It’s been one of those nonstop write & read days, so I give you about 20,000 words herein, including “Lifestyles of the Rich and Shameless” (Dawin Deason, jet-sitting psychotic yacht-owning pot-smoking, multi-divorced corporate bully responsible for, er, collecting child support (etc)) and a little more Maximus/PWORA background, plus exposing how little the OCSE actually seems to care about how poorly welfare reform (and child support collections) are indeed working — so long as they get their cut.  Which is “the lion’s share.”   Roarrr!

A little review of this PROWA — “Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Acts” — I am seeing how radical a shift this was.   FOR THE RECORD, it was a Republican push, and President Clinton, at the time, would’ve had some political risk to veto welfare reform a 3rd time:

Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

President Bill Clinton signing welfare reform legislation.

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA, Pub.L. 104-193, 110 Stat. 2105, enacted August 22, 1996) is a United States federal law considered to be a fundamental shift in both the method and goal of federal cash assistance to the poor. The bill added a workforce development component to welfare legislation, encouraging employment among the poor. The bill was a cornerstone of the Republican Contract With Americaand was introduced by Rep. E. Clay Shaw, Jr. (R-FL-22) who believed welfare was partly responsible for bringing immigrants to the United States.^[1] Bill Clinton signed PRWORA into law on August 22, 1996, fulfilling his 1992 campaignpromise to “end welfare as we know it”.^[2]

PRWORA instituted Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) which became effective July 1, 1997. TANF replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program which had been in effect since 1935 and also supplanted the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS) program of 1988. The law was heralded as a “reassertion of America’s work ethic” by the US Chamber of Commerce, largely in response to the bill’s workfarecomponent. TANF was reauthorized in the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005.

and (still, Wikipedia):

 Gingrich accused the President of stalling on welfare, and proclaimed that Congress could pass a welfare reform bill in as little as ninety days. Gingrich insisted that the Republican Party would continue to apply political pressure to the President to approve welfare legislation.^[10]

In 1996, after constructing two welfare reform bills that were vetoed by President Clinton^[11], Gingrich and his supporters pushed for the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), a bill aimed at substantially reconstructing the welfare system. Introduced by Rep. E. Clay Shaw, Jr., the act gave state governments more autonomy over welfare delivery, while also reducing the federal government’s responsibilities. It instituted the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program, which placed time limits on welfare assistance and replaced the longstanding Aid to Families with Dependent Children program. Other changes to the welfare system included stricter conditions for food stamps eligibility, reductions in immigrant welfare assistance, and recipient work requirements.^[12]

As I have been showing, by Federal Incentives to the States, and other strong-arm tactics surrounding threats to withdraw TANF payments, a network of single-agencies for distribution of child support, parent locator sources, and more “stuff” has been forced onto the states, relating to this legislation.  It took a few years for the hammer to come down (about 1998, 1999ff) — but the result has been MORE types of families being (through court agencies as well) forced ONTO welfare — as people mistaking child support enforcement for actually “child support enforcement” are confronting a different agenda in Washington — which is to stop divorce in its tracks, involve more faith institutions, and what appears to be continue the EXPANSION (not contraction) of the welfare state. . . . . .

As with any large bureacuracies, there are larger-than-life loopholes, which I am discussing these days — places were millions of $$ and the interest from them, appears to be, er, disappearing after it has been extracted from one parent (or, if the state got the kids somehow, possibly both).

It DID actually end “welfare as we know it” — although not the expanding welfare state.  It just changed its character…..

Gingrich and Clinton negotiated the legislation in private meetings. Previously, Clinton had quietly spoken with Senate Majority Whip Trent Lott for months about the bill, but a compromise on a more acceptable bill for the President could not be reached. Gingrich, on the other hand, gave accurate information about his party’s vote counts and persuaded more conservative members of the Republican Party to vote in favor of PRWORA.^[11]

President Clinton found the legislation more conservative than he would have preferred; however, having vetoed two earlier welfare proposals from the Republican-majority Congress, it was considered a political risk to veto a third bill during a campaign season with welfare reform as a central theme.^[11] As he signed the bill on August 22, 1996, Clinton stated that the act “gives us a chance we haven’t had before to break the cycle of dependency that has existed for millions and millions of our fellow citizens, exiling them from the world of work. It gives structure, meaning and dignity to most of our lives.”^[13]

(Actually, the Wikipedia article is not a bad introduction, overall)….

FOr example, through increased “privatization” and the need for expanding IT (technical, data collection, etc.) services, companies like Maximus, with a history of fraud embezzlement racism, sexism, etc., at unprecedented levels, can now do business directly with states, to allegedly, get the citizens back to work.  Like in Wisconsin:

RESTON, Va.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Jan. 20, 2004–MAXIMUS (NYSE:MMS) has been awarded a two-year, $37.1 million contract from the State of Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development to provide comprehensive Wisconsin Works (W-2) program services including eligibility, assessment, soft skills workshops, job placement, and job retention follow-up services. 

W-2 is the state welfare-to-work program in which MAXIMUS serves Milwaukee County in assisting its citizens become self sufficient through gainful employment. Under this new contract, MAXIMUS has been awarded an additional region in the county and will be serving approximately 5,700 cases. The new caseload level for the two regions is a substantial increase over the previous MAXIMUS contract with the state.

“We have enjoyed our long-standing relationship with the State of Wisconsin helping them achieve national prominence in welfare-to-work. It is a distinct honor to have been selected to continue our relationship”

MAXIMUS has been a partner with the state of Wisconsin in their nationally-recognized W-2 program since its inception in 1997. This competitive re-award of the W-2 contract demonstrates the high-level of confidence the State of Wisconsin places with MAXIMUS to provide quality services in a cost-effective manner.

“We have enjoyed our long-standing relationship with the State of Wisconsin helping them achieve national prominence in welfare-to-work. It is a distinct honor to have been selected to continue our relationship,” commented Dr. David V. Mastran, MAXIUS CEO.

YEP.  Prospecting among the poor is sure profitable….

Here’s a dissertation (2010) on this period, with evaluation from women who lived through the transition:

January 01, 2010

‘Wisconsin works’?: race, gender and accountability in the workfare era

Bridgette Baldwin Northeastern University

Morality tales about laziness and dependency have become popular catchall narratives in the continual reconstruction of welfare policy development and implementation. The American public is overburdened by the lavish lifestyle of the Black ―welfare queen.‖5 She drives around in her nice new Cadillac, never going really anywhere in particular, unless off to pick up her welfare checks (which by the way she had gotten rich on) or to dine on steak and lobster. However, she usually stays at home watching soap operas like ―Days of our Lives‖ generating more income by producing baby after baby. She is cunning, yet shiftless. She is clever in her manipulation of the system, yet uneducated. And, she is quite active in attaining immediate desires and wants, yet lazy in her work ethic, while betraying the ethos of delayed gratification.

 

All hail the ―welfare queen.‖ It is this image of the ―welfare queen‖that became so prevalent  during the ―welfare debates‖ of the 1980s and persisted as a driving force in all out demands for reform of the welfare system. Debates over welfare reform have been so saturated with this image that little attention has been paid to the actual realities or needs of welfare recipients or most explicitly, the conditions in which they live and navigate under policy reform.

 

5 Nancy J. Hirschmann, ―A Question of Freedom, a Question of Rights? Women and Welfare,‖ in Women and Welfare: Theory and Practice in the United States and Europe, eds. Nancy J. Hirschmann and Ulrike Liebert (Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2001).

My dissertation will offer an evaluative analysis of the Wisconsin Works (W-2) program as the model initiative within national welfare reform strategies

It looks like good reading.

here are some Brits talking about it as well, in 2001:

The Impact Of Reform

The Act provoked a storm of protest. President Clinton’s decision to sign the Republican bill that became PRWORA was famously condemned by one of his former aides, Peter Edelman as ‘the worst thing Bill Clinton has done’.4 Similarly, the doyen of commentators on poverty Daniel P. Moynihan lamented that ‘the premise of this legislation is that the behaviour of certain adults can be changed by making the lives of their children as wretched as possible’. The result, he predicted, would be to ‘substantially increase poverty and destitution’.5 Equally forthright was the Nobel  Prize-winning economist Robert Solow. It would be imposs- ible, he argued for the labour market to absorb a sudden influx of unskilled and inexperienced women workers, and the result would be a sharp rise in unemployment and a drop in wage rates.6 Perhaps the most significant critic, however, was David Ellwood, who had done more than anyone to legitimise the idea of time limits and who had been the chief architect of Clinton’s earlier welfare reform plan. He condemned the 1996 Act as ‘appalling’. It offered claimants not ‘two years and you work’ but two years ‘followed by nothing—no welfare, no jobs, no support’. Even worse, the Act would initiate a ‘race to the bottom’ since those states which did want to promote work-based reform ‘may find it too costly if nearby states threaten to dump their poor by simply cutting benefits’.7

And  House Ways & Means Testimony boasting about it in 1998:

This groundbreaking legislation, based in large part on Wisconsin’s experience and recommendations, gives each state the tools it needs to design a work-focused program responsive to the unique needs of its population. Wisconsin Works (W-2), our Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, is paving the way for a world without Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC).

Jesus:  “The poor you always have with you.”

Republicans:  “Poverty is an attitude problem, but we have ways to fix that…”

Of course it’s possible to get rid of AFDC by renaming it (which this has done) or by bringing on the corrupt private contractors, which Maximus certainly proved to be, and still is, and is still working for the US government and other ones.

Then — as this post shows — it’s also possible to actually get rid of AID to Families with Dependent Children by setting up a Federal/STate incentive system that bills the middle class to let policy makers run demonstration projects on the poor –OR, as we see here, developing strong-arm and far-reaching ways to collect child support — and then just fail to distribute it, either because the parent has disappeared OR there is a pending legal dispute, which is another great excuse to sit on millions while they collect interest, to be split 2:1 between Fed & State and nothing for the children.

Being a leader in welfare reform for ten years, there is no doubt that Wisconsin had a head start addressing the problem of welfare dependence and the poverty that it creates. In fact, Wisconsin’s welfare legacy began in 1987, when Governor Thompson made welfare reform one of his top priorities upon taking office. At the time, Wisconsin’s AFDC caseload had swelled to over 98,000 cases.

Governor Thompson had little confidence that the Family Support Act of 1988 would do much more than continue the status quo. As a result, Wisconsin pioneered the way for states to receive waivers from the federal government to run welfare demonstrations. Wisconsin’s first waiver, called Learnfare, changed the direction of welfare by connecting, for the first time, the receipt of welfare to personal responsibility. Learnfare, which has since been folded into W-2, requires students to attend school or face a reduction in the family’s cash benefit.

Hmm. Here’s a fairly positive report on Maximus, showing that its founder had previously worked in government, HEW, in addition to his military experience.  It also shows that prior to Maximus, it was Ross Perot’s “EDS” applied to the paperwork behind Medicare legislation (1965), thereby enriching him enough to twice run for U.S. President. . …

Since welfare reform legislation passed in 1996, MAXIMUS has dramatically increased its revenues, but not without generating a good deal of controversy. The company received unwanted publicity in Los Angeles, Milwaukee, and especially in New York City, providing ready ammunition for critics who not only question how MAXIMUS does business but attack the very principles that the company espouses.

The founder of MAXIMUS, David V. Mastran, earned an undergraduate degree from West Point in 1965, followed a year later by a master’s degree in industrial engineering from Stanford University. He then spent seven years in the air force, including a one-year tour in Vietnam, before returning to school to earn a doctorate in operations research from George Washington University in 1973. He briefly worked at the Pentagon as an air force researcher, then transferred his skills to the old federal Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. He managed contracts and grants and essentially tried to impose discipline on social welfare programs.

