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The timely receipt of child support payments is crucial to family self-sufficiency and child well-being. For many low-income families, the only assistance they receive from noncustodial parents is through California's child support program. The California Department of Child Support Services (DCSS) is responsible for establishing child support orders and collecting payments for parents who choose to utilize the system and for families receiving CalWORKs benefits. In FY 2004, the program collected nearly $2.3 billion, with almost 75 percent of that going directly to families.
The federal government pays for two-thirds of the program. It also pays the states incentives based on their performance in five areas: paternity establishments; court orders; current collections; arrears collections; and program cost effectiveness. The better California's performance is on these measures, the greater the state's share of federal incentives. The incentive currently exceeds $50 million, which is matched with the two-thirds federal funding, making the incentive actually worth $150 million.
Although the program's performance has been improving since legislative reforms in 1999, California still lags behind other states on several performance measures. NCYL-sponsored AB 667 aimed to improve statewide performance by establishing annual performance targets to be met by the state Department of Child Support Services and local child support agencies.
The Department would be responsible for developing performance targets for each local child support agency. It would also provide the Department with additional management tools for holding local child support agencies accountable for meeting performance targets.
AB 667 was opposed by county organizations claiming that the goals were overly stringent and would infringe on their local control of child support agencies. The bill was subsequently amended to direct the Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) to conduct an evaluation of the current budgeting methods of child support services and suggest revisions. The LAO would be required to consider a number of factors, including the impact of workload on child support collections; comparable caseloads and workloads of other states; the impact of pending automation; and existing best practices. Such evaluation was intended to provide guidance to the state for improving child support collections.
AB 667 died in the Senate Appropriation's Committee. The author's office is continuing to oversee child support program performance.
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