Sacramento, the Last to Know

It was odd to hear California state legislators say last Thursday that they had just been made aware of the $4-billion-plus federal penalty that the state government faces because of its woeful child support collection system. How could such ignorance be possible, given that the $4-billion figure has been widely discussed since at least December 1997 and possibly earlier? Comments like the legislators’ leave the state open to charges of stalling and obfuscation.

Here’s the real deal, and every state official in California knows it. All 50 states once faced a December 1997 federal deadline for having single, seamless and comprehensive child support computer systems in place. As that deadline approached, the extent of the possible penalties was announced. California was one of the states that missed the deadline, having scrapped an unworkable system after wasting $171 million on it.

Just last month, Sacramento put forward a $1.3-billion proposal that was roundly rejected by the federal government as overly expensive and inefficient. Now, officials from California, along with representatives of other states that failed to meet the deadline, are in Washington scrambling to head off massive penalties that could total up to $4.3 billion in fines and forfeiture of federal funds for the state welfare program. That loss would fall particularly hard on welfare recipients and their children.

Was the federal timetable fair to the most populous states? No, and Washington also low-balled the costs it would assume and was irresponsibly late in promulgating guidelines.

Has the program worked flawlessly around the nation? Again, no. Ohio rushed a computer system into place that does not work. Indiana has a system but some county officials refuse to use it. Pennsylvania has an approved system in place, but the state’s counties complain that it’s sometimes slower than the old system.

In other words, the federal mandate was defective in important ways, but it’s too late for California to fall back on that excuse. State officials must quickly come up with a plan that the federal government can support. Only success through proof of effort can now save the state’s poor from the impact of egregious federal penalties.

The blame falls mainly on Sacramento’s ineptness in all things digital and on California’s county district attorneys, whose offices, charged with the responsibility, collect just a fraction of the support payments owed. The victims of this mishandling deserve far better.