April 2024 CSQ

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But title IV-D had a second purpose: welfare cost recovery. These cost recovery policies were part of an older history, rooted in Victorian-era poor relief laws that treated public assistance as a debt. Cost recovery laws have a long racist legacy, and the chronological arc of the “deadbeat parent” phase of the program mirrored the rise of incarceration and the retrenchment of public assistance programs. The right to child support itself is ancient. In fact, in 1665, my ancestor, Herodias Long, successfully sued the father of her children for child support in Rhode Island, although they had never married. Since its inception, the child support program has struggled to reconcile the legal right of children to obtain parental support, the unequal economic footing of men and women, and reimbursement of cash assistance. Generational change has brought a different set of insights to the child support program. Many of the people who implemented title IV-D had experienced divorce and raised children as single mothers. Many of the legislators at that time were divorced fathers. Many of the people who make the child support program run today were once children who lived apart from a parent. The child support program has come a long way. My first job out of law school in 1982 was with the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office, where I represented the range of human services programs, including child support. Minnesota has a state-administered, county-run program. At that time, the state central office only had 4 or 5 staff. Except for the largest counties, child support cases were handled by private attorneys under county contract. Child support was enforced primarily through wage garnishment, civil contempt, and criminal prosecutions. In its earliest days, the child support program operated exclusively as a cost-recovery program. In 1984, Congress required states to expand services to parents who did not receive AFDC but requested services. I started working with the title IV-D program before child support guidelines were implemented. Order amounts varied widely. Low-income noncustodial parents of children receiving AFDC were typically charged the full amount of assistance paid out, including Medicaid birthing costs and retroactive
support. Better-off fathers, on the other hand, often received nominal orders. In fact, many divorced fathers did not have a monthly support order at all. Part of my job as a state attorney was to review lump sum divorce decrees to determine whether they satisfied a “best interests of the child” standard. It was then common for wives to get the house and a lump sum settlement of a few thousand dollars in lieu of a monthly support order during a child’s minority. This also was before UIFSA was enacted. We operated under the Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Child Support Act (URESA). In order to enforce child support orders across state lines, both states had to enter into a compact—a little like a bilateral agreement in international cases. Part of my job was to review new URESA agreements. My interstate child support case wasn’t going to go anywhere because Minnesota didn’t have a URESA agreement with Pennsylvania. I didn’t even try to enforce my case. I represented the state in several class action lawsuits challenging federal laws enacted in 1981 and 1984. My first case was a constitutional challenge to the tax offset program. In another case, the state joined families in challenging federal sibling deeming rules, which required all children in the household to apply for AFDC and assign their child support rights. We had affidavits from several parents who decided to change custody rather than assign their support payments or who stopped paying child support altogether. During my career, I’ve been privileged to work on two U.S. Supreme Court cases. Program architecture underlies family experiences. In late 1994, I began working as a policy analyst at a national policy advocacy organization called the Center for Law in Social Policy (CLASP) in Washington, DC, and later became its family policy director. I specialized in family policy for 15 years, focusing on low-income families and fathers, domestic violence, and prison re-entry, including the Second Chance Act. I also focused on the guts of the child support program: systems implementation, program structure, and financing. A major part of my job was legislative advocacy. I was often on the hill and in the media, and coordinated closely with state directors. I had a hand in almost every child support law passed by Congress between 1996 and 2009, when I became OCSS commissioner. 1994 was truly an incredible time to return to the child support program. Three weeks into the job, I went to my first NCSEA policy forum. The conference was held at a pivotal point in the program’s history: the shift to
Page 2 and 3: Table of Contents April 2024 Execut
Page 4 and 5: innovative solutions. I attended se
Page 7 and 8: Balancing Act: The Shifting Focus o
Page 9 and 10: Rightfully, the child support progr
Page 11 and 12: Moving the Program Forward: Final R
Page 13 and 14: to protect and enhance Tribal lands
Page 15 and 16: now has “an important tool to hel
Page 17 and 18: of the Tax Reduction Act of 1975. O
Page 19 and 20: Income of both parents: $15,000 Par
Page 21 and 22: From Customer to Commissioner by Vi
Page 23: Employment Demonstration (CSPED). I
Page 27 and 28: ACF meet with stakeholders to reexa
Page 29 and 30: communications strategy and conduct
Page 31 and 32: Creation of the Child Support Reent
Page 33 and 34: incarcerated parent with a copy of
Page 35 and 36: NCSEA 2024 Policy Forum Wrap-up:
Page 37 and 38: employment on the various programs
Page 39 and 40: Carla West Connie Chesnik Corrinne

April 2024 CSQ

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