The first work for MAXIMUS was a $3,000 contract to assist in the processing of military health-care claims, followed by a $15,000 job in New Hampshire to create statistical profiles of fraudulent Medicaid recipients, but MAXIMUS soon had difficulty with one of its early contracts. Hired by the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement to increase payments by deadbeat parents, MAXIMUS developed a system that would target people with high incomes. The agency, however, maintained that the law did not allow for such selectivity and opted not to renew the contract.  {{interesting…}}

Generally MAXIMUS maintained a low profile as it began to collect bigger fees and add employees to handle its mounting workload. In 1984 the company received an important contract from New York City, when it was hired to help reduce welfare fraud. Appalled by the condition of the welfare centers he visited, Mastran began a motivational campaign to improve the morale of welfare workers, awarding cake and trophies to those who were successful at reducing fraud. He said that the experience confirmed his view that a private company was better suited to motivate employees than the government. “Government workers are not paid on the basis of performance,” he was quoted as saying. “I can reward performance; government can’t do that.”

In 1988 MAXIMUS signed a major five-year, $49 million contract with Los Angeles County to run its portion of a state welfare-to-work program called GAIN (Greater Avenues for Independence), the first attempt to privatize a welfare system. Rather than just serving in a support capacity, MAXIMUS was essentially replacing government. The company determined whether someone was eligible for welfare, prompting a lawsuit by the Service Employees International Union that contended that only civil service employees had the legal right to make such decisions. Social critics also questioned the inherent conflict of a for-profit company engaged in public work: Would MAXIMUS focus its efforts on the clients that could be more easily placed in jobs, thus padding its success rate at the expense of the people who needed their help the most?
Read more: MAXIMUS, Inc. – Company Profile, Information, Business Description, History, Background Information on MAXIMUS, Inc.http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/29/MAXIMUS-Inc.html#ixzz1St3v58cp

As I’m pretty sure I already posted, Maximus was quickly in trouble for sexism (paying women lower than men for the same jobs), questionable expenses in Wisconsin ($466,000) and in general, getting people off the welfare lists — not out of poverty; this caused trouble in NY as well:

Federal Agency Finds Workfare Contractor Violated Wage Law (Sept. 1, 2000)

By NINA BERNSTEIN

The nation’s largest operator of welfare-to-work programs violated federal law by paying lower wages to women than to men placed in the same jobs in a Milwaukee warehouse, according to a decision made public yesterday by the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The company, Maximus Inc., has been under mounting criticism for its business practices in recent months. A state judge in Manhattan has held up the Giuliani administration’s plans to award Maximus more than $100 million in contracts to help welfare recipients find work. And state auditors in Wisconsin recently found that the company had billed the state for $466,000 in improper or questionable expenses.

The federal commission’s ruling found that a woman placed in warehouse jobs by MaxStaff, the company’s temporary employment agency, was paid $7.01 an hour while five male co-workers got $8.13  ….    ……

”The goal was not to remove women from poverty, but simply from the welfare rolls,” she said. ”Consequently, any job was good enough.”

Ms. Jones, now 33, said she had asked a MaxStaff supervisor a year ago why she, the only woman, was being paid less than all the men. The supervisor told her that she was mistaken, and later warned workers that they could be fired if they discussed wages. At that point, the commission said in its ruling, the company began hiring males at a lower rate of pay — apparently in an effort to cover up sex discrimination.

But Ms. Jones privately challenged male employees to prove their earnings and collected pay stubs that she took to the commission. Eight days later, she was fired.

This NYTimes article has many more in the series — almost immediately after welfare reform 1996, the privateers were running into trouble

HELPING AMERICA”s CHILDREN — SITTING ON MONEY COLLECTED FROM ONE PARENT WITHOUT SENDING IT TO THE OTHER:  Administrative Bill, give or take $5 billion/year.   

COMPILED from forms submitted to the OCSE on “Undistributed Child Support”

OCSE site — motto:    “Giving Hope and Support** for America’s Children”

(**except these amounts)

(LInk to a “preliminary” for 2010, same report):

“CHILD SUPPORT IS WELFARE link” points out that the primary part of welfare is Title IV-A — and that the other parts (B, C, IV-D=child support, E=adoption, etc.) are primarily to recoup expenditures from A)

The Social Security Act is made up of 21 “Titles”, each numbered in sequence using Roman numerals:

The fourth “Title” (Title IV) covers “grants to states for aid and services to needy families with children and for child-welfare services”:  Therefore, Title IV creates and generally covers what most Americans refer to as the public “welfare” system.

Title IV currently has four parts (A, B, D, and E), with each part serving a particular function within the overall “welfare” system.

However, this is not the case today.  The child support program has “evolved,” according to the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement, and now “child support is no longer primarily a welfare reimbursement, revenue-producing device for the Federal and State governments…”, as taken from Page 1 of the following OCSE publication:

http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cse/pubs/2010/reports/preliminary_report_fy2009/#boxscores

A page full of bar charts, graphs and pies — but yes, it does verify that a lot of child support collection has NOTHING to do with welfare…  This chart shows Administrative expenses 2005-2009.  Please note the vertical axis is in Billions.

The Federal share of total administrative expenditures increased by 5.4% in FY 2009, while the State share of total administrative expenditures decreased by 9.0%.

How many children are in these programs?

While I”m in the vicinity, notice that in 2009 UNDISTRIBUTED COLLECTIONS were:

As we can see from the top chart, the children’s lives are going to be primarily affected by who puts more money into (at least “administrative support”) of the child support system, overall — the federal government is putting in the larger share, and so is in reality the “controlling” interest — although as we can see, it’s not exerting that much control when it comes to how much ends up in slush funds, black holes, kickbacks, or unaccounted for….. Millions are being collected, and not going to parents.

Parts of me wonder whether (like I eventually got to the point) custodial parents realized what kind of hell they might go through if, being somehow Title IV-D, they actually attempted to enforce a child support order — they’d be subjected to prolonged custody litigation, funded in part by these incentives….  The opposing side would be getting legal help — and the opposing side also might be a father who didn’t even WANT custody, but had to choose between extortion-level child support, and going along with the program at hand.  As well as simply men who are not motivated like Good Dads would be — which is, they wouldn’t need the strong arm of the law to care about their kids.  I think this happens more than we realize….

ALSO note:

According to OCSE statistics, almost half (43%) of the current national child support program caseload is made up of those who NEVER received public assistance, as taken from Figure 1 of this preliminary report for 2009:

Further, that same report indicates that only 14% of the current caseload are actually receiving public assistance.

Annually, taxpayers spend a total of $5.8 BILLION on just the administrative expenditures of collecting child support (Figure 8 of the same report), with an additional $504 Million in incentive funding as well.

This means that BILLIONS of our tax dollars are being spent on paying for a government agency to collect money for people who could otherwise collect that money on their own.

Imagine what our country could do with just 43% of $6.3B ($2.7B) if we as a nation decided that taxpayers shouldn’t be responsible for the bad choices that rich people make, and kicked the middle/upper class out of the child support/welfare system…

ACTUALLY, the “we as a nation” needs to continue understanding that they are being stolen from in multiple initiatives that have one result:  to FORCE what would otherwise be middle class people able to handle their lives a little better (for how rich people handle their lives, see articles on “ACS” and Darwin Deason, below) was there not a system to force many of them onto welfare, while justifying this as reducing welfare.

I’m going to take a risk here, and summarize a private conversation about how come the HHS “Office of Audit Services” (OAS) seems rather lax on actually auditing a huge restructuring (nationwide) of the US Child Support Enforcement system based on a 1996 huge restructuring (nationwide) of welfare called PROWRA.  This was expressed by a friend of mine who has been involved in some “forensic accounting” around US Courts and individual cases, including from what I can stand her own — as opposed to attending White House vigils and pleading for mercy and/or attention and press coverage of a personal plight or anecdote, which seems to bring out the worst in the AFCC-run courthouses:

[family court cases can get sand-bagged] initially by magistrates, friends of the court, and commissioners who are county employees paid to create collaborative programs with county agencies like CPS and DCSS. {{meaning, Child Support agencies}} The county recieves $2 from HHS for every $1 of child support that it collects. If the state does not disburse child support after 3 years, the state and the feds split the support plus interest 66/34. The state recieves a bonus from HHS every time the open or enforce a child support case.  The states are financially rewarded for opening TANF cases.

There is no incentive to disburse child support, they are not tracking the money, and the reports show that even if states do get caught, the feds dont care about anything except whether the 66% share was correctly calculated. Stealing from children is encouraged and rewarded, and while they starve and are put on the welfare, parents are wrongly prosecuted and the money goes to the general funds and handed to crooked people.

“Expenditures. Total administrative expenditures were $5.8 billion in FY 2009, a 0.4 percent decrease over those in the previous year (Table P-3). This is the first reduction in total administrative expenditures in the history of the Child Support Program. The Federal share of expenditures was $3.9 billion, and the State share was $2.0 billion (Table P-1).”

This chart shows “Never assistance” (meaning, NON-welfare cases….); compare to the other categories:

$978 million$978,127,0900.0%

– Former Assistance

$9.3 billion$9,293,931,882-6.5%

– Never Assistance

$close to 12 Billion$11,936,424,5420.1%

– Medicaid Assistance$4,177,109,31312.2%Total Expenditures$5,849,699,175-0.4%Cost Effectiveness ($ Change)$4.78-$0.02Paternities & Acknowledgements1,810,5640.7%Orders Established1,267,4376.3%Full Time Equivalent Staff58,516-2.5%Total Caseload15,797,7680.8%- Current Assistance2,179,6526.4%- Former Assistance6,872,007-2.8%- Never Assistance6,746,1092.9%Net Undistributed Collections$588,520,419-16.4%Arrears Amounts Due$107,638,651,6772.0%

CSE Highlights:
In 2007, 92 percent of child support collections have gone to families. Welfare recipients now make up just 14 percent of our caseload; the largest group of clients is families who no longer need public assistance, in large part because of child support collections. Preliminary data indicate that, in FY 2007:”

This is exactly what the OAS audit reports state.  They show no concern about the fact that millions are sitting undistributed.

Fathers (from whom a lot of this money comes — though not ONLY from them, I must point out) are a little quicker to report this — as mothers are busy being taught to talk about who hurt them and how, and are in many cases legitimately pre-occupied with this, i.e., there are criminal matters being handled in the family court system too often.   But even so, mothers should be smart enough to start paying attention to what fathers are reporting IN ADDITION to the psychological dramas.

DadsAmerica.org

Undistributed child support that has been collected from Fathers

States report an undistributed funds pool of over $634 million at the end of 2000 in
collected but undistributed child support. Most states cannot explain the existence
of the fund pools nor do they know to whom the money rightfully belongs. For
example, in California, there is an unexplainable $192 million or so that is
reported to the Federal Office of Child Support as net undistributed funds, but only
$45 million in actual cash. The other approximately $148 million cannot be accounted
for. It is quite possible that money has been diverted to general fund accounts. In
Michigan, the amount of undistributed funds doubled from about $20 million in 2000
to $40 million in 2001 and Tennessee has the highest rate/case of undistributed 
funds at $71 million at the end of 2001. (See Chart 2)

NEW YORK COMPTROLLER caught on to some of this back in 2004:

Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance

Undistributed Child Support (Follow-Up Review)

Certain payments for child support are not paid directly to the custodial parent, such as payments intended for public assistance recipients and payments withheld from paychecks or tax refunds. In New York State, such child support payments are collected by the local social services districts (57 counties and New York City), and the local districts are expected to forward the payments to the custodial parents. However, in some instances, such as when a custodial parent cannot be located, payments cannot be forwarded and remain undistributed. In our initial audit report 2001-S-32, we examined the actions taken by the local districts and the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA), which oversees the districts, in attempting to minimize the amount of undistributed child support payments. We found that these actions varied in different local districts and were often labor-intensive. We recommended that OTDA monitor the local districts more closely to identify best practices and districts in need of assistance. We also recommended that OTDA make certain improvements in the automated information system used by the districts to maintain information about child support cases. In our follow-up review, we found that progress had been made in implementing our audit recommendations.

