PA CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT DATA EXCHANGES DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WELFARE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

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1 PA CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT DATA EXCHANGES DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WELFARE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA Nominating Category: IMPROVING STATE OPERATIONS Nominator Teresa A. Shuchart Chief Information Officer Departments of Public Welfare, Insurance and Aging

2 Executive Summary The Business Problem The mission of the Child Support Enforcement Program is to enhance the well-being of children by ensuring that they receive support namely financial assistance and medical insurance from their custodial and non-custodial parents. This is accomplished procedurally by locating parents, establishing paternity, establishing support obligations, and monitoring and enforcing those obligations. In order to achieve these goals, the child support enforcement program relies on information from multiple sources, including state and federal agencies, employers, financial institutions, insurance providers and licensing agencies. The Pennsylvania Child Support Enforcement System (PACSES) Data Exchanges facilitate the frequent and reliable receipt of the information from these various entities. The Solution Automated electronic data exchanges with employers, banks, insurance companies, licensing agencies and others contribute to the outstanding performance of Pennsylvania s child support enforcement program. PACSES uses these governmentto-business (G2B) exchanges to minimize manual data collection and validation, foster event-driven case management techniques (e.g., action alerts to corresponding case workers based upon the receipt of updated information) and maximize predictive capabilities by providing a near real-time representation of parents financial, employment and asset history. In the last two years, the PACSES Data Exchanges have been enhanced and refined to incrementally build upon standard child support interfaces utilized by many states. This process of continuous enhancement has helped take Pennsylvania to the next level of child support enforcement performance. The exchanges provide reliable, relevant and up-to-date data that in turn allows case managers to quickly determine the most effective actions for collecting child support or providing medical insurance to children. The Benefits The use of automated electronic data exchanges through PACSES helped Pennsylvania to become in 2009 the first and only state to meet or exceed the 80 percent standard on all six federal performance measures for child support enforcement. Exceeding the 80 percent standard not only demonstrates the effectiveness of Pennsylvania s child support enforcement services, but also allows the commonwealth to obtain the maximum amount of federal incentives to support those services, resulting in approximately $30 million per year in additional funding to the state. Through these automated data exchanges, Pennsylvania was able to collect approximately $1.04 billion during the 2010 calendar year, representing approximately two-thirds of the total $1.56 billion in collections for the year

3 Project Description Problem Statement The mission of the Pennsylvania Child Support Enforcement Program is to enhance the well-being of children by ensuring that they receive support both financial assistance and medical insurance by locating parents, establishing paternity, establishing support obligations, and monitoring and enforcing those obligations. In order to achieve the desired goals, the program relies on information from multiple sources such as employers, banks, licensing agencies, insurance institutions, and other state and federal agencies. The success of a state s child support enforcement program is measured and assessed by the federal Department of Health and Human Services Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) through six performance measures defined by the agency. Examples of these key federal performance measures include percentage of current support collected versus owed and percentage of arrears (support payments past due) collected versus owed. These measures are also used to help determine the distribution of incentive payments to state child support enforcement agencies, which is generally their primary source of funding. Achieving high levels of performance across these measures allows a state to receive the maximum level of incentives. Over the years, OCSE has facilitated the creation, maintenance and support of a number of data interfaces for the identification of parental financial resources and other data for example, the Federal Case Registry (FCR) and the Multi-State Financial Institution Data Match (MSFIDM). In order to maintain its place as a leader in the collection of child support among the states, the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare (DPW) Bureau of Child Support Enforcement (BCSE) must continually enhance and refine the data exchange capabilities of PACSES. Solution The DPW Bureau of Child Support Enforcement provides PACSES to help county Domestic Relations Sections (DRS) manage the child support program. Through automated G2B electronic data exchanges with banks, employers, insurance institutions and licensing agencies, PACSES has helped increase child support collections and improve case management processes by providing comprehensive information to locate parents, facilitate retrieval of child support payments via income attachments, identify other financial assets available to meet support obligations and enforce child support court orders. Some of the key data exchanges provided by PACSES include: Financial Institutions / Banks PACSES uses multi-layered exchanges with banks, other financial institutions and insurance companies to freeze and seize accounts and other financial assets

4 Employers or Employment Agencies PACSES uses exchanges with employers to electronically intercept and transmit child support payments from the wages of parents who owe child support. PACSES also uses employer exchanges to electronically transmit income-withholding orders to eligible employers. Judicial PACSES automatically identifies assets such as insurance settlements, unemployment compensation, and driver, recreational, and professional licenses to seize assets to pay down child support arrears. Medical Insurance PACSES automatically determines if a parent has medical insurance coverage through exchanges with employers and insurance providers and orders the parent to secure health insurance coverage for children in the program. PACSES data exchanges are constantly enhanced and improved as additional data sources are made available and existing data sources increase the level and accuracy of available information. These incremental enhancements have helped improve the child support enforcement mechanisms available through PACSES and enhanced the ability of Pennsylvania s child support enforcement program to deliver services to children. During the two-year period covered by this submission, new data exchanges have been implemented between PACSES and the Pennsylvania Game Commission, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, and the Pennsylvania Insurance Department to automatically suspend or revoke a parent s license until delinquent payments are made, at which time it is reinstated through the same data exchange. Significant enhancements were also implemented for existing interfaces between PACSES and the Pennsylvania Department of State and the Child Support Lien Network (CSLN) to facilitate improved information sharing with respect to professional licenses and insurance claims. In addition, Pennsylvania is the first state to fully implement the optional electronic Income Withholding Order (e-iwo) data exchange with OCSE, allowing it to more quickly establish and receive support and arrears payments through electronic income attachments. Length of Time In Operation: The most recent addition to the PACSES Data Exchanges a new data exchange with interface with the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission was implemented in October The interface with the Pennsylvania Game Commission was implemented in May The other data exchange enhancements described were developed and implemented as part of the ongoing maintenance and support of PACSES and were completed and implemented since June State Oversight and Communications Plan: The DPW Bureau of Child Support Enforcement (BCSE) was responsible for defining the requirements, reviewing the designs and reviewing and approving all deliverables associated with the development of the PACSES data exchanges. This development - 3 -

