Child Support Enforcement: Early Results on Comparability of Privatized and Public Offices

摘要

Fifteen states have turned to full-service privatization of selected local child support enforcement offices as a way to improve performance and handle growing caseloads that are reaching or exceeding 1,000 cases per worker in some instances. For some offices, privatization has also been a response to state restrictions on hiring additional public employees. In the three comparisons of performance we conducted, fully privatized offices performed at least as well as or, in some instances, better than public child support programs in locating noncustodial parents, establishing paternity and support orders, and collecting support owed. For example, a privatized office in Tennessee established paternity for 4 percent of the cases needing this service in the first year of privatization compared with about 3 percent in the last year before it was privatized. In Virginia, the privatized office collected support payments from 41 percent of the cases we reviewed, a rate almost twice that of the public office we compared it with. The relative cost-effectiveness2 of the privatized versus public offices, however, differed among the comparisons we made. Specifically, Virginias and Arizonas privatized offices were more cost-effective60 percent and 18 percent, respectivelythan their public counterparts.