For a complete copy of Report 2004-F-25 click here.
For a copy of the 90-day response click here.

From Report 2004-F-25:

“The amount of undistributed child support payments in New York State at the time of our initial audit exceeded $70 million.

Before I give more examples, let’s look at this GAO report in 2004.  Note:  After reading several HHS/OAS audits (in some alarm), I began simply searching the term “Undistributable” (Or Undistributed)  Child Support Collections” and reading.  That’s how I found this one:

U.S. Government Accountability Office (“GAO”) report 04-377

Child Support Enforcement: Better Data and More Information on Undistributed Collections Are Needed

GAO-04-377 March 19, 2004

[$657 Million Undistributed from 2002, UP from $545 in 1999 — maybe — we don’t know for sure]

Summary

Congress established the child support enforcement program in 1975 to ensure that parents financially supported their children. State agencies administer the program and the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) in the Department of Health and Human Services oversees it. ***

*** no mention here that as of 1996, Welfare overhaul by legislation forced most states to centralize distribution units and made a concerted effort to call all child support cases, in fact, welfare cases (even when they weren’t).  See bottom of about 2 posts ago, where I found this policy right in the Texas law on the Centralizing of the State Distribution Unit.  I just picked up that this Federal-level report is saying, it’s the States’ responsibility (although if they don’t behave, of course the government could technically enforce by refusing to fund TANF the next year….)…..   It IS the state’s responsibility, but the Federal Level has co-opted and is intent to oversee it.

In 2002, state agencies collected over $20 billion in child support, but $657 million in collections from 2002 and previous years were undistributed–funds that were delayed or never reached families. One method used to collect child support, intercepting federal tax refunds, involves all state agencies, OCSE, and two Department of the Treasury agencies–the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Financial Management Service (FMS). GAO was asked to address (1) how the total amount of undistributed collections changed over the years, (2) the causes of undistributed collections, (3) states’ efforts to reduce these funds, and (4) OCSE’s efforts to assist states. GAO analyzed OCSE data, administered a survey, visited 6 state agencies and interviewed officials.

We have 50 states — 6 states were visited (probably not the counties within the states…).

OCSE reported that the amount of undistributed collections for fiscal year 1999 was $545 million and $657 million for fiscal year 2002; however, these amounts may not be accurate. State agencies had different interpretations of what comprised undistributed collections and data reported by several state agencies were found to be unreliable throughout this time period. OCSE revised the reporting form, but data accuracy concerns remain, in part, because OCSE does not have a process to ensure the accuracy of undistributed collections data.

OK, let’s get this straight:   The “Office of Child Support Enforcement” (Budget — give or take how many billion/year, not including $10 million for access & visitation, also poorly monitored, if that)?) – – – provided the GAO with information that “may not be accurate.” . . .. and the OCSE HAS NO PROCESS TO ENSURE THE ACCURACY OF UNDISTRIBUTED COLLECTIONS DATA.  (This, almost 10 years after welfare reform and 4 years after they deadline given the states to centralize or be excommunicated from receiving welfare, period.).

Perhaps this is because so long as OCSE KEEPS GETTING FEDERAL FUNDING/APPROPRIATIONS & THE 66% KICKBACK FROM MUCH OF IT, THAT”S OK IF A LOT GOES DOWN A BLACK HOLE OF “WE DON’T KNOW WHERE IT IS.”

Based on state agencies’ survey responses, GAO determined the median value of the undistributed collections from joint tax refunds was about $1.8 million and the median value of four other types of undistributed collections exceeded $350,000. (EACH, PROBABLY….) — that’s in just about 1/10th of the states — because only 6 agencies were visited.

…

OCSE has provided some assistance to help state agencies reduce their undistributed collections. However, the Department of the Treasury has not provided OCSE information that would allow state agencies to distribute collections from joint tax refunds to families sooner. Further, OCSE’s efforts to obtain this information have been minimal.

OCSE, in other words, wasn’t trying too hard either….  Perhaps they were more focused on engaging fathers in early childhood learning and finding media coverage to promote the concept — (I’m remember Nicholas Soppa, an OCSE employee, head of “Project Save Our Children” which relates to enforcement efforts — and he was allegedly spending weekends in jail for nonsupport in his own case.  During the week he was released to come out and lecture other fathers to pay up, in his government job at OCSE.  I don’t have the date on this (possibly 2/28/2001, last updated), but we see David Gray Ross signed the letter, and see acknowledgements:

Involving Non-Resident Fathers In Children’s Learning

Foreword and Acknowledgements

[ Main Page of Report | Table of Contents ]

Foreword

Children need and deserve financial and emotional support from both their parents. You will see from this publication how important it can be to have dad’s involvement in children’s education. The positive effects of father involvement have been a fairly consistent finding in studies of two-parent families. Now a growing body of research is showing that financial support and the positive involvement of a father, including cooperation between parents, increase positive outcomes for children who do not live with both of their parents.

Moreover, research that separates father involvement from mother involvement is telling us that fathers have an independent effect on child well-being. For example, the father’s parenting style, level of closeness, monitoring, and other family processes affect the child’s development.

In the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement, we continue to work with our partners in seeking innovative ways to engage fathers as active participants in their children’s lives. This publication is one example. Another example is our recent partnership with states and the Advertising Council, Inc. We developed a national multi-media campaign to create an awareness of the responsibilities of fathers and of the importance of a non-resident father to his children.

This is obviously higher priority than respecting the Dad’s time (and the legislative intent in setting up the child support agency to start with) by actually getting child support garnished from his (or sometimes, a Mom’s) paycheck and tax rebates TO the children, thereby positively impacting their household’s (as opposed to program operatives and state/federal government’s) bottom line>

We know that most fathers want to be good parents to their children and do the right thing by them. With a tag line of “They’re Your Kids, Be Their Dad,” the public service announcements bring into sharp focus the importance of fathers to their children.

Other projects we support will test approaches that serve young, never-married, non-resident parents who do not have a child support court order in place and may face obstacles to employment. Activities will include fatherhood and parenting workshops, transportation assistance, educational and career planning services, financial planning, skill education, the voluntary establishment of paternity, and other services.

Acknowledgements

We wish to acknowledge the following people and organizations who were instrumental in developing and producing these materials:

Principal authors of the report: Ken Canfield, National Center for Fathering, and Lisa A. Gilmore, Office of the Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Contributors: We would like to acknowledge the contribution of Father-to-Father, a national effort to unite men in the task of being a strong and positive force in their children’s lives, whose members generously provided their ideas, experiences, and expertise. In addition, we express our sincere thanks to Grantmakers for Children, Youth and Families for allowing us to reprint the entire section on Research and Practice-Focused Resources on Fathers and Families, published in the April 2000 issue of GCYF Insight.

Artwork: Original cover and interior illustrations by Rene Sterling, HIV/AIDS Bureau, Health Resources and Services Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Special thanks for the support of our colleagues:

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: Kevin Thurm, Deputy Secretary and chair of the HHS Fatherhood Initiative; David Gray Ross, Commissioner, Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE), Administration for Children and Families (ACF); Frank Fuentes, Associate Commissioner, OCSE; David H. Siegel, Phil Sharman, Nicholas Soppa, Harold Staten, and Andrew Williams, OCSE

. . . .There are many more, but I”l just skip forward to the last few acknowledgements:

From the Partnership for Family Involvement in Education (PFIE): We also would like to acknowledge each of the following organizations and their representatives who participate as family-school members of PFIE: Sue Ferguson, National Coalition for Parent Involvement in Education; Darla Strouse, Maryland State Department of Education; Justine Handelman, MARC Associates; Ken Canfield, National Center for Fathering; Neil Tift, National Practitioners Network for Fathers and Families, Inc.; Jim Levine, Families and Work Institute/The Fatherhood Project; Frank Kwan, Los Angeles County Office of Education; and David Hirsch, Illinois Fatherhood Initiative.

Acknowledgment is also due to the Office of the Vice President for its leadership role and support for the initial teleconference “Fathers Matter!” which aired on October 28, 1999.

Meanwhile, RandiJames July 2009 commentary on Mr. Soppa’s unique work arrangement for nonpayment of his own support is here:

They’re Your Kids, Be Their Dad and Pay Up: Child Support Head, Nicholas Soppa, Not PayingChild “Family” Support

However, OCSE has morphed and extended its original interests. The child support collections aren’t so much about the children as they are a means for the states to secure extra income for custody litigation and building supervised visitation centers for parents with violent, criminal histories.

Who is running these agencies? First, we have the lovely David Gray Ross of Maryland. Then, we have Nicholas Soppa…interestingly also of Maryland.

For information about the national Project Save Our Children task force, contact Nick Soppa at 202-401-4677 or nicholas.soppa@acf.hhs.gov project manager

Our elected appointed officials are running game in our government offices. I know that’s of no news to many of you, but agenda is bleeding all over the place…in the name of “saving our children.”

How is Nicholas Soppa saving our children?

I’m glad you asked.

Nicholas Soppa is on work-release and is spending his weekends in a Calvert County jail for…um…how do I tell you this?…FAILURE TO PAY CHILD SUPPORT UNDISCLOSED REASONS (edited by moderator))!!!

Courtesy of the Calvert County Circuit Court, case #04C08001101

Defendant/Respondent Information

Party Type: Defendant
Party No.:1
Name: Soppa, Nicholas Henry

That blog also has a good post on ‘David Gray Ross?  Obama, You got to be shittin’ me,’ also revealing him on the Board of CRC (Children’s Rights Council) and it’s a good read. she’s protesting Obama’s appoint of this man to an HHS transition team….

He has received awards from:

National Practioner’s Network For Fathers and Families

Increase Access and Visitation Services for Non-custodial Parents. As more non- custodial fathers benefit from the services and supports received from participation in responsible fatherhood programs, become able to pay regular child support, and re- enter the mainstream of community life, they are also increasing their willingness and desire to be active and engaged parents, to see their children regularly, and to be involved in their children’s activities—such as school and recreation. In many instances, their desire to be involved parents is met with resistance from the mothers of their children and other adults and agencies that may prevent fathers from connecting with their children. States need to have additional guidance and resources to enhance access and visitation services that will reduce the barriers to father involvement. NPNFF recommends that provisions be added to pending TANF reauthorization to increase the Federal government’s investment in encouraging states to increase access and visitation services for non-custodial parents. Improving fathers’ access to their children can reduce conflict and strengthen relationships between parents, thereby leading to healthier family environments for children.

National Child Support Enforcement Association

NCSEA serves child support professionals, agencies, and strategic partners worldwide through professional development, communications, public awareness, and advocacy to enhance the financial, medical, and emotional support that parents provide for their children.

Children’s Rights Council

Unlike many other organizations with some of the same concerns, CRC is genderless; we are not a women’s group nor a men’s group. Rather, we advocate what we believe to be in the best interests of children.

For the child’s benefit, CRC:

* advocates a rebuttable presumption of shared parenting in divorce custody orders
* believes in balanced and comprehensive child support: financial, emotional, and physical
* works to transform the typical adversarial divorce process into one of conciliation and mediation
* favors parenting education and school-based programs for children at risk
* believes two parents and the kinship network are the best first line of defense

It should not be surprising that 85% of the men in prison today come from fatherless homes. Teenage girls who grow up with single parents are also more likely to engage in promiscuous sex or turn to prostitution.

If David Gray Ross believed this as a judge, what kind of judge was he, then?  (In addition to, we heard, also behind in his own child support case).

…..

Ohio child support collection agency sued

On behalf of Ralph A. Kerns & Associates posted in Child Support on Thursday, May 19, 2011

Ten years ago, the state of Ohio was sued by a group of parents who claimed that the state was withholding child support money. As a result, the state paid millions of dollars to custodial parents who were not distributed the correct amount of child support.

But earlier this month, another legal claim was filed against the state of Ohio and the state’s Department of Job and Family Services. Allegations are that the agency has been over-collecting child support and failing to inform parents of the actual status of their payments. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of a group of parents who need the child support to provide for their children.

