1. CSDA Research Committee Presents Child Support Research Findings Nationwide Prepared By: Mark Takayesu Vice-Chair Glen Castro – Orange County DCSS Natalie Metzger - CSDA Steven Kennedy – Chair

2. Arrears Did you know that the following strategies worked to reduce arrears accumulation in Texas? Source – Preventing Child Support Arrears in Texas by Improving Front-end Processes; 2006 – Urban Institute  Establishing an administrative process for establishing orders.  Updating, monitoring and following up on Income Withholding Orders

3. Did you know that previous research demonstrates that payment behaviors track with the basic economic situation of NCPs; rather than incentive programs? Source – An Evaluation of the Colorado Arrears Forgiveness Demonstration Project; 2002 – Center For Policy Research Arrears  In Colorado, debt forgiveness has limited appeal: only a small percentage of NCPs agreed to participate in arrears debt forgiveness in exchange for regular and complete payments of child support obligations.  Debt forgiveness opportunities attract payers rather than nonpayers.  Most delinquent child support payers have the worst commercial credit record.

4. Did you know that National Child Support Arrears has grown ten-fold in 19 years? Arrears Source – Assessing Child Support Arrears in Nine Large States and the Nation; 2007 – Urban Institute National Child Support Arrears: FY 1987 to FY 2006 $11.3 $14.2 $18.2 $23.3 $26.3 $30.4 $35.0 $39.3 $45.2 $49.4 $51.4 $102.4 $95.8 $92.3 $88.1 $84.0 $75.4 $18.9 $106.6 $105.4 8788899091929394959697989900010203040506 Fiscal Years Billions

5. Why have arrears grown so rapidly? Source – Assessing Child Support Arrears in Nine Large States and the Nation 2007 – Urban Institute Arrears Three factors:  Assessment of interest on routine basis  Non-compliance with current support orders  Low payment on arrears

6. What is the percentage of caseload by State in FY 2008? Source – Office of Child Support Enforcement 2008 – www.acf.hhs.govwww.acf.hhs.gov CA and Other State Comparisons

7. What are Promising Practices and Good Ideas in Child Support? Source – Compendium of Promising Practices and Good Ideas in Child Support; 2007 – Office of Child Support Enforcement CA and Other State Comparisons  Massachusetts – Encourage employers to comply with requirements of income withholding orders and enforce those requirements.  Massachusetts – Reduce State Medicaid costs by enrolling dependent children in private health insurance.  Minnesota – Eight Minnesota counties conduct Big 8 meetings to discuss performance improvement.

8. What are Promising Practices and Good Ideas in Child Support? Source – Compendium of Promising Practices and Good Ideas in Child Support; 2007 – Office of Child Support Enforcement CA and Other State Comparisons  Missouri – Sorting cases to improve collections to be worked by teams: o Category 1 – NCP not paying, no enforcement remedies exist o Category 2 – NCP not paying, enforcement remedies exist o Category 3 – NCP resides in another State and interstate referral is /should be completed o Category 4 – NCP paying for minimum of three consecutive months.

9. What are Promising Practices and Good Ideas in Child Support? Source – Compendium of Promising Practices and Good Ideas in Child Support; 2007 – Office of Child Support Enforcement CA and Other State Comparisons  Ohio – Guernsey County Increase Collections without having to utilize the driver’s license enforcement technique unless absolutely necessary by using bright pink sheets of paper to send as warning notices to obligors.  Texas – Use of annual business plans to align projects with Federal and State goals.  Virginia – Cell phone subpoena program.

10. What are Promising Practices and Good Ideas in Child Support? Source – Compendium of Promising Practices and Good Ideas in Child Support; 2007 – Office of Child Support Enforcement CA and Other State Comparisons  Virginia – Early Intervention  Washington State – Creation of performance analyst specialists job openings that assist in identifying correlations between actions taken and results achieved, and assist as Quality Assurance consultant to supervisors and lead workers with a data integrity and reliability focus.

