STATE OF ARKANSAS
CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT
Department of Finance and Administration
Post Office Box 8133
Little Rock, Arkansas 72203-8133
Phone: (501) 682-6169 Fax: (501) 682-6002 w w w. childsupport. arkansas .go v
January 24, 2008 Governor Mike Beebe
State Capitol, Suite 250 Little Rock, AR 72201 Dear Governor Beebe:
I want to thank you and your staff for your patience and the help provided to constituents who recently contacted your office voicing concern for fees billed to them for past child support services. The issues causing their concerns have been thoroughly reviewed and addressed by the Office of Child Support Enforcement. I also want to apologize for the mistakes that were made in our effort to collect debt on cases that closed several years back, especially for those cases in
which a custodial parent or a dependent was deceased. The following actions have been taken by the Office of Child Support to prevent mistakes of this nature from occurring again: 1)
The system error that caused the release of fee billing notices to parents for which the system had knowledge of the custodial or dependent being deceased has been fixed. The decease action indicator on cases has been linked to any future billing notices so that billings for those cases will be suppressed. Additionally, fees have been deleted from those cases as added assurance.
2)
3)
We have ceased our efforts to collect old debt on cases that closed prior to January 1, 2006, for which prior and consistent notice was not given to the custodial parent that unpaid fees remained due at the close of the case. System changes have been implemented so that written notice is sent to custodial
parents upon case closure of any fees that remain unpaid and due on their case, and that subsequent quarterly billing will occur until the debt is paid. 4)
A write-off policy for custodial parent fees has been implemented to include the following: a
.
Fees will be deleted from a closed case if the amount of the fees balance is less
than $50 and no payment is received for one year after notice is sent to the b
.
custodial parent that fees are owed. Fees will be deleted from a closed case if the amount of the fees balance is $50 or
more and no payment is received for two years after notice is sent to the custodial parent that fees are owed.
Governor Mike Beebe
Page 2 January 24, 2008
c
.
Fees will be deleted from a closed case if the notice or billings to a custodial parent is returned because of a bad address.
I feel confident that the measures that have been taken to address this issue will prevent future occurrences of valid concerns by custodial parents for fee billings in closed cases.
Please contact me should you have further questions or suggestions for this process. Sincerely
Dan McDonald Administrator
DM: pmp
cc:
Richard Weiss, Director, Department of Finance and Administration Tim Leathers Deputy Director, Department of Finance and Administration ,
Jeff Moritz From:
Jeff Moritz
Sent:
Thursday, November 08 2007 2:50 PM
To:
Claude Sutton
Cc: Subject:
Mohari Reddy RE: Sending IRS, State Tax and Billing notices on Deceased Members
,
Check with Mohan?
-Original MessageFrom:
Claude Sutton
Sent:
Tuesday, November 06, 2007 1:46 PM
To:
Jeff Moritz
Subject:
RE: Sending IRS, State Tax and Billing notices on Deceased Members
Do you want us to change the update to CSENET to include C and D rather than just N and P? -
Original Message-
From: Jeff Moritz
Sent: Monday, November 05, 2007 3:48 PM To: Mary E Smith; Gwen Terrell; Dan McDonald; Barbara Morris-Williams; RuthAnn Jefferies Cc: Arunachalam Ramanathan; Dela Figueroa; Francis Powell; Claude Sutton Subject: Sending IRS, State Tax and Billing notices on Deceased Members
The system will auto close a case if the NCP on the case is deceased for one year and the worker does not take any action on the open CSCLS open activity. There is also an activity/alert of MDEAD for PF's/ NCP"s
that is created when the deceased date is updated on DEMO. We are going to change this to include CP"s and Dependents. We have modified billing to not send any billing statements to any deceased CP or NCP.
We have excluded deceased members from State Tax for this year and all future years. For IRS, if the case is open we will certify. However, we will not send the annual notice starting next year, if the case closes, which will happen one year from the date of death, then we will send a delete to IRS.
Attached is a spreadsheet of all deceased members who have a fee balance. I think that covers all of the issues. Please let me know if you have any further questions. Thanks, Jeff
« File: DECEASED MEMBERS HAVING FEE BALANCES.xls » -Original MessageFrom: Mary E Smith
Sent: To: Subject:
Tuesday, October 30, 2007 2:37 PM Jeff Moritz; Gwen Terrell; Dan McDonald; Barbara Morris-Williams; RuthAnn Jefferies RE: Billing/Coupons
Exclude all dead people from State tax because they cannot receive notice of the offset.
