EFT/EDI Child Support Payments

Teleconference

Minutes from the Federal/State Agencies EFT/EDI Child Support Payments Project Teleconference, September 21, 2005

Participants

The Federal Agency/State agencies EFT/EDI Child Support Payments Project teleconference meeting was held on Wednesday, September 21, 2005 at 2:00 p.m., ET. The following federal agencies participated in the teleconference: Department of the Treasury's Financial Management Service (FMS), Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE), and Region VII of the Administration for Children and Families (ACF). The following states and private organizations participated in the teleconference: AL, AR, CA, CO, DC, DE, FL, GA, HI, IA, ID, IL, KY, LA, MO, MS, MT, NC, NE, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SD, TX, UT, WA, WI, WV, ADP, Bank of America, and Quest Diagnostics.

Lovenia Murray of FMS facilitated the meeting and reminded participants to register in advance for each teleconference at FMS's web site at http://fms.treas.gov/csp/confcall/index.html. Minutes from the teleconferences are posted at this web site.

Federal Agency Updates

NFC: The National Finance Center (NFC) was delayed in remitting child support payments from approximately 100 employees of the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) received at NFC prior to Hurricane Katrina because of damage to the NFC building by the Hurricane. The NFC building was inaccessible and thus the new income-withholding orders for the 100 employees were not added to the TSA payroll file. TSA notified the affected employees and advised them to send their own checks to the state disbursement units (SDUs) to satisfy the child support obligations. NFC has relocated to Dallas at the following phone number: (972) 697-2405. All other payments were processed according to schedule.

SSA: The Social Security Administration's (SSA) implementation of its National Garnishment Project has been rescheduled to March of 2006 when they hope to begin sending electronic payments for current (new) child support orders.

RRB: The Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) is scheduled to begin sending electronic payments for child support in September 2006.

State Department: The State Department (State) will either convert to electronic payments through its payroll operation on-site or convert through NFC, if a decision is made to migrate to NFC. If State's migration to NFC is confirmed, it will take approximately two years before it occurs. They are reviewing the requirements to determine if they can convert the child support check payments to EFT/EDI before that time.

DFAS: The Department of Defense's Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) reported that they have not yet converted the following states/territories to e-payments for child support: CA, SC, MD GU, and VI. The states of CA and SC do not have SDU in operation as yet. Work is in progress to complete reconciliation with MD.

DFAS Navy child support payment restitution issue:

The DFAS restitution letters (sent in May) were a result of an internal audit of Navy payments between 1999 and 2003. They affect approximately 4,500 payments from approximately 2,200 Navy service members. DFAS is required by law to try to recoup the money. Initially, it was assumed that the letters would be sent to the state disbursement units (SDUs). However, most of them went to the counties because at the time the payments were processed by DFAS, many SDUs had not yet been implemented.

Since the restitution letters went primarily to counties, many states cannot provide DFAS with a list of payments because they don't know what payments are in question. Rod Winn has advised states to write a letter to DFAS explaining the burden of providing a list and indicating that all payments were disbursed to custodial families. If, however, any DFAS monies have became part of undistributed collections, those monies should be returned to DFAS. States should address their letters to:

Mr. Roger Pinta
Director, Disbursing Operations
DFAS
1240 East Ninth Street
Cleveland, OH 44199

Other issues:

RI reported receiving DFAS CTX 820 files with Case ID errors. Loretta Longo of DFAS ((216) 204-1612 or Loretta.longo@dfas.mil is the contact for problems with payments.

Military voluntary allotment payment issues:

AR has been receiving many voluntary allotments from individual military service personnel in the PPD (direct deposit) file format rather than in the CCD+ or the CTX 280 file format. Each time a PPD arrived at the AR SDU, it had to be manually processed. Finally, AR decided to convert these voluntary allotments to income-withholding orders, which DFAS sends in the correct file format (CTX 820). AR converted 66 voluntary allotments to income-withholding orders (iwos) by obtaining copies of the original orders from the AR counties, preparing income-withholding orders (standard federal form), and sending these to DFAS. DFAS implemented the iwos and ordered the military service personnel to end their voluntary allotments through their pay branches. (A voluntary allotment established by a DFAS payroll office as a result of a child support order issued by a SDU may not be terminated by the military service personnel through the mypay system: https://mypay.dfas.mil/mypay.aspx.

DE, ID, and SD also indicated that they received a sizeable number of voluntary allotments in the PPD (direct deposit) format rather than in CCD+ or CTX 820.

Hurricane Katrina news:

Louisiana reported that it was not disbursing some child support payments (checks) until the custodial parents (CPs) could be located. MS indicated that it was not having any problems disbursing payments to CPs.

SSA has provided the following information about replacing lost Social Security numbers (SSNs):

Newly-hired employees or other people who do not have a Social Security card or do not know their Social Security number should read the emergency instructions on the Social Security website. These instructions can be found at www.socialsecurity.gov/emergency under "Frequently Asked Questions." People can contact Social Security by calling the toll-free number, 1-800-772-1213 (TTY 1-800-325-0778), or by visiting any Social Security office.

The Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) has developed a form for employers to use to submit a change-of-address for a custodial parent or a non-custodial parent if they happen to receive such information from individuals evacuated from Hurricane Katrina or Hurricane Rita. If an employer has a new address, it could be entered on the attached form and sent to the state disbursement unit to help locate parents.

IA's new web-based payment service:

IA has a new web-based payment service for employers. So far 1,200 employers have signed up to use the service, and the state has collected $2 million in child support. An employer may also use this web site to report new hires and terminations.

CA SDU update:

California is beginning implementation of its SDU by bringing in the counties one by one. They are taking over the non-IV-D payments first, beginning in November 2005.

Next federal agency/state EFT/EDI teleconference:

The next EFT/EDI teleconference is scheduled for November 16, 2005 at 2:00 p.m. ET. States are reminded to register for the teleconference at http://fms.treas.gov/csp/confcall/index.html to ensure enough lines is allocated.