imagined," confims Rick Dudis, coordinator for the state hospital paternity program. "We're pretty pleased with the participation levels."

FAIR'S FAIR IN IDAHO
Idaho lawmakers were troubled by frequent complaints from parents who said they were being denied visitation rights in violation of court orders. In order to see their children, they had to hire attorneys and return to court for yet another round of legal wrangling. This didn't seem fair to legislators, who noted that there were plenty of administrative penalties for parents who didn't pay child support, but none for parents who violated the same court orders by interfering with visitation. For instance, parents behind in their child support payments faced the threat of possible restrictions on their driver's, professional, occupational and recreational licenses. The license restriction program was successful, so the lawmakers turned the tables. Parents unlawfully denied visitation in Idaho can now file a request to have the caretaker parents' licenses suspended or restricted based on visitation interference, and they can do so without a lawyer.

"We just thought it was a fair application of the laws," explains Senator Grant Ipsen. "Our main goal is that both parents should be responsible for their children and involved in their lives."

MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION, PLEASE
Public awareness campaigns seem to be one of the most popular initiatives for state child support programs. Even before Colorado or Maryland launched their driver's license suspension programs for delinquent parents, both states invested in public education blitzes. Maryland used brochures, billboards, posters, transit advertising and more than 400 radio and television ads to get the message out about the new enforcement measure. Once the program started, officials paid for full-page newspaper advertisements and posters in a major grocery store chain in the state. Apparently the target audience heard the message: The state has collected $48.55 in overdue child support for every advertising dollar spent.

When Colorado officials decided to publicize their driver's license suspension program, they quickly realized that funds to do so were in short supply. The solution? The child support enforcement division collaborated with a local college marketing program to create a multidimensional advertising campaign. The campaign became the semester project for two marketing and advertising classes at Metropolitan State College of Denver. Students created concepts and designs for posters and grocery bags.

"It was a win-win situation," reports Dan Welch, coordinator for the driver's license suspension program. "We got the publicity campaign we needed, and the students got valuable, real-world experience on an important issue. We would definitely do it again."

UPDATING AN OLD STANDBY IN MASSACHUSETTS
With the advent of the Internet, many state child support enforcement divisions are updating an old law enforcement tool-the Most Wanted poster. Massachusetts' story shows precisely how powerful a tool these can be. Since June 1995, Massachusetts authorities have used Most Wanted posters on their Web site to feature 55 of the most delinquent parents in their caseload and caught 51 of them as a result. Recently the state began highlighting the Five Most Wanted of the Month and caught four of them in the first month.

"We were astounded," says Diana Obbard, spokeswoman for the state child support enforcement division, "but probably not as astounded as the ones we caught."

Obbard tells how one featured parent was apprehended in the Dominican Republic with the assistance of Interpol, while another, a Beatles impersonator, was arrested in England.

THE CIRCUITS THAT BIND
To the uninitiated, Washington state's automated child support system sounds like something from a science fiction novel. The state agency's mainframe computer "talks" to similar computers in 17 other state and local agencies to identify and locate parents who owe child support. The "quick locate" program is responsible for all interstate requests for location information, as well as all Washington cases. The automated "autotroll" program "trolls" the various computer sources for potential information 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The program boasts a one-day response time for location requests. "Locating parents is at the heart of what we do," explains Robin Wohl, program manager for the state central registry. "It's the first step in enforcing any child support order, and we take it very seriously. We're always looking for new ideas and ways to improve our system."

Child support advocates and government officials are buzzing about Puerto Rico's automated system for processing child support payments. The system was implemented in 1994 and processes nearly $250,000 in payments daily. Payments with complete case information are usually processed and distributed within 24 hours, but no payment takes longer than 48 hours to process before being mailed. The success of the system is a point of pride for officials in the small territory. "It's important to get the money to the children," explains Margarita Jacobs of the child support division. "We have a dedicated technical staff, and we're proud of what we've been able to do."

HONORING "GOOD DADS"
So much is written about the parents who can't or won't pay their child support obligations, but what about the ones who do? To recognize the often-overlooked fathers who faithfully make their child support payments every month, Massachusetts officials sent thank you cards to the most consistently paying dads in 1996. The following year, state authorities embellished the concept and created a Father's Day event to honor the "good dads." In 1998, the state sent letters to 4,500 divorced, custodial mothers reminding them of the excellent payment records of their former husbands and inviting nominations from the children for the state's Fatherhood Recognition Contest.

"The response was so overwhelming and the children's nominations were so good," says Diana Obbard, "that we ended up picking 16 dads. We just couldn't narrow it down to one." The winners attended a reception in their honor with the governor at the State House and received prizes, such as tickets to local sporting events. "This was one of our best ideas in years," she says. "The staff, guests and families really got into it. It reminds all of us why we're doing this."

While there's still a long way to go, things actually are improving for American children dependent on a child support check. Between 1992 and 1996, every state's child support collections increased at least 20 percent, and 16 states improved their collection rates by 70 percent or more. More than $13 billion was collected in 1997, an increase of 68 percent over 1992, and almost 1.5 million more children are receiving support today than in 1992. States established two-and-a-half times more paternities in 1997 than in 1992-1.3 million compared with 510,000. How much of this improvement is because of the kinds of innovations showcased here? It's probably too soon to tell, but these initiatives represent the determination and ingenuity of state officials struggling to deliver support to America's children. Their creativity will drive the next round of state child support reforms and produce even better numbers in the future.

For additional information on state child support enforcement contact the Child Support Project at 303/364-7700.