The National Council of State Child Support Enforcement Administrators resolves that:
OCSE carefully weigh implications for state-wide automated systems when recommending, promoting, or implementing new IV-D policy and when establishing implementation deadlines;
OCSE reduce or eliminate state requirements related to initiatives which utilize aging technologies, or which cause unreasonable program inconsistencies, or which are of marginal relative value to program goals;
OCSE simplify the documentation, reporting, and validation requirements related to systems development;
OCSE regularly include state child support directors in consultation related to policy changes that impact automation.
State child support directors and the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) share the common program goals for the timely establishment of paternity and child support orders, and intensive enforcement of child support orders for all IV-D families. State child support administrators and the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement agree that well-constructed, state-wide, automated child support systems provide states with the best tools to ensure such services. However, statewide automated systems are highly complex and becoming more interrelated with other local, state and federal government systems, as well as non-government systems. State child support agencies are spending increasing amounts of staff time and financial resources satisfying federal requirements related to system documentation and meeting unmanageable deadlines related to statewide automated systems.
In addition, TANF caseloads are decreasing nationwide and low and medium income, single-parent families are reliant on child support to supplement income from employment. Any disruption of child support processing that may occur as a result of artificial federal deadlines causes severe hardships to such families.