COLUMBUS (WCMH) — More than 70,000 people pay child support in Franklin County. More than 20,000 of those people are behind on payments or not paying at all. The Franklin County Child Support Enforcement Agency is making big changes to operations in order to better serve these individuals and, ultimately, decrease the number of delinquent accounts.
The agency was recently awarded a grant worth more than one million dollars with the goal of making agency documents, forms, and operations more user-friendly. Franklin County Child Support Enforcement Agency Director Susan Brown says, “I think with many government programs there are many bureaucratic processes. The forms contain a lot of jargon. The processes are hard to understand.”
The grant manager has already identified certain changes. Questionnaires will be re-worded, fewer answers to questions will be offered, and the reading level required to complete the form will be lowered. Additionally, payers will receive thank you notes once child support payments are received. Grant manager Cassandra Young says 45% of the people who want child support orders changed never submit the required paperwork. The agency is particularly concerned about low-income payers. You says, “The higher that order goes above 20% of their income, the less likely they are to pay. Then, we are going to see a large amount of debt piling up and that can be very paralyzing.”
Young hopes to make it easier to require child support order changes. She calls this process “right-sizing.” Additionally, for the thousands of parents struggling to meet monthly child support obligations, other factors like sporadic employment or legal issues could be a factor. Brown explains the agency wants to work with parents and link them with helpful community resources, “So for those parents, we provide services to right size their order or connect them to programs who partner with us.”
The agency hopes streamlining forms and making them more user-friendly will save more time. They expect to utilize that extra time to increase the amount of individualized help with clients who need it. Young adds, “Taking the time we save in those efficiencies to spend that time one on one with the client. Nothing can really replace one on one guidance, especially for clients living in poverty.”
The five-year grant was awarded to eight agencies across the country. In addition to Franklin County, Cuyahoga County is the only other site selected in Ohio.
