Child Support re-issues almost $60k in 80 cases in first month of dedicated efforts to reduce undistributed collections
The Child Support Enforcement Division (CSED) has put nearly $60,000 into the hands of parents entitled to that money out of the undistributed collections fund. This comes one month after CSED created a plan and dedicated resources to reduce the $5 million in undistributed child (UDC) support payments that have posed a challenge to the Office for decades. This new initiative focuses on locating parents and reissuing checks.
To date, CSED has identified 80 cases where child support checks were returned because of outdated contact and mailing information- one check dating as far back as 2008.
“When parents and their children move, our records may become inaccurate unless contact information is updated,” said Deputy Attorney General Andrew Perez. “This is why it is so important that parents keep their contact and mailing information current with our Office.”
Since the onset of 2019, CSED strategized and developed a plan to tackle undistributed collections and locate rightful recipients of these funds. By reallocating current resources within CSED, a small team was put together to work on this project. They -through the use of federal and local databases, as well as the creative and innovative use of technology- were able to locate the first set parents and re-issue them checks.
“Our mission is to help families get the financial support necessary to raise their children,” said Attorney General Leevin Taitano Camacho. “This includes doing everything we can to find the rightful owners of the millions of dollars in undistributed payments that have been sitting in an account, in many cases for over a decade,” he said.
In its latest budget proposal, the OAG requested specific funding to allow for the hiring of additional staff dedicated solely to identifying and dispensing undistributed funds.
“We need to commit a set of people dedicated to this project to return that money as quickly as possible, but also so that our handling of current cases are not negatively impacted,” said AG Camacho.
The undistributed collections fund is a $5 million sum of money that, in many cases, has been sitting for decades. These are child support payments that could not or were not dispersed to its rightful owners. A law was passed in 2011 requiring the electronic transfer of funds, making it less likely that child support payments would not be properly paid.
To update your contact information with CSED, call 475-3360 extension 1700 or 1020.
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pic.twitter.com/Zmd5YRgSLi— Office of the Attorney General of Guam (@OAGGuam) June 11, 2019