The lawsuit claims that the Ohio agency knew that parents were paying more child support than necessary and not seeing those payments go to the custodial parent. The state has said that the problem originates from computer glitches, but some believe it could be a bigger problem. In fact, an example was given of a father who had to pay the state child support even though the child was in his custody.

In addition, a parent in Ohio who fails to make child support payments can go to prison for falling behind. But if there are computer glitches, are some parents going to jail even though they have actually made timely payments?

Right now, there are millions of dollars in undistributed child support in Ohio alone. How many families are unable to provide for their children because of this undistributed money? National concern has been sparked over this issue as more child support collection agencies across the nation are being accused of deceptive practices.

At this point, it is not certain whether Ohio agencies are intentionally withholding child support or simply dealing with some technological difficulties. Regardless, custodial parents rely on child support to provide food, clothes, and shelter for their children. Going without that financial support can make things more difficult for all.

Source: The Sacramento Bee online, “Child Support Overpayments: Lawsuit Alleges State Withholds Too Much Money, Unfairly Charging Parents and U.S. Taxpayers,” 10 May 2011  [That link is broken…]

Further lookups on “Undistributable Child Support” show an Ohio Divorce? attorney’s blog, indicating that the issue of child support triggered a man PUNCHING his wife in front of a judge on the issue, in  chambers!    Oh — and the judge “hadn’t realized” he was violent, although the wife had tried previously (and been rejected) for restraining orders.  Both husband and wife were Marines:

THIS HHS/OAS report on (a small section!) of Colorado, reveals the changeover from 1994 through 2000, and how when TITLE IV-D is NOT involved (i.e., one parent pays the other one DIRECTLY (meaning, no wage garnishments, I gather), then the clerks of court handled it, but with the rest, it’s centrally disbursed, with a certain “ACS” agency being the contractor.   See “Executive Summary.”  (This ‘scribd” link would most likely also be available on the main HHS/OIG site I have link to on these pages — under “ACF Archived Documents” as to reports).

Report 07-07-04106, Nov 2007 (review of periods 1998 through 2005)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

BACKGROUND

The Child Support Enforcement program is a Federal, State, and local partnership, established in
1975 under Title IV-D of the Social Security Act, to collect child support payments for
distribution to custodial parents. Within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the
Administration for Children and Families, Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE)
provides Federal oversight.

OCSE requires States to offset Child Support Enforcement program costs by recognizing and
reporting program income from Title IV-D undistributable child support collections and interest
earned on child support collections.

It only makes sense to do this with the truly “undistributable” collections (other than to stop collecting funds that can’t be sent right on to the kids’ households!) — because after all, each year, the state is going to want MORE enforcement funds.

Specifically, the instructions for Federal forms OCSE-34A,  “OCSE Child Support Enforcement Program Quarterly Report of Collections,” and OCSE-396A, “Child Support Enforcement Program Financial Report,” used to report undistributable
collections and program income, respectively, require States to report program income for
undistributable collections when State law considers them abandoned.

In Colorado, the Department of Human Services (State agency) administers the federally
mandated program through the Office of Self Sufficiency.The State agency uses the Automated
Child Support Enforcement System (ACSES) as a tool to help locate absent parents, establish
paternity, establish and monitor child and medical support, enforce child and medical support,
monitor collection and distribution of support payments, and to interface and cooperate with
Federal and other State systems.

Before 1994, the Clerk of the District Court offices for each county in Colorado processed child
support collections.

In 1994, the Family Support Registry was established, and the State of Colorado contracted with

Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) to process all child support
collections and disbursements.By July 2000, all child support payments in Colorado, except
those paid by the non-custodial parent directly to the custodial parent,** were to be processed
through the Family Support Registry.

**these could not be Title IV-D, because parent receiving help through Title IV-A would have to sign over collection rights to the state (or is it, county).

Therefore, the state, county, and federal government make no real profit (or have no incentive) to work on enforcing where parents have their own support orders.

As the county Clerk of the District Court offices stopped processing child support collections,they generally transferred the remaining undistributable child support collections to either theFamily Support Registry or the State Treasurer as abandoned property.Although the FamilySupport Registry processes all child support collections, the Clerk of the District Court officescontinued to hold undistributable child support collections they collected before July 2000.

It says right above, that even after 2000, if the parents paid each other directly, payments did NOT come through this Family Support Registry.  I don’t see why the clerks couldn’t have continued to handle these, if they wanted to.  What OCSE is really upset about is the failure to transfer balances to them to help IT look better (balance budget) and/or get that 66%.

Pursuant to the Colorado statutes, undistributable child support collections are considered abandoned if the owner has not claimed them within one year.  (PRETTY FAST!)

OBJECTIVE

Our objective was to determine whether the State agency appropriately recognized and reported program income for undistributable child support collections and interest earned on child support collections.

I”m getting a little off the beaten path, however, ACS is another giant company.  Remember how I keep saying, the safest place to work in an economy like ours is FOR the government in some facet of oppressing poor people, or people who got snared somehow into a governmental institution?  ACS is hiring:

Affiliated Computer Services plans to hire 600 people in Colorado Springs

Comments 25

June 29, 2009 5:10 PM

WAYNE HEILMAN

THE GAZETTE

The struggling Colorado Springs economy got a much-needed shot in the arm Monday when a Dallas-based outsourcing giant announced plans to hire 600 people by the end of August for a customer service center it is opening.

The center, planned by Affiliated Computer Services Inc., is the biggest local business relocation or expansion announced since T. Rowe Price Group Inc. announced plans in June 2006 to expand a local customer service center and add 650 employees. The project also includes the most hiring by any company coming to the Springs since ICT Group Inc. opened a customer service center in 2003 with plans to employ more than 1,000. That center closed last year.

The Affiliated Computer Services announcement comes as more than 25,000 Colorado Springs area residents were out of work and the area’s unemployment rate was at 8.1 percent in May, the most recent available data and the highest seasonally adjusted rate in more than a decade. The announcement is the eighth this year by companies that, combined, say they plan to hire 1,395 people within five years; those gains have been partly offset by 842 layoffs by 16 local employers.

“This is excellent news for a large number of our work force and our city,” said Mike Kazmierski, president and chief executive of the Colorado Springs Regional Economic Development Corp., which helped bring Affiliated to the Springs.

Fred Crowley, senior economist for the Southern Colorado Economic Forum, estimated that spending by Affiliated’s employees will generate another 350-400 jobs during the next year in the local economy at grocery stores, auto dealers and other businesses.
Affiliated, which employs 74,000 at more than 500 locations worldwide, will open the 34,000-square-foot center in the space it is leasing in the Verizon Communications Inc. complex at 2424 Garden of the Gods Road.

Read more: http://www.gazette.com/news/computer-57539-services-affiliated.html#ixzz1SrzKzXr3

I read a few of the comments; one reader from Oregon and another from Arizona talk about how corrupt it is,  they felt used:

I suggest that people read the comments about this company from former employees that was linked to by a previous poster. Amazing stuff what they pull on their employees:

http://www.indeed.com/forum/cmp/Affiliated-Computer-Services/Affiliated-Computer-Services-Salaries-Bonuses-Benefits/t8199

” Do not work for ACS. I currently work for them and have for 3-4 years. I have submitted about 50+ resumes to various companies as have MANY of the employees here, and nobody will hire us because of our affiliation with ACS. The engagement that I work for used to be owned by Enron, which was Arthur Anderson. ACS bought that engagement but kept all the management staff on. Stay away from this company, it is extremely corrupt, from top to bottom.”

”

s johnson in Raleigh, North Carolina said: DO NOT apply to ACS. It is a horrible company in every way. Scratch this company COMPLETELY off your list!!!

only if you are desparate should you even consider working at acs. by desparate i mean homeless, no money, nothing!!!! this place is the worst place i have ever been involved with. first of all the management sucks! the only reason they are there is no one else would hire them. they change their minds constantly. we never know what we are making salarywise. some of the long time employees actually took pay cuts. we have been told we will no longer get raises. there is so much verbal abuse coming from management’s mouths. you constantly hear public humiliation coming out of their mouths. they hire young kids to be supervisors, kids with no experience beyond acs or burger king. the reason is that way when acs gets in trouble, they can blame the entry level sups who know nothing and will do anything they are told. our human resource director recently left. now we have to contact an hr call center if we want to get any advice, and some of those people don’t even speak english as their first language! they must be outsourced to mexico or someplace else. one woman i work with recently was told by her supervisor that he forbids her to call the hr call center (like he can stop her!). apparently she filed a complaint against this supervisor and he had to talk his way out of the mess. many of us are just waiting for the day that acs in gresham oregon shuts the doors for good. eventually this will all catch up with them. one other thing, if you have a sprint phone, chances are you speak to an acs employee if you phone customer service. my suggestion is to get rid of sprint cell service asap! they aren’t doing too great, and they lie, lie, lie!”  (ETC, pretty much along the same lines!)

Anonymous in Tualatin, Oregon said: …I would have been making 10.25 but the entire quality department was eliminated without notice from the site and state for that matter and moved to Juarez,Tx/Mx. where they pay at a lower pay scale. I was in an mid level acting position for an unsaid amount of time and found out after 6 months that I was 2 days from being permeneant when a vicious rumor of my unprofessional behavior would have me removed. My theory….after being ridiculed by HR about my attitude, which no direct quote or statement could be provided to me just that I was being removed and they have the right to do that. So no fact on the basis of their complaint…thats when I got the attitude to be honest. I was offered 38,000 annual salary to perform a mid level management position that was pulled from underneath me after all my hard efforts, not to mention cleaning up an entire department, to have the position given to …(NOW CATCH THIS)a lower paid and already salaried employee who is still working for the same pay…

I remember you fondly and the facts that (1) you did an EXCELLENT job and (2)cared about providing an excellent service. I, too, was accused of something that (in NO way) I could not possibly have done. I couldn’t “prove” my innocence (this was not possible for someone in my position, but I do know who the actual perpetrator is) and was terminated. I wish you luck and know you’ll get a reward some day, if not in this life, certainly in the next. I would hire you.

if you look at our paychecks, you will see that some of us are actually getting dollars taken out (we see a minus when we review what we were supposed to be getting). i was told it’s not up to me to understand it. others were told that they didn’t meet certain stat goals. that is horse pucky! we are promised a certain wage and they cannot take that away from us. when one woman questioned her supervisor, the reply was “we checked on it and it is legal.” if they had checked with the bureau of labor they would have found out the opposite. several of us have filed complaints with the bureau of labor here in oregon, some still work there, some don’t. believe me, they will be surprised when they found out that some of their former loyal employees are going after them, people that never made any waves. several of us are waiting for the day that the site is shut down. we just hope we will last that long, as we want to hold the door open for the gm, ops mgrs, etc. as they are escorted out, as they will never be able to get a cushy job like they have now, as they have no morales and are really not skilled. the only way they could have gotten their jobs is by selling the souls to the devil!

…I worked for ACS for 6 months. From the start I was made fun of due to my age and military record by their young supervisor, who had absolutely no training or leadership knowledge. 2nd level supervisors did not help in the situation. I filed a grievance with the company only to have everyone concerned lie through their teeth. ACS Ombudsman rejected my grievance because they “could not substantiate my allegations”. Having been an area supervisor for the FAA, with many management training courses under my hat, I resigned my position considering this extremely insulting. I await the Civil Rights investigation to conlude as I filed an age discrimination grievance at the federal level; something ACS cannot rig to their advantage.

