County lagging in collection of child support, review finds

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2003 | 10:55 a.m.

The Clark County district attorney's office is doing a poor job of collecting child support, ranking worse than the national average in three of five categories the federal government uses to measure such programs, according to a review of the office.

The end result is more people facing hardships -- leading to higher welfare rolls -- and less federal funding for the state.

The problems were identified more than four months ago in an outside review of the Family Support Division, responsible for ordering and enforcing child support payments. State and county officials are meeting today to come up with a strategy for fixing them.

The categories in which Nevada fared worse than the national average involved:

The division has been criticized by local advocates for single parents who pushed for the review.

"This an outrage that they're performing below standards ... because there are people ... who depend on this money for their children and the (absent) parent is laughing at the system," said Veronica Thronson, an attorney with the nonprofit Clark County Legal Services.

Thronson said she and her colleagues see hundreds of women a year who come to her agency for help with other issues but wind up complaining about economic problems caused by nonpayment of child support.

The division agreed to a top-to-bottom review earlier this year. Policy Studies Inc., a Denver-based consulting firm, completed a report based on its findings in July.

"These are indications that ... we need to improve," said C.A. Watts, director for the division, calling from the two-day meeting in Las Vegas meant to develop a plan in response to the review. "We're concerned and want to do a better job for the citizens of Clark County."

One thread running through the report was the impact the county's growing population has on the division's small staff.

The end result, it said, was an average caseload of 385 clients per division employee in 2002, compared with the national average of 304.

The report said that added funding and staff could increase child support collection rates -- one of the three areas negatively rated -- and recommends that the division hire 26 full-time employees and 35 part-time employees. The division currently has 216 full-time employees.

"In the last few years, staffing has been difficult statewide," Watts said. At the same time, he said, the agency is currently trying to hire seven case managers.

Another issue, the report said, was the number of cases that were open and hadn't resulted in orders to pay child support -- about 46,000 in 2002.

Watts said a team of current case managers has been formed to "clean up" those cases and "take some kind of action."

The two-year plan for improving child support collections in Clark County and statewide will be developed by the county and the state welfare division, Watts said.

Bob Teuton, recently named assistant district attorney responsible for the county's family and juvenile divisions, said developing such a plan will require a bit of juggling.

"Our challenge is to figure out how to reorganize resources we have and obtain more resources if those are not enough," he said.

The report points out that improving the division's performance will not only help single parents raise their children, but will also bring more federal funds to the state.

In 2001 the county received only 57.8 percent of money the federal government gave to the state to work on child support, based on performance. But the county handled about 70 percent of the state's caseload, the report said. The family division handles both cases where the parent is receiving welfare and others brought to its attention.

The county, it said, "is in a position to significantly increase the state's share of federal incentive dollars ... if it can improve its performance."

Teuton said the family division benefited from having an outside consultant review the agency.

"There's a tendency to become entrenched in the attitude, 'This is how we do business,' " he said.

At the same time, he wants to make sure staff members give input into the day-to-day aspects of changes the agency will make in the months ahead.

"We need to make sure recommendations from the national group are tempered with our local reality," he said.

Thronson, of Clark County Legal Services, just wants to make sure the division improves.

"We want the public to know this is happening ... and the agency to be held accountable," she said.