For IRS certify arrears, but not the others, we don"t certify those things anyway. Given the way pre-offset notices are done now, NCP probably got a notice prior to his death. 19
For next year, allow IRS certification for NCP arrears for the tax year that corresponds to the year the NCP passed. But not future tax years. Don,t send the annual reminder IRS letter to dead NCPs
Don't send billing coupons to any dead person.
Doesn't the system troll for cases where the NCP has been deceased for one year and close them down???
.Original MessageFrom:
Jeff Moritz
Sent: To: Subject:
Tuesday, October 30, 2007 1:50 PM Mary E Smith; Gwen Terrell; Dan McDonald; Barbara Morris-Williams; RuthAnn Jefferies RE: Billing/Coupons
Let me know yes or no for each of the types of certification below. We need to know about State Tax in order to exclude for this weekend.
IRS
Exclude
NCP arrears [Mary E Smith] No NCP Fees [Mary E Smith] Yes CP fees [Mary E Smith] Yes
CP overpayments [Mary E Smith] Yes State Tax
Exclude [Mary E Smith] Yes NCP arrears [Mary E Smith] Yes NCP Fees [Mary E Smith] Yes CP fees [Mary E Smith] Yes CP overpayments [Mary E Smith] Yes Original MessageFrom: Mary E Smith -
Sent: To: Subject:
Tuesday, October 30, 2007 8:52 AM Jeff Moritz; Gwen Terrell; Dan McDonald; Barbara Morris-Williams; RuthAnn Jefferies
RE: Billing/Coupons
Be careful about excluding deceased members from the tax file someone may have filed a tax ,
return for the individual for the year of death, we may still be entitled to offset something. That is why we encourage the staff to keep the case open for a while after the NCP dies. Original Message-
.
From:
Jeff Moritz
Sent: To:
Tuesday, October 30, 2007 8:23 AM Gwen Terrell; Dan McDonald; Barbara Morris-Williams; Mary E Smith; RuthAnn Jefferies
Subject:
RE: Billing/Coupons
I am looking in to that also. We will make sure to exclude them for this weekend's state tax ,
run.
Original Message-
.
From:
Gwen Terrell
Sent: To: Subject:
Tuesday, October 30 2007 8:20 AM Dan McDonald; Jeff Moritz; Barbara Morris-Williams; Mary E Smith; RuthAnn Jefferies RE: Billing/Coupons ,
I think a system edit to prevent billing on deceased members would be good. Jeff, are deceased members excluded from tax certification?
ÿOriginal Message20
From:
Dan McDonald
Sent: To: Subject:
Monday, October 29, 2007 4:36 PM Jeff Moritz; Gwen Terrell; Barbara Morris-Williams; Mary E Smith; RuthAnn Jefferies RE: Billing/Coupons
We should zero out fees on deceased members -Original MessageFrom:
Jeff Moritz
Sent: To:
Monday, October 29, 2007 4:21 PM Gwen Terrell; Barbara Morris-Williams; Dan McDonald; Mary E Smith; RuthAnn Jefferies
Subject:
RE: Billing/Coupons
It looks like @1500 notices were sent (600 CP, 900 NCP) to deceased members.
We will add a condition to exclude those members in the future. Do you want any system edits to prevent this from happening. I can also get a report so that the fees can be zeroed out.
-Original MessageFrom:
Gwen Terrell
Sent:
Monday, October 29, 2007 4:04 PM
To:
Jeff Moritz; Barbara Morris-Williams; Dan McDonald; Mary E Smith; RuthAnn Jefferies
Subject:
Billing/Coupons
A little something that we may have forgotten with our billing on closed
cases.deceased customers. I just received a call on caseflgggggÿ Member 1DfiSSSSÿdue to a coupon mailed when
the NCP fee billing wasdone on fjBadiiaig Demo shows Jÿ Date Deceased
Jeff, please remove deceased members from our billing process. Thanks.
21
Work Orders 7/18/2013
Dat®S diSP1ay®d in
Central Daylight Time
2:38:51PM _
Work Order
Summary Requestor Requestor Call Back Number Department
38781
Billing - deceased members Type Department Number
Location
Assigned Team Priority
CSE6 - SDU
Asset ID
Francis Powell NORMAL
Date Completed
11/2/2007
Status
Closed
8; 20:00AM
Date Entered
10/31/2007 10:09:00AM
Date Assigned Expected Completion Date Charge
10/31/2007 10:10:00AM 0 00 .
Hours
Work Order Description
Can you add a check to the billing process for fees to not generate the notice if the member is deceased on DEMO
.
Resolution
Completed and moved to production
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