5 was completed using a rigorous system development lifecycle methodology mandated and maintained by the DPW Bureau of Information Systems. Communication with PACSES stakeholders and the outside data sources with which PACSES exchanges information was handled by BCSE. This included in-person meetings, conference calls and interactive web sessions. The commonwealth also provided oversight for the creation of system documentation and training materials associated with these exchanges. Architecture, Security and Accessibility: Depending on the need and criticality of the information, PACSES exchanges data on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. All data exchanges between agencies and business partners are facilitated via extract files that are sent and received via secure File Transfer Protocol (FTP), which encrypts and protects the data during transfer. PACSES also supports real-time data exchanges with agencies that possess that capability for example, to obtain member driver license status, locate a parent or issue a bench warrant for a parent who owes delinquent child support payments. In general, the PACSES Data Exchanges are processed via back-end service and batch processing and therefore do not have a direct user interface component (although the resulting data is ultimately included in PACSES online screens). Significance As previously noted, the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) defines six performance measures that are used to help determine the distribution of incentive payments to state child support enforcement agencies. The use of automated electronic data exchanges through PACSES helped Pennsylvania to become in 2009 the first and only state to meet or exceed the 80 percent standard on all six OCSE performance measures. Exceeding the 80 percent allows the DPW Bureau of Child Support Enforcement and the county DRS offices to receive the maximum amount of federal incentives, translating to approximately $30 million per year in additional funding for Pennsylvania s child support enforcement program. The data exchange initiatives support the location of parents in child support cases, the electronic collection and disbursement of child support payments, the enforcement of child support orders and electronic communication between state and federal child support enforcement agencies. For example, by utilizing the automated electronic Income Withholding Order (e-iwo) data exchange for participating employers, Pennsylvania was able to improve case management efficiency and processing speed by: Reducing the amount of time needed to prepare and mail a wage withholding order to an employer, as well as reducing the time needed by the employer to process and mail payments (from an average of days to 10 days) - 4 -

6 Reducing errors that can occur through manual processing by the employer Reducing costs of postage to send and staff to process paper documents Providing an on-going communications link between child support enforcement agencies and employers, should additional actions be necessary The end result is that orders are implemented by employers more quickly and support payments are sent to families at a reduced cost to the employer and the Pennsylvania child support program. PACSES data exchanges minimize manual data collection and validation, facilitate event-driven case management techniques (e.g., action alerts for workers based upon the receipt of updated information) and maximize predictive capabilities by providing a near real-time representation of the financial, employment and asset history of parents. By utilizing the exchanges, the system is able to quickly make an assessment of which information to use to produce the most positive outcomes of collecting child support or providing medical insurance for children. Benefit of the Project Estimated Cost of the PACSES Data Exchanges The total cost for implementation of the PACSES Data Exchanges included in the Project Description was approximately $495,000. Estimated Benefit Enhancements to the PACSES Data Exchanges have resulted in a broad spectrum of benefits to the children of Pennsylvania and to the child support program itself: Collections In calendar year 2010, Pennsylvania was able to collect approximately $1.04 billion in child support payments through the use of automated exchanges, representing 67 percent of the total $1.56 billion in collections for the year. Automation of data exchanges and related dashboard technology has facilitated the development of high-focus case management processes that help case workers exceed performance expectations. The table below summarizes the collection statistics directly attributable to the PACSES data exchanges. Collections Year Insurance Institutions Financial Institutions Employers 2009 $2,093, $5,118, $1,061,704, $2,162, $4,392, $1,036,346,

7 TANF Reimbursement Improved child support collections have another beneficial financial impact to DPW and the commonwealth the recovery of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) assistance payments through child support payments resulting from findings of paternity. The table below summarizes the TANF reimbursement statistics attributable to the PACSES data exchanges. Money Returned to the State (TANF Distribution) Year Insurance Institutions Financial Institutions Employers TOTAL 2009 $592, $555, $26,686, $27,835, $430, $462, $25,029, $25,923, In addition, during this period approximately 96,000 individuals and families were able to leave the TANF program due to an increase in direct support payments that exceeded their corresponding TANF benefit. Fish and Game Commission Interfaces As of May 2011, parents in the child support system held 4,234 fishing licenses and 2,534 hunting licenses through the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission and the Pennsylvania Game Commission, respectively. Out of those totals, 2,272 fishing and hunting licenses were suspended or are in the suspension process because of delinquent child support obligations. The estimated collections attributable to the suspension or threatened suspension of these licenses are over $2,896,000 as calculated from the corresponding suspension initiation dates. Electronic Income Withholding As of May 2011, via the electronic Income Withholding Order (e-iwo) data exchange, Pennsylvania has over 13,100 electronic attachments in force through 472 employers, representing child support and arrears collections of over $7 million per month, or over $84 million per year. The following is a summary of the annual collections via e-iwo collections since the interface was implemented. e-iwo Collections Year e-iwo Manual Wage Attachment Total Employer Withholding 2009 $33,307, $1,028,397, $1,061,704, $88,951, $947,394, $1,036,346, PACSES has fully implemented all applicable employers participating in the e-iwo data exchange and continues to keep pace as new employers are added to the program each month