In our report, Child Support Enforcement: Families Could Benefit From Stronger Enforcement Program (GAO/HEHS-95-24, Dec. 27, 1994), we found that the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) lacked essential management tools, such as programwide planning and goal-setting, to assess and improve program performance. Federal responsibility for the program lies within the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Administration for Children and Families (ACF). These recommendations address four key program areas for which OCSE has responsibility: (1) strengthening its partnership with state child support programs, (2) developing its own management strategies for how it will contribute to improved program results, (3) reorienting its audit processes to assess state results, and (4) realigning federal incentive funding with state performance. Traditionally, federal agencies have used factors such as the amount of program funds, the level of staff deployed, or the number of tasks completed as measures of performance. OMB based its selection of OCSE, in part, on OCSE’s previous efforts to develop a 5-year strategic plan; its ability to quantify program goals, such as child support collections; and the involvement of state and local governments as key program administrators. 1.2). Federal/State Partnership Strengthened; OCSE Needs Its Own Strategies to Manage for Results

OCSE has made progress in reorienting its management toward program results by working with the states to develop national goals and objectives for increasing the number of paternities established, support orders obtained, and collections received. At the time of our review, OCSE and the states also were developing performance measures, such as the percentage of children in the child support enforcement caseload with paternity resolved, as statistical tools for identifying state progress toward achieving these goals. However, the current incentive funding structure has two major limitations. The incentive funding structure remains weakly linked with state performance.
Why GAO Did This Study

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Office of Child Support Enforcement's (OCSE) management of the child support enforcement program, focusing on OCSE progress in: (1) strengthening its partnership with state and local child support enforcement programs; (2) achieving national program goals; (3) improving assessment of state program results; and (4) redesigning the federal incentive funding structure for improved state performance.

What GAO Found

GAO found that: (1) OCSE is making progress in reorienting its management of the child support enforcement program toward program results; (2) OCSE and the states have approved 5-year national goals and objectives for increasing the number of paternities established, the number of support orders obtained, and the amount of collections received; (3) OCSE has also negotiated voluntary performance agreements with states specifying intended program results; (4) OCSE audits continue to focus on state compliance rather than on state progress in achieving program goals because of a lack of performance measures, the absence of penalties for poor-performing states, and limited staff resources; (5) the OCSE federal incentive funding structure, which is based on maximizing child support collections relative to administrative costs rather than on all program goals, limits its use as an incentive for improved results; and (6) welfare reform legislation enacted in August 1996 presents the Department of Health and Human Services an opportunity to more strongly link incentive funding with demonstrated state performance.