Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 3, 1994 TAG: 9403030112
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
For more than a year, the checks - which originate in Maryland and are funneled through the Virginia Division of Child Support Enforcement - rolled in like clockwork.
But in December, Holmes didn't get a check. The money is deducted from the father's paycheck, so it wasn't as though he had reneged on a payment, she said.
When Holmes, of Blacksburg, received her January check, she wrote off the missing December check as a mere slip in the system.
Then February's check never showed up. And Holmes still is waiting for December's.
She hopes the problem will be solved after this week, when the state's Child Support Enforcement Division completes an overhaul of the computer system that's jammed with more than 300,000 cases.
"When you're trying to maintain your family and trying to stay off public aid and then you start having problems like this, something's wrong," said Holmes, 33, who is studying to become a dental hygienist at New River Community College and relies on the support money to cover rent payments.
"You just feel like throwing your hands up."
The $4.8 million computer overhaul is so extensive that the division, a branch of the Virginia Department of Social Services, shut down the system this week to finish the conversion. The division will resume processing support payments on Monday under the new system.
The new system is intended to provide a "fully integrated, comprehensive automated program to enforce payment of child support," according to a division news release. The program has been touted as a model for child support enforcement programs across the country.
The enforcement division has been maintaining two child support computer systems - one for clients who are welfare recipients and one for nonwelfare clients, said Bob Osburn, public relations coordinator for the state Social Services Department.
The new system will combine the two.
"Everyone will be on one system and the process will be a lot quicker," Osburn said. "It's really just much more advantageous for caseworkers out there."
The system has been overloaded since the late 1980s, when the division was ordered to handle cases for both welfare and nonwelfare clients, creating an "instant backlog," Osburn said. The enforcement division receives $3.5 million daily in payments and processes an average of 6,800 payments a day, said Leon Alder, regional administrator for the western regional office of the enforcement division.
"We had to get a better system because the volume was just overwhelming," Alder said.
Interstate cases, such as Holmes', have been the most difficult to monitor, Alder said. Much of the work in those cases had been done manually, he said. Under the new system, that kind of work will be automated.
The new system also is designed not only to streamline the payment process, but to enable the enforcement division to accomplish its enforcement goals, such as tracking down absent parents.
"Virginia's going to be one of the first states with a certified system," Alder said. Ninety percent of the funds used for the conversion are to be reimbursed by the federal government.
"We're ahead of the curve," Alder said. "It's not going to happen overnight though, when you're dealing with this kind of volume."
Though Holmes hopes the new system will help with her dilemma, she says she fears that the conversion will only add to her woes. And she says she can't afford to wait much longer for her missing checks.
"I'm behind in my rent," she said. "The light bill for this month, I can pay that. But on and off, it's a struggle."
by CNB