D.A. Embraces Child Support Program Reform

Embracing a host of long-sought reforms, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti on Tuesday committed to a sweeping plan--with a $3-million annual price tag--to improve the performance of his office’s beleaguered child support program.

The reforms, aired during a tumultuous three-hour meeting before the Board of Supervisors, included not only those advanced by Garcetti but others insisted upon by supervisors to improve the $120-million-a-year Bureau of Family Support Operations.

And although the plan did not go far enough for many of Garcetti’s critics, it represented a watershed for the district attorney and his ability to fix his own house before supervisors take stronger action.

“I know the problems are there,” said Supervisor Yvonne Braithwaite Burke. “I want to see a solution.”

Garcetti’s key initiatives include:

* Creating a post of chief operating officer for the bureau, who will oversee its current director, Wayne Doss, and become only the fourth assistant district attorney in Garcetti’s office. To fill the $130,000-a-year slot, Garcetti said he will launch a nationwide search and vowed to hire an “outsider.”

* Hiring 23 new employees, mostly supervisors, to enhance accountability and bolster quality control.

* Pushing state legislation to make it easier to correct some child support errors and return licenses and money that have been improperly held.

* Embarking immediately on two pilot projects to use private companies for some jobs now handled by his office. One project would be aimed at locating parents who are owed money; the other, locating parents who should be paying child support.

Additional Steps Urged

Significantly, supervisors took even further steps.

In response to Supervisor Mike Antonovich’s push for contracting out the entire child support program, the county agreed to draw up a blanket solicitation for outside companies to submit proposals for improving the bureau’s performance.

At Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky’s request, Garcetti also agreed to take on another key initiative: improving the accountability of caseworkers by testing a new team concept that could reshape the much-criticized structure of Garcetti’s office. It was a step recommended more than a year ago in a Price Waterhouse audit.

And mindful of the need to deal with public complaints, supervisors called for the county to sponsor or support state legislation that would provide administrative hearings to resolve child support problems. Last year, Gov. Pete Wilson vetoed such a bill, which was authored by Assemblywoman Dion Aroner (D-Berkeley) and opposed by the California District Attorney’s Assn., including Garcetti.

While supervisors said they are willing to give Garcetti time to see how his new leadership can redirect the agency, some child support advocates remained skeptical.

“It’s not enough--especially the boss for Doss,” said Nora O’Brien, state director of the Assn. for the Enforcement of Child Support. “It’s just another level of bureaucracy. We need a place where the buck stops somewhere.”

And union officials--who cautioned against a “magic bullet” political solution--called for increased interaction between line staff and management.

“Frankly, for years our members have been pointing out these problems and it has been falling on deaf ears,” said Annelle Grajeda, general manager of the Service Employees International Union.

Before spelling out the details of his long-awaited plan, Garcetti again insisted that his Bureau of Family Support Operations has been unfairly criticized in the press. Citing a 21% increase in collections this year, Garcetti said his office has been struggling to improve its performance and meet the recommendations of a critical Price Waterhouse audit released a year ago.

‘Room for Improvement’

With more than 500,000 cases, Los Angeles County’s child support program is the largest of its kind in the nation, empowered to enforce support orders resulting from divorce and reimburse the welfare system for single-parent families that collect aid.

Garcetti’s comments were echoed by Casey Hoffman, founder of a private collection company and director of a national association of child support enforcement professionals. “Los Angeles County is doing better than you realize,” Hoffman said, citing the county’s enormous caseload and demographics.

Nonetheless, the district attorney acknowledged that for all his office’s progress, it must still make significant strides--and quickly.

“Despite improvements, I and my employees acknowledge we have significant room for improvement,” Garcetti said. “And I wish to accelerate our rate of improvement.”

That conclusion had been reached long ago by child support groups, outside agencies and county supervisors, who on Tuesday made it clear they will keep a close eye on his progress.

“I do believe we have to face this head on . . . [and] if there is not real change in the next three months, I will push for a new department,” Burke warned.

Although support for that approach will compete with other proposals in coming weeks and months, there was little doubt that further reforms are inevitable.

“They are going in the right direction,” Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen said minutes before the meeting. But “clearly,” he added, Garcetti’s program “needs a lot of work, which he is finally willing to admit.”

As such, Janssen added, the district attorney and the county are willing to do “anything that could significantly strengthen the collection of child support,” including supporting legislation to restructure the operation statewide.

“This is just the beginning,” he said.

The reforms come in the wake of a series of articles by The Times on Garcetti’s child support unit, which found that the office fails to collect support nine times out of 10, knowingly bills men who are not related to children they must support and for years did not hire staff to perform basic functions.

Throughout the meeting, where emotions ran high, the need for improving performance was the one constant theme among Garcetti’s defenders and detractors.

One day after visiting the agency’s new call center, Supervisor Gloria Molina said that it still is encountering unreasonable delays. And while impressed by the courtesy of its employees, she found them to be almost oblivious to the amount of time they were taking with each call.

Others cited the sort of horror stories that, critics say, have become commonplace to the nation’s largest county-run child support program.

Defense attorney Art Goldberg said that he recently handled a case in which a man was wrongly pursued for child support for seven children. “He was the father of none of them,” Goldberg said.

And in a reminder of troublesome reports from inside the agency that overburdened line workers throw away mail, Antonovich read a letter from a man whose daughter had sent paperwork to open a case but was later told the office had no case file.

The district attorney’s office Tuesday afternoon said it had no record of the case.

A series of stories on Los Angeles County’s beleaguered child support program is available on The Times’ Web site: https://www.latimes.com/child.support