Newsroom

DCFS Commended for Child Support Collections

January 15, 2015

BATON ROUGE - The Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) has been lauded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families (ACF) for exceptional child support enforcement collections.

In Federal Fiscal Year 2014, which ended September 30, 2014, DCFS distributed $394,004,210 in child support collections, an increase of 1.4 percent from the previous year. That is approximately $5.5 million in additional distributions to custodial parents and children.

In his letter, James V. Travis, ACF Regional Program Manager, congratulated DCFS, saying "this is an extraordinary accomplishment for the children of Louisiana and this program can be very proud of its hard work."

Travis also noted challenges, including locating non-custodial parents (NCPs), serving NCPs who have "gone underground" or work only for cash, and high numbers of incarcerated NCPs.

Despite these obstacles, DCFS has increased child support collections each of the past five years.

"The year-over-year increase in collections is directly attributable to investments in the child support enforcement program and the hard work of our dedicated staff and partners in Louisiana's District Attorneys' offices," said DCFS Secretary Suzy Sonnier. "DCFS has made technology upgrades and worked with legislators to implement the casino winnings interception program. These improvements and more are helping collect child support that non-custodial parents owe to their children."

Current child support and arrears collected through income withholding account for more than half of all collections. Child support collections also came from federal and state tax intercepts, unemployment claims and other sources including, the Lottery, passport denial, SSA intercepts, liens, BP date matches, financial institution data matches and directly funded from the non-custodial parent.

-30-