EFT/EDI Child Support Payments

Teleconference

Minutes from the Federal/State Agencies EFT/EDI Child Support Payments Project Teleconference, November 16, 2005

Participants

The Federal agencies represented on the teleconference were the Department of the Treasury's Financial Management Service (FMS), and Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE). The states represented were AL, AR, CA, CO, DC, FL, GA, HI, IA, ID, IL, KY, MD, MN, MT, ND, NE, NY, OH, OR, PA, PR, VA, WA, WV, and WY.

The bi-monthly Federal Agency/State EFT/EDI Child Support Payments Project teleconference meeting was held on Wednesday, November 16 at 2 p.m., ET. 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

Ninety-five percent of federal payroll agencies' are now sending their child support payments (deducted from employees' salary) to states by EFT/EDI in the CCD+ or CTX format.

SSA: The Social Security Administration (SSA) has delayed implementation of its National Garnishment Project until March of 2006 when they hope to begin sending electronic payments for current (new) child support orders to attach benefit payments. The states expressed interest in beginning case reconciliation with SSA.

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

Audrey Mozaffari, who is the Operations Oversight Manager of the California (CA) State Disbursement Unit (SDU) gave an update on the implementation of the SDU. They have brought in 11 of the 58 counties and is currently working to resolve a problem that has resulted in interstate paper checks being sent without the case ID of the other state. If other states are experiencing a problem identifying interstate payments from CA, they should contact:

Alisa Channel
(916) 576-8869

An e-flash will be sent to all the SDU contacts and the EFT/EDI contacts informing them of this issue.

The CA SDU hopes to begin outreach by April of 2006 to employers sending payments for IV-D cases and by June of 2006 to employers sending payments for non-IV-D (private) orders.

If an SDU is already sending electronic payments to any county in CA, the CA SDU will take over those payments so that the SDUs do not have to return to paper checks.

Please do not contact the CA SDU about case reconciliation until further notice.

Company Batch/Header Record FEIN issue

MN brought up the subject of how federal agencies identify themselves in the Company/Batch Header Record (5 record) of electronic payments. Private employers enter their federal employer identification number (FEIN) in field 5 ("Company Identification"), prefaced by a one-digit Identification Code designator (ICD), which is a 1 if the following number is an FEIN. However, federal agencies already use field 5 for the Routing Transit Number (RTN) of the federal agency service provider. Therefore, when OCSE began working with Treasury's Financial Management Service (FMS), OCSE requested that FMS ask the federal agency service providers to use field 5 ("Company Discretionary Data," an optional field) to identify the FEIN of the actual federal agency that was sending the payment. The reason for this was to assist SDUs to identify the federal agency (employer) to which the income-withholding order had been sent. FMS agreed, and Treasury payments now show the federal agency's FEIN in field 4, prefaced by a 1. MN is having difficulty identifying the FEIN when it is prefaced by a 1 because that field is programmed as a 9 digits field in MN's system, though the ACH format specified field length is 20 characters. MN has requested that the 1 (the ICD) be dropped. There was discussion, but no decision was made. FMS and OCSE will work with MN toward resolving this off-line.

Reversals: a reminder

Colorado (CO) asked that SDUs be reminded NOT to reverse interstate payments received electronically.

New York's (NY) new central post office box number for paper checks

NY has implemented a central post office box for all paper checks. Paper checks should no longer be sent to individual counties. The new, centralized address is as follows:

NYS Child Support Processing Center
P.O. Box 15363
Albany, NY 12212-5363

NY encourages states and employers to convert to electronic payments for child support. OCSE will send out an e-flash to all the SDU contacts and the EFT/EDI contacts, notifying them of NY's new, central post office box number.

LaborReady and the "CTX Lite" format

OCSE has contacted LaborReady to request that they stop sending child support payments in the unapproved, "CTX Lite' format. LaborReady has agreed and will convert all its payments to the approved, CTX 820 remittance format.

Wal-Mart and ADP

Wal-Mart will be using ADP to send its child support payments.

Update on Maryland

MD is able to send and receive interstate payments and encourages other states to convert their interstate payments to MD to electronic payments.

PPD format issue

FMS reported that DFAS has taken steps to minimize the number of PPD payments that are created and processed by military personnel through their MyPay system, and asked whether states are still receiving payments in the PPD format. Some indicated that through the DFAS PPD volume has decreased somewhat they are still receiving some voluntary allotments in that format. The PPD payments do not include the DED Child Support Addendum Segment that states need to post the payment electronically.

Next Federal agency/state EFT/EDI teleconference:

The next EFT/EDI teleconference is scheduled for January 18, 2006 at 2:00 p.m. ET. A new teleconference number and code will be distributed to the participants before the January 2006 teleconference. Federal agencies and States are reminded to register for the teleconference at http://fms.treas.gov/csp/confcall/index.html to ensure enough lines are allocated.