Audit Criticizes D.A.’s Collection of Child Support

An independent audit of the Los Angeles County district attorney’s system for collecting unpaid child support has found significant problems, including delays so long and bureaucracy so complex that many children never receive what they are owed.

The audit, which will be released today, was done for Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti and the county auditor-controller by the accounting and management firm of Price Waterhouse LLP.

The auditors concluded that although the district attorney’s much-criticized Bureau of Family Support Operations has improved, “it generally lags behind other counties” in such “benchmark” performance measurements as collections, efficiency and operational effectiveness.

Garcetti said the audit confirmed what his staff “has long believed”: The bureau needs a much larger staff and technological resources, “along with additional training and an even greater staff commitment to professional customer service.”

But Nora O’Brien, state director of the Assn. for Children for Enforcement of Support, noted that “in L.A. County alone, 1 million children are owed $1.2 billion.” The prosecutor, she said, “can’t just use the excuse that they have too many cases. They have to put systems in place that can handle the caseload and not just throw up their hands. That’s just not good enough.”

Price Waterhouse did not compare the Los Angeles County district attorney’s overall performance with that of similar systems in other California counties. But in recent years, the Bureau of Family Support Operations, the largest system of its kind in the state, has been rated among the worst in dollars collected and number of cases settled. The latest report does not quantify where the county stands overall in comparison to other counties.

But when the auditors did compare discrete aspects of the system with those in other counties, they found that the L.A. County program still falls far below the norm.

For example, all counties are supposed to recover federal Aid to Families With Dependent Children money that is spent on children who also get child support from a noncustodial parent. Los Angeles County only recovers 6.1% of that money, the audit found, while the statewide average is 10.4%.

While noting some improvements, such as establishment of America’s only criminal court dedicated solely to the prosecution of parents charged with failure to pay child support, the auditors reported serious problems:

* Noting the system’s 14 separate organizational units, Price Waterhouse declared that “this span of control is too broad by any standard and distracts management from more strategic issues.”

* The bureau lacks a comprehensive set of “operational and strategic performance measures” to see how well the program is doing overall and in specific areas.

* There is a lack of accountability that makes it “too easy to pass off or ignore difficult cases,” especially when overwhelmed “family support representatives” are forced to juggle as many as 1,300 cases without the benefit of properly computerized files. “At this level,” the auditors said, “case management becomes mostly reactive: dealing with whomever is complaining the loudest rather than who needs service the most or who has the best information.”

* Inefficient telephone systems, coupled with an enormous volume of public inquiries, make it very difficult for parents seeking child support to check their case status or talk to a caseworker. “Very few calls are actually handled by a live person,” the auditors found.

The criticism of the Los Angeles County system did not surprise many who have been forced to rely on it.

“Terrible,” is how Diane Gershman described her experience with the collection office during three years of attempting to secure spousal and child support payments from her ex-husband, a Brentwood psychiatrist.

“Over three years ago, I came to the Bureau of Family Support for help collecting past and current support. Ironically, the payments made through the bureau came as erratically as the payments from my ex. One never knows from month to month how much of what they have collected will be forwarded to one’s children,” Gershman said.

Her ex-spouse, Ronald, was recently sentenced to four years probation and ordered to pay $4,250 per month or risk going to jail.

“Their accounting is sloppy. It’s inaccurate. And to recover damages can take years,” Diane Gershman said.

Garcetti has prepared a 38-page response to the audit, and at a news conference today will ask the County Board of Supervisors for hundreds of additional employees to implement the improvements suggested by the auditors, according to top county officials.

But Assistant Chief Administrative Officer Sandra Davis said late Wednesday that Garcetti was given 200 additional employees just two years ago. And, according to Davis, Garcetti received all 1,278 of the positions that he requested in the current budget.

Supervisor Don Knabe--who said his “single biggest constituent complaint is in the area of child support”--said the audit “certainly is eye-opening. We know we have a problem here, and I think we pretty much now have a blueprint for how we can fix the problem. The dollars will be the next issue. . . . Obviously we will exert a lot of pressure to see if [Garcetti] can do it with existing resources.”

Although the district attorney runs the collection system, auditors also criticized the Board of Supervisors for letting its Family Support Advisory Board languish to where it does not act as a proper watchdog. The supervisors, the audit said, need to fill all the board’s vacancies and require regular reports.

Perhaps that would have helped Karen Cowen. In April, the 50-year-old Emmett, Idaho, mother was notified by the L.A. County district attorney’s office that its records showed that her court-ordered child support has been paid in full.

If so, Cowen said Wednesday, someone else must have received the $40,000 owed her child.

“I never got a dime,” said Cowen, whose daughter--the one whose court-ordered support the D.A.’s office was supposed to have collected--is 25.