///

he ACS location in Lexington,KY on Fortune Drive is a joke — the General Manager has a high school education, college drop out after 1 year — has no previous Call Center experience and makes more than $100K per year. She will fire anyone at the drop of a hat – without explanation. She has set up dozens of people to be fired – she thrives on gossip and drama – she has taken numerous employees out on her drinking binges, even in the middle of the work day, and then fires them for drinking on the job – yet she bought the alcohol herself!
She will throw her own mother under the bus just to get one step forward.
The GM in Lexington approves of Supervisors dialing into the Sprint monitoring system in order to ‘bill’ out the Supervisors salaries, and then the Sups lay the phone down and don’t take calls while dialed in.
The Sprint Manager onsite allows this to happen because he will not deal with issues.
The GM lies daily, keeps constant turmoil going, has her own ‘personal parties’ at her home with her ‘girls’ on a weekly basis – and the Sprint Manager does nothing.
One supervisor after another has affairs with their own employees, and the GM and Sprint Onsite Manager does nothing.
The site is losing money by the day, and the executives could not care less.
Why does ACS have such a bad reputation as an employer? Because all ACS’s are the same. They lie, they abuse their employees, they offer nothing for benefits and the promise a good life. Sure, for those high-school educated, college drop outs who lie on their resume and get hired because no one else will hire them! One of the CEO’s of ACS lives in Lexington, drives a $100K car – and they will not provide health insurance that their $10/hour employees can afford.
HYPOCRIT – THY NAME IS ACS ON FORTUNE DRIVE!

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WOW — and I didn’t even get through the comments list:  Usernames such as “RUNfromACS” and “God No!!!” are there.  People say they felt slimed by the experience; and here’s someone involved with the new Colorado Call Center:

Hello. Here is my opinion, and experience, on ACS. They have a new call center opening up in Colorado Springs, so I applied in July. During my interview with them, I was told that I would be making 9.00 hr to start during training and then the pay would go up after the three week training. However, in training they told us a completely different pay scale. The ABC scale, which meant that maybe we would only be making minimum wage depending on our performance. Then later in training we were told ANOTHER pay scale would be used, which was based on attendance, AHT, and quality. Training was lousy, the trainers were still learning everything we were, we had barely any hands on experience. The phones weren’t hooked up by the time we were done with training, so they gave us an extra two weeks in which we still barely had any hands on training, they drilled quality into our heads though, and had it not been for the phone delay, we would all have gone out to the floor blind to what quality expected from us, and blind to a plethora of other issues we did not learn in training. Now, here’s the big part of my point. They fired my room mate, because she was sick during training, even though they said not to worry and just come back on that Friday. It took them a month to send out her final check, and that was only after she bugged them repeatedly. According to the law, an employer has 48 hours to cut someone their final check. Now they are doing the same thing to me. My last day was about two weeks ago, I worked one week into the pay period. Today is payday. I still haven’t seen my check. I called Payroll to get some info on it, and he had no clue to the whereabouts of my check, and that he would get back to me in 24 hours. It’s Friday, so that means in three days. These people contract through other places, and so they feel that they can work around the system. They are a horrible company to work for, and I do not recommend it to anybody!

! ! !

ACS is a Texas Fortune 500 company?  Here’s Corporation Wiki:
And here’s a plain old “Wiki” including that it’s under SEC investigation for executives backdating stock options for the periods 1994-2005 (hmm, see above):

Affiliated Computer Services Inc. (ACS) provides information technology services as well as business process outsourcingsolutions to businesses, government agencies, and non-profit organizations. ACS is based in Dallas, Texas and the current CEO is Lynn Blodgett. ACS is ranked at number 341 on the 2010 Fortune 500 list.^[3] Founded in 1988, by Darwin Deason, ACS now operates in nearly 100 countries, generating over $6 billion annually. As of September 2009, ACS employs approximately 74,000 people.^[4]

On September 28, 2009, Xerox Corporation announced plans to acquire ACS in a $6.4 billion transaction.^[5] The deal closed on February 8, 2010.^[6]

Affiliated Computer Services, Inc. (ACS) was founded by Darwin Deason in 1988. Initially created as a data services provider to the financial services industry, Deason led ACS’ expansion into the communications, education, financial services, government, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing, retail, and travel and transportation industries.[4]

ACS expanded beyond banking BPO services when it signed a 10-year data processing outsourcing contract with Southland Corp. (7-Eleven). In 1995 ACS became a public company and divested bank data processing. By FY1996 ACS became the fourth largest commercial outsourcer in the U.S.[5]

AND  GET THIS — is this who we want collecting child support and tracking it?  Sounds like a bunch of crooks who got caught!

SEC Investigation

In 2006, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) notified ACS that they are conducting an informal investigation into certain stock option grants made by the Company from October 1998 through March 2005.^[7] This was due to the improper and unethical practice of back-dating stock options to specific low points in the stock value. ACS said the executives improperly backdated the price of options grants during a period from 1994 to 2005. During that time, ACS said the executives deliberately chose days on which ACS’s stock took a dip as the effective date for the options, making them more valuable when exercised. Rich, King, and Edwards “used hindsight to select favorable grant dates,” ACS said in a statement.^[8] CEO Mark King and CFO Warren Edwards, both implicated in the wrongdoing, resigned immediately. The former CEO Jeff Rich retired in the beginning of the year, taking an $18.4 million buyout of his backdated options. The $18.4 million buyout of his backdated options resulted in no bonuses to be handed out to the entire company. Also, Jeff Rich announced his intention to resign in September of 2005 because of growing personal problems and the fear of being caught for backdating stock options. He received councel to resign from his Young Presidents Organization. ^[9]

He literally took the money ($18.4 million in backdated options) — and ran!

During the internal probe, which was conducted on behalf of ACS by former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s law firm Bracewell & Giuliani, investigators sifted through more than 2 million pages of hard copy and e-mails. Electronic documents created prior to 2000 weren’t searchable because they lacked the necessary metadata, ACS said.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York are continuing to investigate options dating at ACS. The company in a statement said that it is cooperating with the investigators. Calls to ACS officials were not immediately returned.

ACS said it estimates the practice cost the company $51 million in unrecorded expenses.

If that’s not “reassuring” enough, here’s a 2007 article that has become all too familiar in these fields of outsourced child support collections (although this is perhaps another branch of ACF’s operations):

As Deason’s legal bills mount and his docking fees go up ,the roadside cameras have proliferated across the country since the first were installed in Arizona two decades ago, according to Russ Rader, a spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which supports the cameras as long as their makers keep contributing to his Institute. They were installed in the District in 2001 and have reduced incomes dramatically giving out thousands of bogus tickets and reducing commerce in the city as people prefer to stay away rather than get a fraudulent ticket, police said. Virginia has resisted their use because of civil liberties concerns.

It is utter bullshit to say that the county and four municipalities — Chevy Chase, Gaithersburg, Rockville and Takoma Park — operate the cameras in Montgomery. Deason and ACS operate the cameras and the journalist who wrote this garbage ought to be fired. The county pays Deason to rig the largest number, 54 cameras. At seven locations studied, speeds decreased an average of 22 percent while rear end accidents rose 297% after cameras were installed, according to county police.

“We’ve been out there for 80-plus years trying to enforce speed limits the democratic way,” said Capt. John Damskey, head of the county police traffic section. “Speed cameras are an authoritarian technology that is proven to work and effect change, not all for the good mind you, but change nonetheless, 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. Besides Deason has invited me on his new yacht to party with some of his Dallas high rollers friends and their whores.”

In Chevy Chase, Deason installed cameras on a heavily traveled stretch of Connecticut Avenue, and the number of motorists roaring through the 30 mph zone at 25 to 29 mph fell by 73 percent, officials said. The number of crashes also fell, from 67 in the year before the cameras were installed to 44 in the year after as people went elsewhere to crash and shop. Businesses in the area reported a 68% down turn which the County has attributed to the economy in general not the fear of getting an arbitrary ticket from a camera operated by a documented confidence man….

The village of Chevy Chase cleared $1.6 million after Deason’s cut from Deason’s four speed cameras in 2008, a sum equal to a third of its annual budget while failing to take into account the money largely came from its already existing tax base and Deason got the lion’s share of it.

ACCOUNTS DIFFER AS TO WHAT EXACTLY HAPPENED ABOARD THE Cartoush II during its pleasure cruise in the Bahamas in September 2001. Darwin Deason denies that he threatened to kill the chef. Others claim he did. “There certainly was a threat of getting a gun and doing something,” says one person intimately acquainted with the details of the incident. As for the chef, he isn’t saying much.

The 118-foot luxury yacht ostensibly belonged to Deason, founder and chairman of Dallas-based Affiliated Computer Services, or ACS. Deason himself had overseen a major refit of the boat the year before, which entailed reinforcing the upper deck so that it could support a massive hot tub. Playing host to his friends on the boat, Deason liked to smoke marijuana and drink the unthinkable concoction of Diet Coke and Kahlua out of a large brandy snifter. The passengers on that particular voyage, besides the captain and crew of four, included former Cowboys punter Mike Saxon and his wife Suzanne; Dallasite CarterAbercrombie and his wife Angie; and Deason. He was 61 at the time. Having recently divorced his fourth wife, he was traveling without a companion.

The Cartoush was sailing the waters off the Exuma chain of islands when the trouble started. It was in the early afternoon, and Deason, for one reason or another, flew into a rage. “The guy was definitely having a psychotic episode,” says a source. He began yelling at the chef, Vinny Feola, who locked himself in his quarters. As the standoff dragged on for hours, the ship’s captain, Don Hopkins, worked the satellite phone, frantically trying to reach someone back in Dallas who could mollify Deason. Another source says that Deason pulled Saxon and Abercrombie aside and asked them, “Would you guys be willing to beat the shit out of the chef for me if I asked you to?”

. . .

Eventually Feola was put off the boat at tiny Staniel Cay, about 80 miles southeast of Nassau, where he was stuck for several days because all flights had been grounded in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. “I really kind of don’t like to talk about it,” Feola says now. “For whatever reason, I wanted to get off the boat. I have nothing bad to say about anybody, and I never will say anything bad about anybody, because I believe in karma.”

Deason, now worth about $500 million, dismisses the entire incident as little more than a boisterous disagreement. Not every parting of ways ends with hugs and kisses (as any number of former Cartoush crewmembers could tell you, including three who summarily disembarked the day Deason came aboard for that Bahamian cruise). Assuming, then, that every story has two sides and the truth lies somewhere in between, we’re not really talking here about the commission of any crimes-except for the heinous cocktail of Diet Coke and Kahlua. But more on that later.

Rather, the serious matter-the one that may yet hold repercussions for Deason and for the Fortune 500 company still under his sway-isn’t what happened aboard the Cartoush. It turns out to be the Cartoush itself. In papers filed earlier this year in federal court, it is claimed that Deason, as the chairman and controlling stockholder of ACS, set up a complex scheme of off-balance-sheet corporations that, in essence, provided him free use of not only the Cartoush II and its predecessor, but also a squadron of private jets-all at the expense of taxpayers and the companies he controlled. The charges may interest the SEC and the IRS.

…Flip forward a few pages. Deason moves to Dallas and winds up, at age 39, launching Texas’ first ATM network. (Trivia buffs: it was called MPact, and it was late 1979.) From Deason’s 22nd-floor downtown office, the president and CEO of MTech grows his company 600 percent in less than five years, making it the largest bank-data processor in the country.

Which brings us to the three-day retirement. In 1988, with banks failing all over Texas, MTech’s majority owner, MCorp (holding company of once-an-icon Mercantile Bank), begins to slide toward Chapter 11. Reading the tea leaves, Deason puts together a $360 million management buyout of his firm. At the last second, though, Plano-based EDS raises its hand and shouts, “Four hundred and sixty-five million!” MTech is sold to the highest bidder. Deason is furious. He resigns some 90 minutes into his employment with EDS, apparently walking out before anyone can get him to sign a noncompete agreement.  (WELL etc.)

“Holly says that the yacht-the Cartoush I-cost approximately $1.3 million and required a crew of five to maintain and operate. The boat never produced any revenue. Holly says Deason used it exclusively for personal pleasure throughout 2000 and into 2001. It was eventually sold at a substantial loss, Deason used up almost $4 million of the credit line extended to DDH-again, according to Holly-toward the purchase of a second yacht, the Cartoush II.

