The general well-being of children and families is a critical national policy goal. Current priorities are aimed at protecting children and preserving families, including meeting the needs of millions of parents who annually seek child support for their eligible children. However, when noncustodial parents fail to provide financial support, millions of children must rely on welfare programs. In 1995, over 9 million of the 13.6 million people receiving benefits from the Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC) program were children. The Congress created the national Child Support Enforcement Program in 1975 as title IV-D of the Social Security Act. This intergovernmental program involves federal, state, and local governments. The Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) regional office staff and the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) oversee the state-administered programs. The purpose of the program is to increase collections from noncustodial parents and reduce federal, state, and local welfare expenditures. As shown in figure 1.1, reported collections in fiscal year 1995 were 80 percent higher than they were in 1990. Total collections in billions of dollars The number of reported child support cases has also increased 60 percent—from 13 to 20 million cases over that same time period. As a result, according to HHS, the number of cases in which collections are being made has remained about 18 to 20 percent. Families entering the Child Support Enforcement Program require different combinations of services at different times, and child support enforcement agencies are directly responsible for providing these services. For instance, in some cases the child’s paternity has not been established and the location of the alleged father is unknown. In these cases, the custodial parent needs help with every step: locating the alleged father, establishing paternity, obtaining and enforcing a child support order, and collecting the support payment. In other cases, the custodial parent may already have a child support order; in such a case, the child support enforcement agency must review and possibly modify the order as a result of changes in the employment status or other circumstances of the noncustodial parent before tackling enforcement. State child support enforcement programs are organized in significantly different ways. They report to different state agencies and follow different policies and procedures. In addition, relationships between the state child support enforcement programs and other state agencies differ. These characteristics usually vary by the type of service delivery structure, levels of court involvement required by state family law, population distribution, and other variables. For example, some state child support agencies manage their programs centrally (operating a number of state offices), while others allow the counties or other governmental entities or even private companies to manage the programs locally. Growing caseloads, increased costs, and social demands have given rise to the need to implement expedited processes for establishing and enforcing payment of child support. As such, automation was (and still is) seen by many, including the federal government, as an effective tool for addressing this need. In 1980, the Congress promoted the development of automated systems that could improve the performance of the child support program. Public Law 96-265 authorized the federal government to pay up to 90 percent of the states’ total costs incurred in planning, designing, developing, installing, or enhancing these systems. The systems are required by OCSE to be implemented statewide and be capable of carrying out mandatory functional requirements, including case initiation, case management, financial management, enforcement, security, privacy, and reporting. Incorporating these requirements can help locate noncustodial parents and monitor child support cases. Since 1981, the federal government has spent over $2 billion for automated systems to assist states in collecting child support. The Family Support Act of 1988 mandated that by October 1, 1995, each state have a fully operational automated child support system that meets federal requirements. At that time, the 90-percent development funding was to be discontinued. In addition, if a state did not have its system certified as fully operational by this date, the act declared that the state’s child support program may have its program funding reduced. However, by October 1, 1995, only five states had met the deadline. Therefore, the Congress passed Public Law 104-35, extending the deadline to October 1, 1997. Developing child support enforcement systems is a joint federal and state responsibility. In providing most of the funding for systems, the federal government, through OCSE, is responsible for providing leadership, technical assistance, and standards for effective systems development. OCSE is also responsible for assessing states’ automated systems and ensuring that states are effectively using the 90-percent funding. To receive 90-percent federal funding for the development of an automated child support enforcement system, a state is required to develop and submit an advance planning document (APD) to OCSE, describing its proposed system. The APD is reviewed by OCSE’s Division of Child Support Information Systems and by HHS’ regional, program, and financial management staff to ensure that the proposed system incorporates the minimum functional requirements and will meet federal, state, and user needs in a cost-effective manner. After the APD is approved, OCSE provides 90-percent funding for the project and monitors its progress. Federal regulations and OCSE guidance (1) require states to update their APDs when projects have significant changes in budget or scope and (2) give OCSE the authority to suspend funding if a state’s development does not substantially adhere to its approved plan. When the state considers its system complete, a state official requests that the federal government certify that its system meets requirements. After certification, a state is authorized to receive additional funding to maintain its operational system. While states are still trying to meet the challenges of the 1988 act, they are also faced with newer challenges. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 requires that states implement specific expedited and administrative procedures intended to expand the authority of the state child support agency and improve the efficiency of state child support programs. In order to comply with the expedited processes requirement, states have to meet specific time frames for establishing paternity and establishing and enforcing support orders.Under current law their statewide systems must automatically perform specific locate, establishment, enforcement, and case management functions and maintain financial management, reporting, and under the new law states’ security and privacy functions. In addition, under the new law states must enhance their current statewide systems to electronically interface with other federal and state agencies. This is needed to establish, for example, central case registries and new-hire directories. Therefore, to successfully comply with the welfare reform legislation, it is critical that the states and OCSE have fully operational child support systems in place. In 1992, in response to a request from the Senate Committee on Finance, we reviewed HHS’ oversight of states’ efforts to develop automated child support enforcement systems. In August 1992, we issued a report citing major problems with oversight and monitoring of these development efforts. We reported that while taking timely corrective action on known problems is critical to developing well designed automated systems, OCSE had not required needed changes in some states facing serious systems problems. We, therefore, made recommendations to HHS for improvement. On June 20, 1996, Representative Henry J. Hyde requested that we conduct a follow-up review. Later, Representative Lynn C. Woolsey joined in this request. Our specific objectives were to determine (1) the status of automated state systems, including costs, (2) whether HHS had implemented our 1992 recommendations, and (3) whether HHS was providing effective federal oversight of state systems development. To accomplish these objectives, we reviewed federal laws and regulations on OCSE’s oversight of state development of automated systems. We assessed OCSE systems guidelines, policies and procedures, and correspondence with the states. We also interviewed officials in OCSE’s Office of Child Support Information Systems and Division of Audit to discuss their continued roles and responsibilities in overseeing the planning, development, and implementation of state child support enforcement systems. To update our knowledge of automated systems issues, we analyzed state planning documents, OCSE certification reports, and state audit reports of automated systems. In addition, we reviewed financial reports produced by OCSE’s statistical and reporting systems; however, we did not independently verify data contained in these reports. We coordinated with the HHS Office of Inspector General and reviewed, analyzed, and summarized the results of its nationwide child support systems state survey. We also interviewed selected contractors developing and implementing child support enforcement systems. Further, we conducted a focus group of 18 state officials, representing 14 states (California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, and Texas) and Los Angeles County to determine the benefits, barriers, and solutions to developing automated child support systems. We performed our work at OCSE headquarters in Washington, D.C. We also surveyed all 10 HHS regional offices and visited 5 (Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, New York, and Philadelphia) to gain an understanding of the history of each state’s development effort and of OCSE’s role in providing regional oversight and technical assistance. Further, we visited six states (Alabama, California, Massachusetts, Ohio, Texas, and Washington) and Los Angeles County. We selected these locations based on the following criteria: levels of funding requested, methods used to develop systems (e.g., in-house, contractor, and combination of in-house and contractor), caseload, geographic location, phase of development (e.g., pilot, implementation, enhancement, in operation), and level of certification. During our site visits we assessed the systems’ status, best practices, and barriers to implementing systems using relevant components of our system assessment methodology. We also reviewed various state and contractor systems-related documents and correspondence and interviewed state agency officials. We conducted this work between August 1996 and March 1997, in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. We requested written comments from the Secretary of Health and Human Services or her designee.