10 CHILD SUPPORT SERVICES

The Department of Child Support Services is the single state agency designated to administer the Title IV-D state plan. The Department is responsible for providing strong state leadership to ensure that all functions necessary to establish, collect and distribute child support in California, including securing child and spousal support, medical support and determining paternity, are effectively and efficiently implemented. Eligibility for California's funding under Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) Block Grant is contingent upon continuously providing these federally required child support services. Further, the Child Support Program operates using clearly delineated federal performance measures, with minimum standards prescribing acceptable performance levels necessary for receipt of federal incentive funding. The objective of the Child Support Program is to provide an effective system for encouraging and, when necessary, enforcing parental responsibilities, by establishing paternity for children, establishing court orders for financial and medical support, and enforcing those orders so that children receive financial and medical support as ordered.

10.01-Child Support Administration:

The Child Support Administration program is funded from federal and state funds. The Child Support Administration expenditures are comprised of state staff salaries and benefits and operating expenses, local child support agency administrative, electronic data processing maintenance, and operation costs. The federal government pays 66 percent and the state pays 34 percent of the Child Support Program costs. In addition, the Child Support Program earns federal incentive funds based on the state's performance in five federal performance measures. Prior to October 2007, these federal incentive funds offset the state General Fund on a dollar for dollar basis because these funds have been eligible for federal matching funds. Beginning in October 2007, the incentive funds will not be eligible for federal matching funds.

10.03-Child Support Automation:

Federal law mandates that each state create a single statewide child support automation system that meets federal certification. The Department of Child Support Services, in collaboration with the Franchise Tax Board and private vendors, has implemented Version 1 of the California Child Support Automation System (CCSAS), which provides centralized data processing, collection, and disbursements services according to the federal requirements as an Alternative System Configuration. The Department anticipates full implementation of Version 2 of CCSAS by November 2008, when the system will be operating as a single statewide system. There are two components of the statewide system. The first is the Child Support Enforcement (CSE) system and the second is the State Disbursement Unit (SDU). The CSE component contains tools to manage the accounts of child support recipients and to locate and intercept assets from non-custodial parents who are delinquent in their child support payments. The SDU provides services to collect child support payments from non-custodial parents and to disburse these payments to custodial parents.

10.04-Child Support Payments:

The Child Support Payments program provides the Department of Child Support Services the ability to advance funds to non custodial parents who have experienced increases in child support due to the change in accounting rules that took effect at the time of the implementation of the State Disbursement Unit.