FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: (202) 225-1025
September 15, 1999
No. HR-10
Congresswoman Nancy L. Johnson (R-CT), Chairman, Subcommittee on Human Resources of the Committee on Ways and Means, today announced that the Subcommittee will hold a hearing on implementation of 1996 reforms of the Child Support Enforcement Program. The hearing will take place on Thursday, September 23, 1999, in room B-318 Rayburn House Office Building, beginning at 11:00 a.m.
In view of the limited time available to hear witnesses, oral testimony at this hearing will be from invited witnesses only. Witnesses will include a representative from the Clinton Administration, researchers, program administrators, and advocates. However, any individual or organization not scheduled for an oral appearance may submit a written statement for consideration by the Committee and for inclusion in the printed record of the hearing.
BACKGROUND:
In 1996, Congress enacted major reforms of many of the nation's welfare programs (P.L. 104-193, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act). Among the programs reformed was the Child Support Enforcement Program. This joint Federal-State program was enacted by Congress in 1975 to increase the amount of child support noncustodial parents pay to help meet the expenses of rearing their children. Although the collection of child support payments by the program increased over the years, by 1995 many interested parties were dissatisfied with the program's performance. As a result, sweeping reforms were included in the 1996 welfare reform law with bipartisan support.
The implementation of these reforms has raised four issues. First, perhaps the most important reform in the 1996 legislation was the creation of a directory of basic information on every person hired in the United States. This new hire information is reported by employers to a centralized data repository in every State; States in turn report their data to the Federal Government. Thus, child support agencies now operate data bases that permit rapid wage withholding in an increasing number of child support cases, including interstate cases. Second, every State is now operating a hospital-based program aimed at establishing paternity for births outside marriage. States are finding that up to
70 percent of fathers are present in the hospital around the time of the birth and are willing to voluntarily sign paternity acknowledgment orders at that time. Third, States are organizing programs that systematically search financial institutions for the assets of noncustodial parents who owe past-due child support. Finally, the welfare reform law created a new program to improve relations among separated, divorced, and never-married parents in order to facilitate access to, and visitation of, children by noncustodial parents. States have now awarded funding from this grant program to a variety of governmental and nongovernmental organizations to conduct these access and visitation programs.
In announcing the hearing, Chairman Johnson stated: "The child support reforms we passed in 1996 were by far the most extensive and important in the history of the program. Taken together, the reforms should greatly increase paternity establishment, creation of child support orders, and collection of child support payments. I am especially hopeful that we can increase child support payments for poor and low-income mothers, particularly those leaving or avoiding welfare. This hearing gives us the opportunity to review program information and actual data on program performance to see if our 1996 reforms are being aggressively implemented and whether collections are improving."
FOCUS OF THE HEARING:
The Subcommittee will examine four major issues raised by implementation of the 1996 child support reforms. Witnesses have been invited to provide the Subcommittee with detailed information about how each of these provisions is being implemented in the States and whether there is solid evidence that they are improving program performance. The Subcommittee will also hear from an advocacy group representing noncustodial parents, from the administrator of a State program, and from a representative of a State court system that is directly involved in the program about whether the access and visitation grants are achieving the goal of facilitating access and visitation by noncustodial parents.
DETAILS FOR SUBMISSION OF WRITTEN COMMENTS:
Any person or organization wishing to submit a written statement for the printed record of the hearing should submit six (6) single-spaced copies of their statement, along with an IBM compatible 3.5-inch diskette in WordPerfect 5.1 format, with their name, address, and hearing date noted on a label, by the close of business, Thursday, October 7, 1999, to A.L. Singleton, Chief of Staff, Committee on Ways and Means, U.S. House of Representatives, 1102 Longworth House Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20515. If those filing written statements wish to have their statements distributed to the press and interested public at the hearing, they may deliver 200 additional copies for this purpose to the Subcommittee on Human Resources office, room B-317 Rayburn House Office Building, by close of business the day before the hearing.
FORMATTING REQUIREMENTS:
Each statement presented for printing to the Committee by a witness, any written statement or exhibit submitted for the printed record or any written comments in response to a request for written comments must conform to the guidelines listed below. Any statement or exhibit not in compliance with these guidelines will not be printed, but will be maintained in the Committee files for review and use by the Committee.
1. All statements and any accompanying exhibits for printing must be submitted on an IBM compatible 3.5-inch diskette WordPerfect 5.1 format, typed in single space and may not exceed a total of 10 pages including attachments. Witnesses are advised that the Committee will rely on electronic submissions for printing the official hearing record.
2. Copies of whole documents submitted as exhibit material will not be accepted for printing. Instead, exhibit material should be referenced and quoted or paraphrased. All exhibit material not meeting these specifications will be maintained in the Committee files for review and use by the Committee.
3. A witness appearing at a public hearing, or submitting a statement for the record of a public hearing, or submitting written comments in response to a published request for comments by the Committee, must include on his statement or submission a list of all clients, persons, or organizations on whose behalf the witness appears.
4. A supplemental sheet must accompany each statement listing the name, company, address, telephone and fax numbers where the witness or the designated representative may be reached. This supplemental sheet will not be included in the printed record.
The above restrictions and limitations apply only to material being submitted for printing. Statements and exhibits or supplementary material submitted solely for distribution to the Members, the press, and the public during the course of a public hearing may be submitted in other forms.
The
Committee seeks to make its facilities accessible to persons with
disabilities. If you are in need of special accommodations, please
call 202-225-1721 or 202-226-3411 TTD/TTY in advance of the event
(four business days notice is requested). Questions with regard to
special accommodation needs in general (including availability of
Committee materials in alternative formats) may be directed to the
Committee as noted above.