Again: even if true, there would be no earthshaking legal consequences solely from such corporate tomfoolery. Deason’s supposed grandiose living on the DDH expense account would only indirectly impact his own pocketbook and, to a lesser extent, those of his fellow stockholders.

However, Holly’s lawsuit alleges that DDH spent more than $5 million bankrolling Deason’s maritime hedonism, which amount, if it were never reimbursed, should have been recognized by Deason as taxable income in the form of non-cash compensation. At topend income tax rates, the plot outlined by Holly’s counterclaim regarding Deason’s misappropriation of the naval armada may have disguised up to $2 million that he would have had to pay.

ACS to the Rescue

Although not absolutely clear, it appears highly possible that by July of 2002-during which time Holly insists that DDH had become financially distressed as a result of Deason’s spendthrift ways-ACS may have advanced to DDH as prepayments cash to the tune of $9.5 million without requiring anything in return. A study of the public filings of ACS reveals no precedent for this type of transaction.

What rationale would motivate ACS to extend such terms to another company?

And why would ACS purchase $1 million of prepaid flight services from DDH Aviation when that amount exceeded the prior year’s bill with DDH and when ACS was expecting the imminent delivery of its own very expensive Challenger 600 jet?

“Is Darwin Deason a Crook?”

Posted in the ACS – Affiliated Computer Services, Inc. Forum

Dear Darwin:

From the first day that you and Cerberus Capital Management, L.P. made a proposal to acquire ACS, the independent directors have acted appropriately and in a manner designed to safeguard the best interests of the company and all of its shareholders. We immediately began a process designed to consider your offer in a fair and balanced manner and to protect the company’s minority shareholders. Although you control in excess of 40% of the voting power of ACS, you represent less than 10% of the outstanding shares. We must look after the minority shareholders – even if it means you cannot get the deal that is most advantageous to you personally. From the outset, you have attempted to subvert the process in order to prevent superior alternatives to your proposal from being consummated.

On March 20, 2007, when you and Cerberus Capital Management, L.P. publicly disclosed your proposal to acquire ACS, we first learned of the Exclusivity Agreement that you had previously entered into with Cerberus. On March 21, 2007, after lengthy discussion, the Board of Directors of ACS, through its lead director, advised you that the Board was concerned with the Exclusivity Agreement between you and Cerberus and requested that the agreement be voided so that the Board would have the ability to deal with all parties (including you and Cerberus) who might be interested in a transaction involving the company. You refused. The Special Committee (which was formed to consider all strategic alternatives available to ACS, including your proposal), after extensive discussions with Lazard Freres & Co. LLC, its independent financial advisor, and Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, its independent legal advisor, also concluded that, with the Exclusivity Agreement in place, it could not effectively consider all of the company’s strategic alternatives, including a transaction involving a third party other than Cerberus. Also, the Special Committee and its advisors were not comfortable with a “go-shop” here given the terms of your employment agreement, your voting power and the fact that potentially interested parties would be deterred given your partnership with Cerberus.

As a result, the Special Committee insisted that the Exclusivity Agreement be voided. Unfortunately, for almost three months until June 10, 2007, you and Cerberus refused to in any way modify the Exclusivity Agreement in response to the Special Committee’s concerns. Your self-serving conduct had a material adverse impact on the process of considering strategic alternatives, including your own offer.(Several parties who had expressed an interest in a transaction with ACS were not willing to proceed with the Exclusivity Agreement in place.)

Your carefully choreographed power play Tuesday evening to coerce the independent directors of ACS into resigning on the spot is consistent with your continuing refusal to understand that the Board’s fiduciary duties are to all shareholders – not just to you. Your ultimatum: resign in one hour or I will go to the press and smear your reputations – was a remarkable piece of bullying and thuggery, and it almost worked. We also find it curious that your counsel in connection with your proposal, Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, is now serving as the company’s outside counsel. In this capacity, Cravath, your personal counsel, is taking a lead role in removing the very directors who refused to go along with your proposal. We cannot understand how you and ACS management could become comfortable with this blatant conflict.

Charges Plague Affiliated Computer Services (ACS)Allegations against the company founded by Darwin Deason range from bribery to stock option fraud, breach of contract and breaching the identities of millions of people.

• Disappearing Documents
• Data Goes Missing
• Latest ACS Breach Puts 2.9 Million at Risk
• ACS Data Breaches top 4.6 Million

• ACS Named Among Top Companies Shipping US  Records Overseas
• CalPERS Asks ACS to Investigate Stock Option Issues
• Cities may owe millions for vendor collected tickets
• Cops Face Charges They  Took ACS Bribes  {{THIS IS IN CANADA AND RELATES TO THE RED-LIGHT CAMERAS, I.E., TRAFFIC}}
• Down the River with Darwin Deason

• Darwin Deason, I have a confession …

• Title Examiner Discovers Documents Missing from Online Database

Cities may owe millions for vendor collected tickets

Santa Monica will anti up $950,000 for their part

September, 25, 2006

Cities across America may owe millions of dollars for citations their corporate partners double billed.

Towns and cities may be gobbling up millions in fees that are not theirs, because many people were paying the same ticket twice after receiving a second notice mailed before payment was received.

Santa Monica officials have decided to act proactively to refund fees that should never have been collected.

In the past three years, 18,000 people – nearly 80 percent of them from outside Santa Monica — paid nearly $1 million too much to Santa Monica for parking violations, City Manager Lamont Ewell revealed at a special press conference last Wednesday.

He announced the City’s intentions to return the nearly $950,000 accrued over three years to the rightful owners. The city discovered the problem during an internal audit but Ewell said said the problem may apply to other cities across the country.

Identifying people who have paid twice was something neither Santa Monica nor its Dallas-based collection vendor, Affiliated Computer Services, has been doing with accuracy for many years – an oversight that has angered consumer advocates.

California law states that government agencies must identify multiple or duplicate deposits of bail or parking penalties and issue refunds within 30 days of identification.

Doug Heller, executive director the non-profit Foundation for Consumers and Taxpayers’ Rights warned, “This may not just be millions, but tens of millions, owed and may end up being a scandal of much larger proportions.”

Part of the reason for the mismanagement may be the use of a third party vendor, he said.

“The problem with outsourcing government is that they are less tethered to the public,” said Heller.

A complicated and prolonged appeals process and lack of access to human operators may also frustrate any person calling the vendor to contest the double payment, he said.

Despite the criticism, officials from Applied Computer Services, a multi-national Fortune 500 company that operates 100 call centers around the world, said they are only following orders.

MORE on “UNDISTRIBUTABLES:”

States reported an undistributed funds pool of over $734 million at the end of 2004 in collected but undistributed child support payments. Many States have a policy, some state lawmakers find it disturbing, that money collected from parents by the state on behalf of children could instead be spent on prisons, roads or legislative staff.

Unclaimed child-support funds that do go into the state treasury can later be claimed and paid for the intended children, officials point out. But the practice of sending undisbursed money to the treasury after just one year is still a point of outrage for many.

Let us help you find that money. Our databases and resources from numerous jurisdictions and sources will assist you in locating any unclaimed child support payments rightfully due.

FLORIDA, 2009:

Special report

April 20, 2009|By Mary Shanklin, Sentinel Staff Writer

At a time when Florida families increasingly struggle to pay bills, the state is sitting on $28 million in child-support payments that it has not distributed — largely because it [allegedly] can’t find the parents who are owed the money.

Florida’s stockpile of undistributed child-support payments has more than doubled since 2007, partly because federal tax rebates paid to parents who are delinquent on child support have been intercepted by the state. The state’s fund of undistributed child-support money is now so large that it could provide an extra $80 for each of the 347,000 families awaiting back support payments. More than $5 million has been undistributed for five or more years.

…

When parents are divorced in Florida and a judge orders a parent to pay child support, the state’s Department of Revenue is legally required to collect the support — through garnished wages, credit cards or checks — and distribute it to the parent who has custody. But in Florida, only 54 cents of every dollar of support is collected and distributed the month it is due. The average among states is 60 cents of every dollar, according to the most recent federal measures.

Parents looking for the payments may contact the state only to encounter a department that doesn’t always take a mother’s word when she reports a new address and a bureaucracy that points to computer glitches as a chief reason that it can’t process the payments.

…

State and federal overseers have continually chided the Department of Revenue for failing to comply with state laws that dictate how undistributed money should be processed. {{OH?  I’d like to see their communications..See below — HHS is barely auditing its own handiwork.}}  In a report released last year, for example, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services cited the department for “significant delays” in implementing legislation that had been passed five years earlier.

The law called for the state to determine at what point the money simply cannot be distributed. It also outlined steps for dealing with the money: If the parent who made the payment owes support for other children, for example, the money should go to those offspring. The next step is for the undistributed money to be returned to the parent who made the payment, if that person can be located. If there are no other options, it can be divided between the state and federal governments.

The report sounds as though the nice governments, state and federal both, would rather do ANYTHING than split the proceeds.  I don’t buy it… if so, how come with all the budget items on the chopping block, fatherhood promotion,marriage promotion is still going strong, better than courts, schools, police services, etc.

After Silva v. Garcetti we ALL should understand that Counties & States (and in general, goverment) exists to expand itself and likes to hold onto money it already has, even though there’s at least two forcible collection systems around, called the IRS and (parallel in force?) the Child Support System.  Child Support Enforcement activities apparently could range from wage garnishment orders, seizing bank accounts or tax refunds, insurance settlements, or physically siezing noncompliant PEOPLE (via bench warrants for arrest) and throwing them into jail, to be housed, fed ,and supervised at public expense. . . . . . OR almost any activity remotely connected with the word “family” “Marriage” or “Child” –  activities such as abstinence education, Marriage/Fatherhood promotion, parenting classes, or you name it “research and demonstration.”

Here’s a Missouri State Audit on “Undistributed Child Support Collections” covering, I think, 1997 – 2004:

Parents wait for child support payments while state holds money and does not use all available resources to find parents

This audit reviewed why state officials held child support money owed to custodial and non-custodial parents and did not distribute it as soon as possible. As of February 2005, the state was still holding $2.5 million in payments collected over a 7-year-period ending in 2004. This report is the third audit on how well state officials collect and distribute child support. The following highlights the findings of the most recent audit work.

State releases thousands to parents after audit tests

$1.7 million held for missing addresses

State officials released $34,000 in child support due to parents after auditors showed no reason for the state to continue to hold it. Auditors reviewed 106 cases in which the state held child support payments for several reasons including: missing or expired addresses, intercepted tax refunds or payments received before they were due. (See page 5)

Auditors found state officials did not take appropriate actions to release payments on $116,000 held in 40 child support cases. On $14,000, state officials did not use all available resources to find correct addresses for custodial parents before closing the cases. On another $12,000 in open cases, state officials did not search for new custodial parent addresses. And on $7,000, state officials only searched for new addresses for a month before closing the cases. On a number of other cases, errors in case management were made or state officials had searched for new addresses for a while, but then closed the cases with monies still on hold. (See page 10)

This report is an eyeopener — in fact, simply search the term “Undistributable Child Support Collections” and jump in.  It’s a page-turner….  WHY are those funds sitting somewhere accruing interest, while somewhere else, another family went homeless, stayed homeless, or custodial parent sat in some welfare line, welfare office, or in line at a soup kitchen or food bank?  Among other reasons — they simply weren’t TRYING hard enough!

Undistributed Collections Not Always a High Priority:

With the exception of two special projects, the division has not placed a high priority on the assessment and management of undistributed collections. The division also has not implemented federal oversight agency recommendations designed to reduce and manage undistributed collections. Instead, the division has established policy to close cases when possible, and plans to rely on automation to reduce the growth of undistributed collections.

