Brief ⁽¹⁾

SB 530 requires the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services (SRS), the state's Title IV-D agency, to establish a central unit for collection and disbursement of support payments, i.e., the Kansas Payment Center. SRS is required to collaborate with the Kansas Supreme Court in establishing the center.

The central unit shall commence operations with respect to support orders entered in each county as provided in a schedule adopted by the Supreme Court. Child support order includes any order for maintenance in conjunction with a child support order.

The bill provides that any provision in any child support order which requires remittance of support payments to the clerk of the district court or district court trustee shall be deemed to require remittance of support payments to the central unit regardless of the date the child support or income withholding order was entered.

Conforming amendments are made to the Income Withholding Act, the Kansas Parentage Act, the Kansas Divorce Code, and the Kansas Code of Civil Procedure.

The bill also amends the Divorce Code to permit for good cause shown orders of support to be paid other than to the central unit.

The bill also includes some technical amendments to the Kansas Income Withholding Act. One updates the definition of Title IV-D to include amendments enacted in recent years by the Congress. The other change clarifies that a copy of the income withholding order, rather than the original document, is served on the payor and triggers the payor's obligations under the withholding law.

The Senate Committee amended the bill to provide that SRS shall not require any person to pay a service fee solely because payments are processed by a central unit for collection and disbursement. The Divorce Code is also amended to provide that upon notice to any person having an interest in child support, either parent may ask the court to determine whether good cause exists for granting an exception to the requirement that child support be paid through the central unit.

The bill is effective upon publication in the Kansas Register.

Background

The bill was supported by SRS and the Office of Judicial Administration. A number of concerns about the bill were expressed by two divorced fathers.

A spokesperson for SRS said that the federal Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) required centralized processing of support payments as a key element for improving child support laws and procedures. PRWORA requires the state to establish a centralized unit for collection and disbursement of support payments in all IV-D (CSE) cases and income withholding payments established after October 1997 in Non-IV-D (non-SRS) cases. The Kansas Payment Center provided for in SB 530 will be the centralized unit for collection and disbursement of child support payments in Kansas.

The inclusion of non-IV-D cases forced states to decide whether to continue processing the older non-IV-D payments through local courts--with the complications and costs of running dual systems--or to have a single, centralized process. Because both IV-D and non-IV-D cases are affected, SRS and the Office of Judicial Administration have actively collaborated from the beginning in defining and designing the Kansas Payment Center.

Under the original federal penalty provision, Kansas was at risk of losing all federal funds for the IV-D program and a percentage of the TANF block grant. For states unable to meet the original 1999 implementation date, a 1999 federal law provides a graduated scale of IV-D penalties (starting at 4 percent of federal financial participation) and eliminates the related penalty against TANF.

The new law also provides for waiver of all or part of the penalty for any state that completes implementation during federal fiscal year 2000. Based upon the current implementation schedule, Kansas expects to qualify for the partial waiver, limiting its penalty risk to 1 percent of administrative costs ($242,000).

The fiscal note states that money for the Kansas Payment Center is included in the Governor's FY 2001 budget.

1. *Supplemental notes are prepared by the Legislative Research Department and do not express legislative intent. The supplemental note and fiscal note for this bill may be accessed on the Internet at http://www.ink.org/public/legislative/bill_search.html