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Published on Connect for Kids (http://www.connectforkids.org)
Budget Cutters’ Surprise Target: Popular Child Support Program
Published: November 7, 2005
by: Caitlin Johnson

The transformation of child support enforcement programs over the past
decade has been profound.
Used to be they'd come knock on your door, hand you the order. Cold and
formal—you got served. Pay up, or pay the price.
That was the old way. Now, more programs look like Baltimore's Center
for Fathers, Families and Workforce Development, one of many across that
country that are giving child support enforcement a kinder, gentler
face. The Center uses federal funds to help young, low-income men become
better fathers—emotionally and financially.
Here, the first contact isn't legal or judicial—it's a simple
letter, inviting the parent (usually a father) to come in and discuss
arrangements for supporting his children. During these visits, parents
can often opt to get swabbed for a genetic paternity test, make
arrangements to pay support, and also access other services designed to
support their employment (and by extension increase their ability to
pay). CFWD offers parenting classes and support groups, as well as
training and job search help for the men it serves, most of whom are
unemployed.
"We've learned that when Dads are dealt with gently, and their rights
are explained, they're more consistent payers," says Paula Roberts,
senior family policy staff attorney at the Washington, DC-based Center
for Law and Social Policy.
Although the federal child support program may not get as much press as
its better-known cousin Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF),
it's a critical program that serves roughly five times as many children
as TANF. In fact, after public education, it's the largest public system
supporting children in the country—involving 15.8 million
non-custodial parents and helping some 21 million children, according to
the Administration for Children and Families' Office of Child Support
Enforcement.
The program identifies non-custodial parents and encourages them to pay
child support to their children. The federal government provides funds
to states to run the program; states use a mix of federal and state
funds to defray the costs of the program.
For three decades, it's been heralded by Republicans and Democrats alike
for its focus on encouraging personal responsibility and for the
millions of families it helps lift out of poverty or off other public
assistance programs.
Yet two weeks ago, the House of Representatives' Ways and Means
Committee shocked the child support advocacy community by approving
phased-in changes to the program that would result in a reduction in
federal support of nearly 40 percent by 2010—a blow that has been
called both "bone-headed" (in an October 25, 2005 New York Times op-ed)
and potentially devastating.
According to Congressional Budget Office estimates, the changes, which
would take the form of a reduced level of federal matching for state
dollars and fewer financial incentives for states that run successful
programs, would result in $24 billion in child support going uncollected
over the next 10 years.
That's a big hit for families. "This is money right out of the pockets
of hard-working parents who are owed these dollars and need them to
provide food, clothing, shelter, child care, medical care, and the
myriad other needs of their children. Scaling back enforcement efforts
means more non-custodial parents won't meet their financial obligations
to their children and children will be the ones who suffer for it," says
Sharon Parrott, director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities'
Welfare Reform and Income Support Division.
The cuts are part of the House's effort to trim $50 billion from the
federal budget, to offset the costs of the war, planned tax cuts, and
hurricane recovery. The Senate's budget proposal trims about $35 billion
and does not include any cuts to child support. When both houses
finalize their bills, a conference committee will work to create the
final fiscal year 2006 federal budget.
A Popular Program on Both Sides of the Aisle
For much of the recent budget process, child support was considered
fairly safe. For years, it has enjoyed bipartisan support. While it may
still carry some stigma in the broader public, in Congress it's a
popular program—evidence that reforms can work.
Created in 1975, the federal child support program had two goals:
recover the costs of supporting children on what was then the Aid to
Families with Dependent Children program, and help families stay off the
welfare rolls to begin with. Initially, the program imposed few
regulations and requirements on states; as a result, many designed
programs putting a priority on recovering state money from non-custodial
parents, with little direct benefit to children. The federal government
launched a series of reforms in the 1980s and 1990s that culminated in
the 1998 establishment of standards for state programs, complete with
incentives for meeting them and penalties for failure to do so.
State programs are judged on five standards: establishing paternity,
issuing child support orders, collecting current support, collected
arrears, and overall cost-effectiveness. Some of these carry penalties,
others don't.

The clarity has led to vast improvements in performance. In a span of
roughly twenty years, the program has gone from 10 percent paternity
establishment in its cases to 80 to 90 percent across the country. For
every $1 of federal funds, the program collects more than $4 from
non-custodial parents.
"Now, it's this great success story, where [the government learned], not
surprisingly, that if you tell states what they've got to do, and use
rewards and penalties, you can get better performance out of the
program," says Paula Roberts.
The introduction of voluntary paternity establishment in hospitals has
made a big difference in the program. Now, when a child is born to
unmarried parents, a birth clerk comes by with a specific set of forms
for both parents to sign. Fathers have 60 days to reverse their
signature before they're legally considered the parent. After that date,
it becomes harder for a man to challenge paternity, though it is still
possible. Some states also offer forms for paternity establishment
through Head Start and public child care programs, Medicaid offices, and
other venues.
Because the program is more successful at establishing paternity, and
because successful collection efforts benefit families directly, the
program is popular. And the kinder, gentler approach to non-custodial
parents helps.
So Why the Cuts?
Why Congress has chosen this moment to propose such deep cuts to the
program remains unclear.
"That's got us all scratching our heads," says Roberts. "It's been
evaluated under the Government Performance Review Standards and gets the
highest rating at HHS in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. The
administration's rhetoric that we're going to better fund services that
work and eliminate the bad ones doesn't seem to be in play here. This is
clearly not a program you'd cut using the criteria the government says
are important."
Some policy analysts suggest that the House proposal may be an effort to
force the Senate to compromise and make at least some cuts in the
program â€" either by directly reducing funding, or adding fees for
families. Until now, the Senate has refused to include any cuts to this
program in its budget.
Advocates Are Taking Action
Many groups—from the National Governors Association to Voices for
America's Children—have publicly opposed the cuts. Local and
national organizations have launched phone banks, set up media events,
and issued action alerts to spur members to contact House Republicans
and urge them to refuse the cuts. Several state Attorneys General have
sent letters to House leaders voiced strong opposition to the cuts,
saying they would hurt children and families and reverse decades of
progress.
Groups are also targeting the Senate, urging them to stand firm on their
refusal to cut the program. On Thursday, November 3, 2005, the senate
issued a Sense of the Senate amendment, by voice vote, that officially
states their backing of the child support program and opposition to cuts
in its funding.
The full House is expected to vote on their budget package by DATE, and
the House and Senate are set to finalize the official fY2006 federal
budget by mid-November, but advocates say it may be as late as December
before the process is finished. Whether child support will be among the
programs that will absorb big cuts remains to be seen.
For More Information:
Center for Law and Social Policy [1]
CBPP [2]
ACES, the Association for Children for Enforcement of Support [3]
Caitlin Johnson is senior contributing writer for Connect for Kids and a
freelance writer covering social policy, as well as communications
coordinator for the Center for Law and Social Policy.
Source URL:
http://www.connectforkids.org/node/3645
Links:
[1] http://www.clasp.org/publications.php?id=4#0
[2] http://www.cbpp.org/3-10-05bud2.htm
[3] http://www.childsupport-aces.org/