ACF Eases Child Support Performance Requirements During Disasters
Ensuring that states are meeting federal child support services performance measures is vital on a regular day-to-day basis. However, during a natural disaster, meeting these peformance goals becomes severerly hampered. Understanding this, the Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families (ACF) earlier this month issued a final rule, which became effective March 4, that assists child support programs during states of emergency by allowing ACF’s Office of Child Support Services (OCSS) to offer states temporary relief from certain child support program performance standards and penalties when they are impacted by disasters.
“Our programs must be flexible and adapt in the face of emergencies,” said ACF Acting Assistant Secretary Jeff Hild. “This rule will help ensure child support programs have the funding to help families when they need it the most in the aftermath of disasters.”
State child support programs are required to achieve performance levels in paternity establishment, support order establishment and current collections. Failure to meet these performance levels subjects a state to financial penalties. According to ACF, the need to offer relief to states from penalties during natural disasters and calamities became apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic. During that time, states experienced significant workload burdens and service backlogs due to disruptions to child support program operations and court closures. In response, ACF added a rule (45 C.F.R. §305.61(e)) to provide time-limited relief by modifying the Paternity Establishment Percentage for federal fiscal years 2020, 2021 and 2022.
Due to the lengthy rulemaking process necessary to provide temporary relief to states, ACF aimed to develop a quicker solution for future emergencies. This final rule, which establishes a new 45 C.F.R. §305.61(f), allows OCSS to provide prompt relief to state programs without having to engage in a rulemaking process. The rule allows OCSS to modify performance measure requirements and waive penalties for failure to meet these requirements when an emergency impacts a state’s ability to achieve the paternity establishment, support order establishment and current collections standards. The rule also allows OCSS to set aside adverse data reliability audit findings that may also result in a financial penalty.
Added OCSS Commissioner Tanguler Gray: “Child support programs were incredibly resilient and innovative in finding ways to continue providing services to families during the pandemic. This rule is an important tool to help programs weather future emergencies.”
A state seeking a modification of one or more of the performance requirements in response to a natural disaster must include the following: (1) a narrative statement describing the circumstances and justification for the request to modify the state’s performance requirement; (2) information substantiating the impact of the natural disaster or other calamity on the state’s ability to comply with the standards, including a description of the specific conditions caused by the natural disaster or other calamity that have, or may have, a significant impact on the state’s ability to comply, and preliminary data provided by the state, as required under 45 C.F.R. §305.32(f), showing reduced performance; (3) information on the expected duration of the conditions that make compliance impracticable; or (4) any other documentation or other information that ACF may require to make this determination.
We applaud this rulemaking as good forward thinking by the agency as natural disasters are occurring more frequently.
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