11. Did you know that child support collections in California lead to millions of dollars in cost avoidance to other government programs? Source – Cost Avoidance and Cost Recovery in California’s Child Support Program: SFY 2000-01; 2004 – Urban Institute Cost Avoidance  For example, in SFY 2000-01 California’s Child Support program contributed to an estimated $233 Million in Cost Avoidance to the following programs: Cal WORKS, 48% SSI, 7% Food Stamp Program, 29% Housing, 4% Medi-Cal, 12%

12. Did you know Early Intervention improves compliance? Source – Report on the Results of the Monterey County, California Child Support “Delinquency Prevention Program” Pilot Project 2008 – Monterey County Department of Child Support Services Early Intervention  Early Intervention Group outperforms a comparable control group 0% 25% 46% 41% 48% 52% 64% 17% 4% 19% 16% 20% 33% 30% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% June July August September October November December DPP-All CasesDCSS Sample-All Cases

13. Did you know that stipulated cases receive payments the fastest? Source – Child Support Quarterly, Fall 2008, Volume 58, No. 30 Early Intervention

14. Did you know that differences in compliance exist between aid status and order type? Source – Orange County DCSS: Stipulation Project, FFY 2007 Early Intervention

15. Did you know that in Maryland, Early Intervention improves performance? Source – Early Intervention & Child Support Outcomes: Lessons Learned; 2009 – Family Welfare Research and Training Group; University of Maryland Early Intervention  Early Intervention reduces the receipt time of the first child support payment to a CP, especially the most challenging cases: those with multiple cases and those with Current and Former Assistance types.  Early Intervention increases payment compliance.

16. Did you know that fatherhood programs help fathers understand the importance of paying formal child support? Source – Ten Key Findings from Responsible Fatherhood Initiatives; 2008 – Urban Institute Fatherhood  Regularity and amount of child support payments increases even without measurable increases in employment and earnings.

17. Did you know that fathers who pay child support are more likely to visit their children? Source – Do Nonresident Fathers Who Pay Child Support Visit Their Children More? 2002 – Urban Institute Fatherhood Proportion of Children Visiting Their Nonresident Fathers in the Previous Year, by Child Support Order and Payment, 1 999 43% 64% 79% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% No Support Order and No Payment Support Order and No Payment Support Order and Payment Child Born Out of Wedlock

18. Did you know that most people in state prison are parents – 55% of men and 65% of women in state prison have children under 18? Source – Debtors’ Prison – Prisoners’ Accumulation of Debt as Barrier to Reentry 2007 – Clearinghouse Review Journal of Poverty Law and Policy Incarceration  About half of incarcerated parents have open child support cases.  Parent owing child support typically enter prison with $10,000 child support debt and leave owing $20,000 or more.  Few states initiate the process of adjusting orders when a parent is incarcerated, and about a quarter of the states consider incarceration as “voluntary unemployment”

19. Did you know that child support makes a difference to children? Source – The Child Support Program: An Investment That Works; 2005 – Center For Law and Social Policy Investment in Child Support  Next to mothers’ earnings, child support is the second largest income source for poor families receiving child support  Child support helps connect children to their fathers  Nearly 60% of all single parent families participate in the child support program  Child support reduces welfare use  Parents with regular child support hold jobs longer

20. How is California’s child support program performing? Source – Comparative Data For Managing Program Performance; 2002-2008 - DCSS Performance STATEWIDE Distributed Collections FFY 2002 to FFY 2008 $2,000,000,000 $2,100,000,000 $2,200,000,000 $2,300,000,000 $2,400,000,000 $2,500,000,000 Collections $2,172,161,695$2,244,367,388$2,290,754,781$2,333,106,442$2,293,457,856$2,285,389,652$2,351,812,336 FFY 2002FFY 2003FFY 2004FFY 2005FFY 2006FFY 2007FFY 2008 8.3% Increase From FFY 2002 to FFY 2008

21. How is California’s child support program performing? Source – Comparative Data For Managing Program Performance; 2002-2009 DCSS Performance

22. Did you know that payments by credit card lead to increases in Distributed Collections? Source – Child Support Report 2009 – OCSE Vol. 31 No.4 April 2009 Performance