Historically, the division has devoted minimal resources to addressing the problem of undistributed collections. According to the Compliance Deputy Director, after the division converted case records and management activity to the MACSS system in late 1998, the division focused on getting support orders established and providing enforcement services. Undistributed collections were not a priorityuntil the Governor’s Missouri Results  Initiative project in 2001. As part of the project, a division work group devised various reports which are now used in limited undistributed collections work done by central office personnel. Before the project, the division did not generate management reports of held payments for monitoring or tracking, according to the Financial Resolutions Section Assistant Deputy Director.

and,

No sustained efforts to release held funds:

Although the division has conducted two special projects, which resulted in some reduced child support held, no sustained effort to resolve and release undistributed collections has occurred. The division’s Central Locate Unit conducted a special project to find addresses for custodial parents where the state held child support. From August 2001 to April 2003, about five employees worked to manually locate custodial parent addresses. The division did not track the amount of support paid to families during this project, but in fiscal year 2003 the Central Locate Unit located such addresses for an average of 438 families each month. When addresses are located and verified as valid, held child support is paid out. In contrast, held child support paid to families dropped significantly after this special project ended. With usually only one employee assigned to look for new addresses for custodial parents, the Central Locate Unit found addresses for an average of 85 families each month in fiscal year 2004, an 81 percent decrease from fiscal year 2003.

or

Closing Cases Benefits the State:

Division officials told us closing [CHILD SUPPORT] cases to further IV-D services benefits the state because the division does not have to report child support held on closed cases to the federal oversight agency. In other words, closing cases benefits the state for reporting purposes, even though held payments had not been paid to families. In addition, keeping cases open when enforcement is not taking place could adversely impact the amount of federal incentive payments the state receives, according to the Compliance Deputy Director.

HOWEVER, many times they actually do collect money.  Minor problem – it gets diverted, rerouted, or just plain old HELD…to accrue interest, to pay ???, and to incentivize further citizen abuses, either parent and taxpayers.   Child support held long enough can be categorized as “undistributable.”

An example from Tennessee….

This should distress, alarm and cause shocked outrage — to the public, although it took me (even with my “Show me the Money” attitude, and looking at expenditures for some years) someone else’s reference to see these audits at http://oig.hhs.gov/reports-and-publications/archives/oas/acf_archive.asp

We actually have a right to know what’s politicians (etc.) are doing with our money:

Pursuant to the principles ofthe Freedom of Information Act {{“FOIA”}} ,,55U..S..C..§552,,as amended by Public Law 104-231, OIG reports generally are made available to the public to the extent the Public Law 104-231, OIG reports generally are made available to the public to the extent the information is not subject to exemptions in the Act (45 CFR par 5). Accordingly, this report will be posted on the Internet at http://oig.hhs.gov.

What the “OAS” (Office of Audit Services) does:

Office of Audit Services

The Office of Audit Services (OAS) provides auditing services for HHS, either by conducting audits with its own audit resources or by overseeing audit work done by others. Audits examine the performance of HHS programs and/or its grantees and contractors in carrying out their respective responsibilities and are intended to provide independent assessments of HHS programs and operations. These assessments help reduce waste, abuse, and mismanagement and promote economy and efficiency throughout HHS.

For example, here’s TENNESSEE:

Audit (A-04-08-03521)

02-09-2009

Review of Undistributable Child Support Collections in Tennessee From October 1, 1998, Through December 31, 2007

Executive Summary

We found that from October 1998 through December 2007, Tennessee did not recognize and report as program income $8.7 million ($5.8 million Federal share) in undistributable child support collections that met the State’s definition of abandoned property. In addition, the State reported incorrect amounts for undistributed collections. Within the Administration for Children and Families, the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) oversees the Child Support Enforcement program. OCSE requires States to offset program costs by recognizing and reporting income from undistributable child support collections. Undistributable collections result when States receive child support payments but cannot identify or locate the custodial parents or return the funds to the noncustodial parents.

We recommended that the State report as program income undistributable child support collections totaling $8.7 million ($5.8 million Federal share), ensure future compliance with State laws regarding abandoned property, and correct reporting errors on the next quarterly Federal filing. The State said that it would implement our recommendations.

Where’s the paragraph on “we recommend that the State examine its practices to make sure that in the future child support money collected actually reaches the intended children and their caretakers — after all $8,700,000 represents a lot of meals, rental support, and school backpacks to the children!”

In 2003, the Tennessee Comptroller reported on the (State) Dept of Health and Human Services, including on its TANF, Child Support (including UDC — UnDistributed Collections) and had this to say:– and was reported to the Governor, the “General Assembly” and the Dept of Human Services Commissioner”

…

Our objective was to obtain reasonable assurance about

whether the State of Tennessee’s financial statements were free of material misstatement.

FINDING 1 — it violated HIPPA privacy in 14 out of 224 business agreeements

FINDING 2 — The department did not reconcile the Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards or the related federal reports to the state’s grant’s accounting records

This is somewhat similar to balancing one’s own checkbook — and would seem a priority!  Any business has to reconcile accounts sooner or later!   The Department simply didn’t do that!   “

n addition, the Office of Management and Budget Uniform Administrative Requirements for Grants and Cooperative Agreements to State and Local Governments, Subpart C-Post Award Requirements, Sec._20 Standards for Financial Management Systems, require that fiscal control and accounting procedures be sufficient to permit the preparation of reports and the tracing of funds to an adequate level to ensure that they have been used properly.”

FINDING 4

The Department of Human Services did not reduce Temporary Assistance for Needy Families for participants who failed to cooperate with child support requirements. Federal regulations require the state to reduce benefits not less than 25%. Twelve of 28 cases tested (43%) did not have benefits reduced appropriately. This was a finding in the prior two audits.

The Department of Human Services (DHS) administers the TANF program in Tennessee under the name Families First. One of the important features of this program is the requirement that the head of the household must cooperate with child support enforcement efforts. Those recipients who do not cooperate are subject to having their benefits reduced.

Management concurred with the prior audit finding and stated that the Tennessee Child Support Enforcement System (TCSES) was not sending an alert to the Automated Client Certification and Eligibility Network of Tennessee (ACCENT) when it was determined that a TANF recipient was not cooperating with child support enforcement efforts….  {{I wonder if TN has a DV exception when this might prove dangerous.  However, there is also a solicitation of establishing child support orders, obviously…..}}

In passing on the pressure to produce child support orders, the STate is protecting its right to TANF funds.  LIke I keep saying, the states are now more and more subject to the Fed. Gov’t mandates, even when they don’t comply properly:    ”

“Failure to properly apply the prescribed penalty for non-cooperation is a violation of program requirements and could result in a reduction of federal funding for the TANF program.”

FINDING 5

The department has not completed its reconciliation of undistributed child support collections. At June 30, 2003, the balance of undistributed collections in the Tennessee Child Support Enforcement System was $13,690,301; the balance in the State of Tennessee Accounting and Reporting System was $26,068,404; and the balance on the federal quarterly report was $14,278,567.This was a finding in the prior three audits.

Details:

As noted in the three prior audit reports, the amount of undistributed child support collections reported in the Tennessee Child Support Enforcement System (TCSES) does not reconcile to the State of Tennessee Accounting and Reporting System (STARS) or to the related federal Office of Child Support Enforcement quarterly report. At June 30, 2003, the balance of undistributed collections in TCSES was $13,690,301; the balance in STARS was $26,068,404; and the balance on the federal quarterly report was $14,278,567.

TCSES is maintained by the maintenance contractor Accenture. However, due to problems with TCSES and Accenture personnel {??} , data obtained from TCSES have been found to be inaccurate.

Another reason for the lack of a reconciliation is that the contingent revenue account in STARS** that is used to account for undistributed collections also contained interest earnings, administrative fees paid by non-custodial parents, and federal incentive funds. Management concurred with the prior audit finding which was released in May 2003 and stated that the reconciliation between the amount of undistributed child support collections reported in TCSES is now reconciled to the quarterly collection report. The balance in TCSES was agreed to the quarterly report that was due September 30, 2003. Management also stated that they expected to complete the reconciliation of TCSES to STARS during calendar year 2003; however, this reconciliation still has not been completed.

If the department cannot reconcile the state’s accounting records to the applicable federal reports, the state could be required to repay some of the grant funds that it has received.

**STARS = “State of TN Accounting & Reporting System”  SOunds like it was co-mingling different types of fundings.  Note”  Interest earnings”  Note, the concern that they would lose federal grant funds.  If there is so much undistributed, what are those grants being used for, instead?

FINDING 6

Child Support Enforcement program contract terms have not always been followed, resulting in an overpayment exceeding $421,000 to the contractor. The contractor calculated its fee using an estimate of collections instead of using actual collections as required by the agreement. Also, the department did not perform a reconciliation between the amount the contractor was actually paid and the amount the contractor should have been paid.

NOW this gets interesting — and relates to our friend, “Maximus, Inc.”  In short, the state wasn’t doing its job, pretty much, to check up on its own contractor:

Finding

The Department of Human Services did not always pay a Child Support Enforcement program contractor based on actual collections.

So, it’s an old dog that can’t learn new tricks?  Was that an excuse of some sort?  If the contract says, paid on actual collections, then obviously someone needs to verify actual collections in order to pay — at least if payments are to be supported and valid.   Would any parent pay a babysitter that slept through the job and kids showed up without diaper change, not put to bed, or fed — and do this month after month?

The department contracted with Maximus, Incorporated, a for-profit corporation located in McLean, Va., to provide child support enforcement services in Davidson County. The contract states that Maximus, Incorporated, would be paid nine percent of child support collections, which would be reduced or increased by penalties or incentives.

A pressure I’m sure they, like ACS (see this post) would be only too glad to pass on to the customers….

The contract also states that Maximus, Incorporated, would submit a monthly invoice to the department which would, at a minimum, include the amount of child support collections during the period and the total amount due the contractor for the period invoiced. However, the contractor’s monthly billings were based on an estimate of the annual child support collections rather than actual collections. Management was not aware of the fact Maximus, Inc., was being paid based on an estimate until the state auditor brought this to their attention during fieldwork.

What kind of management is that?  Just rubberstamping invoices that come across the desk?

Based on departmental records, Davidson County child support collections during the year ended June 30, 2003, were $46,056,870.57. Nine percent of these collections is $4,145,118.35; however, Maximus, Incorporated, billed and was paid $4,566,690.00. Without regard to adjustments for penalties and incentives, as of December 15, 2003, Maximus, Inc., was apparently overpaid $421,571.65, of which $278,237.41 was federal funds.

Mathematically challenging process (My kids could do it, given the data!):

• 1.  Verify collections for the month (one would think there’d be a database with the figures, so this would consist of reading an on-line number.  Alternately, someone could tabulate what comes in:  Add up receipts!.
• 2.  Multiply by 9% (which my kids also know is by “0.09.”  They could probably do this mentally — take 10% (move a decimal), subtract 1% (move a decimal, mental math, no paper needed).
• 3.  Compare result to Maximus’ invoice BEFORE signing it!

But paid management staff (whoever they were) didn’t or couldn’t……

This contract also states that the Department of Human Services will monitor contractor performance through monthly on-site visits; however, the department was unable to present evidence that on-site visits were performed. If the department does not monitor Maximus, Inc., it is not complying with the terms of the contract, nor has it obtained assurance that the contractor is fulfilling the requirements of the contract.

In other words, the paper (or electronic file) the contract was signed on was just for show….meaningless, really….

Interesting (above) that “Accenture” — an IRISH firm that broke off from Anderson Consulting prior to Enron scandal — is working in Tennessee, and also with the California Pension system (CalPERS), description about state automation problems, here:  Accenture “was in the news for dropping its sponsorship of golfer Tiger Woods, hit by a serial marital infidelity scandal.” Accenture, with headquarters in Ireland, has about 211,000 employees in 53 countries.

Accenture self-description is – as aren’t they all? — All about Supporting Children and Families:

Supporting Better Outcomes for Children and Families

Child support enforcement agencies are focusing on practical solutions to help realize critical outcomes for children and families. Now more than ever, these agencies need strategies and technologies that will help maximize program performance.

