Columnist Sandra Thompson: Nevada catching up to child-support system

A COMPUTER system to track parents who owe child support is behind schedule.

Nevada was one of 10 states that missed an Oct. 1 deadline to have the system up and running. That may result in a 4 percent loss -- or $2 million -- of federal child-support grants. California, which also missed the deadline, is facing a $12 million penalty.

The longer it takes for the systems to be in place, the higher the penalties. They increase to 16 percent in 2000 and 20 percent in 2001 in subsequent years.

But that's a drop in the bucket compared to what the project has cost to date and the amount of child support owed by delinquent parents.

Since 1992, Nevada has spent $92.5 million to develop, design and implement a computer system that would tie together welfare and child-support databases throughout the state and plug into a national system.

Much of the money has come from federal funds. In 1980, Congress agreed to pay 90 percent of the cost of computerization. Nationally, more than $2.6 billion has been spent on the project, according to Associated Press reports.

States were required to be automated by 1988. But as of today, 10 states' systems still aren't functioning, and many other states are waiting for their systems to be certified.

So why isn't Nevada's system up and running?

It's a very ambitious and complex project, according to Ed Sarsfield, deputy administrator for the state's system.

Called NOMADS, which stands for Nevada Operations of Multiple Automated Data Systems, the system would match child support data with welfare rolls.

Nevada's challenge is greater than most states because it chose to integrate the two systems at one time. Although it makes more sense to do so, it involves more work. For example, Sarsfield says, 10 million lines of code had to be written.

The goal is to reduce welfare costs by enforcing payment of child support. That was one of the sweeping changes mandated by the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, which Sarsfield says hit states hard. Not only were all the forms revised, the overall philosophy of welfare changed. Before, when a person applied for welfare, the emphasis was on determining his or her eligibility. Now it's "how can we get you to work," Sarsfield says.

Computer programs had to be changed. The state also had to develop a system that would tie in information from the 17 counties.

Child support enforcement still will be the responsibility of the county district attorney's offices, which will have access to the state's main database.

And that's a major-league job, considering the amounts of money owed and what's collected. According to C.A. Watts, director of the Clark County district attorney's Family Support Office, Nevada collected $91.8 million in owed child support for the fiscal year ending June 30. Clark County accounted for $53 million of that. The figure includes only current support owed, not arrearages.

There are about 43,000 child support cases in Clark County. Some include parents who live out of state and owe money here.

Watts says Nevada was one of the first states to submit a tape of its child support cases to the national registry in Washington, D.C.

When completed, the national database will include records of the millions of parents who owe child support. They can run from state to state, but they won't be able to hide.

Even now there is a National Directory of New Hires, which includes records on everyone who begins a new job. The names of parents who owe child support will be run through the registry. They also eventually will be matched with IRS records.

While it's a Big Brother approach, the goal is to ensure that the billions of dollars of child support that are owed actually reach the children, many of whom are being supported by welfare.

(Ironically, while the goal is to get these families off welfare, other families say they are forced to go on welfare because of unfair child-support judgments that leave them with no money to support themselves. But that's another topic for another time.)

The system is far from perfect. We periodically receive complaints -- especially in cases involving an out-of-state parent -- about the lack of child support collection efforts on a county level.

Nationally, child-support enforcement -- or the lack thereof -- is gaining more attention because of the billions of dollars involved. The Los Angeles district attorney's office, for example, has been under intense fire for its low collection rates and high administrative costs. Some parents wait years for the L.A. office to move on their cases.

Nevada officials hope the new NOMADS system will increase collection efforts here and eliminate some of the local complaints. NOMADS is being tested now in Washoe County. Douglas and Clark counties will follow, with statewide implementation scheduled by September 1999.

Whether such an ambitious, costly computer system will be a boon or a boondoggle remains to be seen.

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