23. Nationwide: Did you know that while TANF/FC Distributed Collections remained stable, Non-TANF Distributed Collections increased 24%? Source – Office of Child Support Enforcement FY 2008 Preliminary Report 2008; – OCSE. www.acf.hhs.gov. Performance

24. Did you know that birth rates in California are high compared to other developed countries? Source – Birth Rates in California, PPIC; California Counts Population Trends and Profiles, Volume 9 Number 2 November 2007 Special Topics

25. Did you know that California fertility rates are stable over the past ten years? Source – Birth Rates in California, PPIC; California Counts Population Trends and Profiles, Volume 9 Number 2 November 2007 Special Topics

26. Did you know that teen birth rates have been declining in U.S. and California? Source – Birth Rates in California, PPIC; California Counts Population Trends and Profiles, Volume 9 Number 2 November 2007 Special Topics

27. Did you know that nationally child support is an effective tool for fighting poverty? Source – Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support: 2005; 2007- U.S. Census Bureau Special Topics  For custodial parents receiving part or full child support payments, the percent of custodial parents receiving payments has increased from 1993 to 2005, especially those receiving full payments.

28. Special Topics Source – Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support: 2005; 2007- U.S. Census Bureau Percent of Custodial Parents Below Poverty Receiving Part or Full Child Support Payments 26.4% 28.3% 29.8% 32.0% 30.8% 35.2% 39.6% 44.1%38.7% 33.7%32.1%34.7%33.5% 33.0% 1993199519971999200120032005 Full PaymentPartial Payment 70.5% 67.0% 63.5% 64.1%65.5% 68.7% 72.6%

29. When examining the relationship between income and gender of non-custodial parents: Source – An Economic Study of Recent Washington Child Support Orders 2002; – Washington State Department of Child Support Services Guideline Calculator  Non-custodial mothers income is only 60.3% of non-custodial fathers’ income.  For non-custodial mothers, the order amount represents 15.2% of their monthly income (compared to 19% for non-custodial fathers)  Income imputation for the purposes of establishing child support orders is common: 37.8% of the orders for non-custodial fathers are based on imputed income values

30. Did you know that a 20% order of gross wages is the breakpoint above which arrearages would grow? Source – A Study of Washington State Child Support Orders – Exploring the Universe of Cases Within the Context of the Child Support Schedule 2005 – Washington State Department of Social and Health Services Guideline Calculator  In a study of Washington State Child Support Orders, the majority of orders fell well below 20% of gross income.

31. Did you know that there is not a “one size fits all” when it comes to a data warehouse? However, many states use a data warehouse for a variety of reasons for a variety of reports. Source – Enhancing Child Support Enforcement Efforts: Summary of Data Warehouse Efforts in Nine States; 2006 – The Lewin Group Data Warehouse

32. Source – Enhancing Child Support Enforcement Efforts: Summary of Data Warehouse Efforts in Nine States; 2006 – The Lewin Group Types of Reports Used By State: StateFederal ReportsOther Reports MaineNonePredefined performance and caseload reports; canned queries MarylandOCSE 157, OCSE 34aDrivers license suspension; paternity affidavit MichiganOCSE 157, OCSE 34aCaseload report North CarolinaOCSE 157, self-assessment reports60 child support reports for program management PennsylvaniaOCSE 157, OCSE 34a, self-assessment reports Drivers license suspension, new hires collections, Financial Institution Data Match report, credit bureau report VermontSelf-assessment reportsPre-defined reports include cases to review for closure, number of actions taken by workers, cases with arrears not receiving payments; Digital Dashboard WashingtonNoneProgress reports on state and Federal performance measures WisconsinNoneAd hoc reports; users can create summary level data WyomingNone20 predefined reports

33. Where Do I Find More Information Regarding These Articles? Please visit the CSDA Website at: http//www.csdaca.org/archive.aspx Or go the Research Committee page and click on the link For further information, please contact Natalie Metzger (nmetzger@csdaca.org) or Mark Takayesu (mtakayesu@css.ocgov.com) for maintenance of the CSDA Research Committee Website.mtakayesu@css.ocgov.com