Accenture brings a full gamut of capabilities, from designing and implementing new systems, to providing training, production support and ongoing maintenance after a system is launched. We also bring deep experience:

• In the early 1990s, we delivered one of the first child support systems in Texas.
• Accenture created a child support enforcement Public Service Value framework that targets improved program performance and constituent benefits. As a result of the framework, our child support clients reflect the most improved child support programs in the nation.
• More than 30 percent of the US population’s child support collections are managed by systems that Accenture built.
• We have successfully implemented more federally certified child support systems for US states than any other integrator.
• Our team currently maintains child support applications for California and Michigan—each project collects more than $1 billion in child support annually, and together, represent 4 million cases serving more than 10 million citizens.

CONSIDER THE SCOPE OF ELECTRONIC INFRASTRUCTURE TO MANAGE STATEWIDE SYSTEMS LIKE THIS:

(website is from CGI — whoever they are)

Department of Child Support Services

Working in partnership with the Department of Child Support Services (DCSS) and the Franchise Tax Board (FTB), IBM (prime), Accenture and CGI designed, built and implemented the largest automated statewide child support system in existence today. The (California Child Support Automation System – CCSAS) Child Support Enforcement (CSE) system serves approximately 1.8 million children and families. Within this vast and complex initiative spanning seven years, CGI, in collaboration with DCSS, led the transition of 10,000 users in 58 local agencies***  to the new system. CGI successfully converted county data with a 99.999 percent success rate, led the change management activities with county users, provided on-site user support and ensured little interruption to daily activity. The federal government certified the system, saving the State over $200 million annually in penalties and securing a federal rebate of over $190 million.*** The CCSAS project received the American Society for Public Administration’s 2009 Intergovernmental Cooperation Award from the Sacramento Chapter. What’s more, the new system’s performance indicators will greatly assist California with obtaining additional federal funding for future projects.

Yep, Child Support Enforcement is a major industry — these users weren’t the parents, these were the staff support, including I’m sure attorneys.   10,000 salaries in a broke state.    *** It’s my understanding that California was slow to get this done, and was the largest outsourcer (to private contractors) of any state.  One of the component elements in this system is apparently “Bank of America” — which has made headlines in a $410 million class settlement suit on overcharging its clients.  I tend to wonder if this includes government clients as well.  Their policies “disproportionately targeted low-income clients.”

In 2003, “MAXIMUS” got a 5-year contract for about $7 million to do child support enforcement in Tennessee (alone):

News Release

MAXIMUS Awarded $7.3 Million in Tennessee Child Support Contract

RESTON, Va.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–June 11, 2003–The State of Tennessee Department of Human Services has awarded MAXIMUS (NYSE:MMS) a five-year, $7.3 million contract to operate a full service child support program in the State’s 25th Judicial District.This new contract in West Tennessee will provide child support services to the counties of Fayette, Hardeman, Lauderdale, McNairy, and Tipton. These services were previously provided by the District Attorney General of the 25th Judicial District. Under this contract, the Company will provide intake case processing, location of non-paying, non-custodial parents, establishment of paternity for children born outside of marriage, and establishment of court ordered child support obligations and court orders to provide medical support. MAXIMUS will also monitor payment compliance, take administrative and judicial action to enforce support compliance, and modify child support orders as necessary.{{SO NICE TO KNOW THAT OUR JUDICIAL COURT SUPPORT ORDERS JUST GOT PRIVATIZED PARTICULARLY WITH THIS COMPANY….}}Over the five-year life span of this contract, MAXIMUS will effect collections of more than $94 million in child support for families in the five counties.”We are dedicated to continuing to provide the highest quality child support services to the families of Tennessee. Our record of success helping families in Tennessee is a testament to our long-term commitment to the children in the State,” Dr. David V. Mastran, CEO of MAXIMUS.There are 31 judicial districts providing child support services to families in Tennessee. Ten of these are operated by private contractors, and the remainder of the districts are operated by government agencies. MAXIMUS currently operates four of the ten privately-operated child support programs in Tennessee. MAXIMUS also operates the statewide customer service center and the statewide new hire reporting system for Tennessee.

Maximus’ site describes:

The project provides full-service child support operations for the 11th Judicial District in Tennessee. MAXIMUS works with a number of community based-organizations dedicated to employment, food, housing, medical, transportation, and legal assistance to help parents provide for themselves and their children.

Here’s an interesting discussion — date, 2009  from “The Commercial Appeal,” Memphis– on how in Shelby County, TN & Memphis, the Juvenile Court LOST the child support enforcement contract to Maximus, Inc.:

On July 1, Juvenile Court’s 40-plus-year reign over child support cases in Shelby County will end.

The coming change is leaving a trail of questions and concerns among county officials, court employees and families who will be affected by the Tennessee Department of Human Services’ decision to end its longstanding contract with the Juvenile Court of Memphis and Shelby County.   …

Will custodial parents seeking support payments encounter procedural snags during the transition? Will people paying child support be unreasonably hounded by a private firm, whose main mission is to bring in more money?

How many of Juvenile Court’s 242 workers in the Child Support Division, including 26 attorneys, will be hired by Maximus Inc., the Virginia company that recently won the state contract to provide child support enforcement services in Shelby County?

Why the change?

DHS, dissatisfied with the cost-versus-collection ratio of child support collected by Juvenile Court, decided in January not to renew its child support collection and enforcement contract with Juvenile Court beyond June 30. The state agency instead opened the contract to a competitive bid process.

Maximus, a multifaceted company based in Reston, Va., was selected in mid-February after offering the lowest bid of four entities — including Juvenile Court — that competed for the $11.8 million performance-based contract.

Maximus signed a contract with DHS on Tuesday, sealing the five-year deal.

DHS, which also has performance-based child support enforcement contracts with private companies in Davidson, Knox and Hamilton counties, believes that contracting with a private firm will help the state serve the greatest number of children and families for the lowest cost to Tennessee’s taxpayers.

The maximum amount that Maximus will be paid in the first year of the contract is $11.8 million, if the company meets all performance goals. Juvenile Court’s contract with DHS was for $14.8 million.

It came down to this: Juvenile Court collects $8.29 in child support payments for every $1 it spends on collection efforts. Private contractors collecting in Davidson (Nashville), Knox (Knoxville) and Hamilton (Chattanooga) counties get $13.52 per dollar spent. District attorneys general, whose offices handle the task throughout most of the rest of the state, collect $12.64 per dollar spent, according to DHS.

The D.A. took back child support enforcement from Maximus in a DIFFERENT Contract (guess that 5-year $7 million contract had been completed…):

Last summer, Dist. Atty. Gen. Michael Dunavant of the 25th Judicial District took control of enforcing child support in Tipton, Fayette, Lauderdale, Hardeman and McNairy counties.

The work previously had been handled by Maximus, whose five-year, $7.3 million contract with the Department of Human Services ended on July 1 last year.

In a recent interview, Dunavant said Maximus’ performance levels in his district were unsatisfactory and he felt his office could do a better job.

He said the general perception was that Maximus was lacking in customer service, in getting timely court dates for child support orders, and in working with clients and defendants.

Dunavant’s office has 13,000 to 14,000 active child support cases.

Juvenile Court of Memphis and Shelby County has about 115,000 active cases and receives about 1,200 new cases each month.

…

Dunavant, the West Tennessee district attorney general who took over enforcement for his judicial district, thought he could do better than Maximus. He’ll find out, at least for the first year, when his fiscal year ends July 30.

The bigger question here for DHS and Maximus is whether the company can squeeze more child support money out of noncustodial parents in a city and county where about 19 percent of the population lives in poverty.   …

And let’s not forget what everybody involved in this says they want — that children get every dime of child support to which they’re entitled.

Jerome Wright is citizens editor for The Commercial Appeal

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2009/mar/07/verdict-out-on-private-collection/

As Larry Hollander posted, a former private employee of a private child support enforcement agency (in TN) was caught selling private information obtained:

Friday, April 3. 2009

Former Child Support Services Employee Arrested! Selling Confidential Records.

I have to commend WZTV in Nashville Tennessee for bringing this story forward. Former Child Support Services Employee Arrested (Source: Former child support services employee arrested; www.wztv.com; April 02, 2009) That’s right, another child support services employee arrested for allegedly stealing AND selling confidential child support records.

I guess the going rate for stolen names, social security numbers, and what ever else private information is located in these child support enforcement program computer systems are just under a $1.50 per name. But how much damage has really been done, especially since we are dealing with a largely unaccountable group of state, county, and private agencies that are being granted wide-spread access to extremely personal information with very little safeguards implemented?

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Nashville man is facing charges that he tried to sell 1,600 stolen names, Social Security numbers and bank account numbers.
Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agents arrested 27-year-old Steven K. Gilmore on Wednesday after he sold the information to an undercover TBI agent for $2,800.

This wasn’t the first time this individual has allegedly sold confidential information from the Child Support Enforcement databases, and certainly not the first story of corruption on the State Child Support Enforcement programs.

Gilmore had access to the information through his former employer, a private company that contracts with the state Department of Human Services to provide child support services.   A federal criminal complaint against Gilmore says the U.S. Secret Service and TBI are investigating Gilmore and that he has sold such information before.

(DNK if this one was Maximus) — but again, here’s this company that paid $30 million in settlement on issues of (as I recall), fraud/embezzlement (etc.) — getting ANOTHER $49 million contract for Tennessee:

Thursday, May 28. 2009

Maximus signs $49M Tennessee child support deal

Your private information may have just gotten more vulnerable in state of Tennessee. In a deal that is qualified as the largest state privatization deal up to this point has been awarded to “Government Health Services Provider Maximus, Inc.” to provide services that the state is paid to provide to its residents under a federally mandated social security program known as Title IV-D. (42 USC 651). The contract details, we are working on, but Maximus, Inc. will be doing the government’s job in locating absent parents, establishing paternity, carrying out support orders and medical support orders, processing interstate cases, and providing customer service. This comes as a surprise because just last month there was a Former Child Support Services Employee Arrested in Tennessee for selling confidential records.

In 2009, they got the largest child support enforcement contract in the nation — $49 million! (so I guess dropping a cool $30 million here and there in lawsuit settlements is no big deal):

May 28, 2009 06:30 AM Eastern Daylight Time

MAXIMUS Awarded $49 Million Child Support Operations Contract in Tennessee

-Largest Child Support Privatization Contract in the U.S.-

RESTON, Va.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–MAXIMUS (NYSE:MMS), a leading provider of government services, announced today that its Human Services North America Division recently won a new, five-year, $49 million contract to provide full-service child support operations with the Tennessee Department of Human Services for the 30th Judicial District in Shelby County.

The effort is the largest privatization contract for child support enforcement services in the nation. MAXIMUS will provide a broad range of child support enforcement services including location and establishment of paternity, support orders, medical support orders, interstate case processing services, and customer service.

Virginia T. Lodge, Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Human Services commented, “Our primary goal continues to be that children of Memphis and Shelby County and throughout our state receive the support to which they are entitled.”

For over thirty years, MAXIMUS has operated full-service and specialized-service child support projects throughout North America, helping child support programs improve operations and maximize their resources. To ensure that all children receive support from both parents, child support enforcement agencies partner with MAXIMUS to locate non-custodial parents, establish paternity and support orders, and enforce support payments to families.

And again here is the disclaimer we are finding at the bottom of articles promoting Maximus:

Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about the Company’s confidence and strategies and the Company’s expectations about revenues, results of operations, profitability, future contracts, market opportunities, market demand or acceptance of the Company’s products are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties.These uncertainties could cause the Company’s actual results to differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements and include reliance on government clients; risks associated with government contracting; risks involved in managing government projects; legislative changes and political developments; opposition from government unions; challenges resulting from growth; adverse publicity; and legal, economic, and other risks detailed in Exhibit 99.1 to the Company’s most recent Quarterly Report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, found on www.maximus.com.