OCSE Numbers for Discussion

The Federal OCSE issues an annual report and the FY 2002 version is
available at:

http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cse/...im_datareport/

A few results stood out for me.

They collected $20.1 billion at a cost of $5 billion. They claim the total
amount of CS due in FY02 was $26.2 billion. That means they collected 76.7%
of all CS due. They are proud that even with the shrinking caseload numbers
(noted below) their operating costs are only going up $400 million per year.
Now that's a bargain!

Although they are collecting $6.2 billion per year less than the amount due,
they claim the total accrued arrears still uncollected is $90 billion. I
have no idea how they come up with such an outrageous number considering 40%
of their cases don't have formal orders yet.

92% of the dollars collected went to non-TANF families which represent 83%
of their caseload. They are finally recognizing CS collections are not for
welfare reimbursements.

8% of the dollars collected went to TANF families which represent 17% of
their caseload. Since their original purpose was to collect welfare
reimbursements, these results show they are failing miserably. They take
credit for millions of families no longer being on welfare, which I find
amazing - they aren't collecting effectively for current welfare recipients,
but all the children off welfare got collected effectively. Something about
that doesn't make sense.

Collections are up 40% over the last 5 years and their caseload has
decreased 7% over the last 4 years. That can only mean one thing - the
amount per CS order is rising at a rapid rate. 1.2 million orders were
established in FY02, but the caseload is down, so that means the vast
majority of new orders are really substantial upward modifications.

Their demographics show they serve 17.9 children in 16.0 million cases.
That's less than 1.1 children per case. The Census numbers show there are
1.6 children per CP. The difference is the children per case at OCSE are
based on the number of NCPs who are required to pay. That means some huge
number of CP mothers, most likely the TANF cases, are having multiple
children with multiple fathers.

There are 62,000 "child support professionals" collecting an average of
$326,000 per year per FTE. I still don't understand why they can't fire a
bunch of these bureaucrats and use some of the $5 billion to help families.