Child Support Enforcement

To bolster their child support enforcement programs, the states are developing automated systems to (1) locate parents who are shirking child support responsibilities, (2) establish paternity, (3) obtain court orders for child support payments, and (4) collect these amounts from parents. Although the federal government is expected to spend about $860 million during the next several years to help states automate child support systems, the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) oversight of these state efforts has fallen short. Timely corrective action on known problems is critical in developing well-designed automated systems to expedite child support payments. HHS has not, however, pushed for needed changes on seriously flawed systems in some states. As a result, development of three severely deficient systems continued for up to eight years at a cost to the federal government of more than $32 million. HHS officials failed to intervene, citing state responsibility for system development. Regardless of who has primary development responsibility, GAO notes that HHS is required to assess states' development efforts and suspend funding if states deviate from approved plans. Another problem is that HHS' systems division is not required to act on the results of office of audit reports, which often detect problems with automated systems.

GAO found that: (1) by law, the federal government may pay up to 90 percent of a state's total costs for developing, installing or improving statewide automated child support systems; (2) when its system is complete and certified as meeting requirements, a state may receive additional funding for operational costs; (3) states must have fully operational and certified systems by October 1, 1995, at which time development funding will end, and states may be subject to additional funding reductions; (4) OCSE is responsible for continually monitoring automated systems development and installation to ensure that systems meet federal requirements, and can suspend further federal funding for systems that do not; (5) although OCSE has taken some corrective steps, its oversight of state systems is inadequate; (6) OCSE has allowed some states to continue to receive funding without correcting known system problems; and (7) in monitoring state systems, OCSE does not always use or act on OCSE audit reports that identify deficiencies.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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