OCSS/OKESC WEBINAR - NON-IV-D CASES, MAY 14, 2013 Barbara Perkins: Good afternoon, this is Barbara Perkins with the Oklahoma Child Support Services. Today's webinar, we are going to be talking about non-IV-D cases. The topics that we will be going through we'll talk about the Central Case Registry and what is a non-IV-D case. We're going to talk about some of the documents that you may see, how to process the private orders, what information can you share with your employee and what information should you not share? Where do you send the payments? What information should you send with the payment? How do you know when to stop the income withholding? And contact information so that when you have questions, who do you talk to? Let's start off with the Central Case Registry. Back in 1996, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act - that's a federal law - was passed and it caused the creation of the Central Case Registry and the Federal Case Registry. Now each state has a Central Case Registry, also known as the CCR. The reason why we have the centralization is because employers requested it. What we had prior to 1996 is that employers would receive Income Withholding Orders from all these different child support agencies; there would be multiple offices across the state, there would be private attorneys sending them out, and they would request the employers to send the payments to wherever. So you could end up with... say in Oklahoma, we had at the time 27 Child Support offices. You could be asked to send payments to 27 different locations and that was very complicated. So the employers requested "Hey I would like to have one spot to send all the child support, and I want to have a centralized location to have information about child support cases." So every state has a CCR that has the information about the child support cases in Oklahoma. So what is a non-IV-D case? Well this is a child support case that is handled privately, so it's through a private attorney or an individual. An individual such as a custodian, also known as custodial parent, custodial person or even a non-custodial parent could be requesting for the payments to be recorded at the CCR. Well the case can start off in its life cycle as a IV-D case, meaning it's an active case with Oklahoma Child Support Services, and then it can become a non-IV-D case - that it's private, and it can switch back and go back and forth. Well, that can be complicated. So that was a major reason for us to have the CCR is so that thereÆs a central location to keep up with that information. So the Central Case Registry in non-IV-D child support cases. Well, the CCR records some key information about Oklahoma child support orders. That's important. They have the information about the court orders that were obtained in Oklahoma. Remember: each state has its own CCR. So if it's a court order from Texas, then the Texas CCR would have information about those court orders. Child support orders are not being enforced by Oklahoma Child Support Services are called non-IV-D cases. So you might hear them also called private child support cases, they could be a pass through case. Your employees may have these other names, you know, for those types of cases. Child support orders not being enforced by Oklahoma Child Support Services are called non-IV-D cases. And they are known by other names they could be private child support cases, they could be called a pass through case meaning that the support passes through but the case is not being enforced by OCSS. If they're being enforced privately, they could be registered by the non-custodial parent, the custodial person, also known as obligee, or a private attorney. No Audio: Income Withholding Order (IWO) - http://www.okdhs.org/NR/rdonlyres/3049617B-15BC-4379-BEFB-0780BEC2E255/0/03EN004E.pdf (form 03EN004E). No Audio: Summary of Support Order (SOSO) - http://www.okdhs.org/NR/rdonlyres/FE44FDDE-64E1-47E9-A36B-95638C2B6312/0/03EN003E.pdf (form 03EN003E). Let's talk about some of the documents that you might receive. So there are two of them that you should receive. The first one is an Income Withholding Order. And if the Income Withholding Order is from a private attorney or a custodial person, there should be a copy of the court order that comes along with it so that you know, yes this Income Withholding Order is appropriate. Documents you might see - you could receive a letter from a private attorney or the Summary of Support Order. The letters from the private attorney, unless there is an Income Withholding Order and the court order attached to it, then just a simple letter from a private attorney is not enough for you to start withholding child support and to send it anywhere. So if you receive a letter from a private attorney, you're going to want to ask some questions like, do you have a court order? Do you have an Income Withholding Order for me? The other document, the Summary of Support Order, is a summary that should go to the CCR. Private attorneys are supposed to forward those to CCR so that they're aware that the court has entered an order concerning this particular family. If you receive this document, that's not something that is telling you to actually start withholding. Okay so let's walk through the ideal process for a non-IV-D case, so the positive side of non-IV-D cases. So first the court orders child support. It's signed by a judge, it's filed with the court clerk's office. The attorney faxes the Summary of Support Order and the Income Withholding Order to the CCR, so that they give notice that, "Here's this case. Expect to start receiving child support on this particular family." The CCR records the case information into the OKDHS computer system and then will advise the attorney of what the case number is, also known as the Family Group Number, the FGN. Some of the documents that you receive will have this nomenclature on it. Then the attorney would serve the Income Withholding Order to the employer with the FGN listed on it because the attorney would know, "Okay here is the child support case number that goes along with this." That way everything will match up. An employer starts withholding the child support, sends the payment to the State Disbursement Unit - the SDU - also known as the Oklahoma Centralized Support Registry, and your employee receives credit for that payment. See? Everything matches up, that's great. Then the custodial person receives that payment; everyone's happy. Okay now that we've gone through the positive experience, let's talk about the sad reality. The sad reality for some non-IV-D cases is that, okay we still start off with the first step and that's the court orders child support. Then the private attorney serves the Income Withholding Order on the employer directing payment to be mailed either directly to the custodial person or to themselves. That's not supposed to happen. Or the employer is told by the employee, "Hey I was supposed to pay child support." And you start withholding it and sending it in, but there's no information about the case that goes with the payment. Well, the State Disbursement Unit at the Oklahoma Centralized Support Registry is not going to know, "Okay what case is this on? You know, what do I do with it?" And you are very likely going to have that payment returned to you. The payment's not processed, we don't have case to apply the payment, we don't know what's supposed to happen with it. Your employee gets very upset because they don't get credit for the payment even though it's been held from their check but it's not going to, you know, the family for the child. The custodial person gets upset, they start to call you on a daily basis because they're going, "Hey, I have not received my child support." And they start demanding payment. Well, you definitely don't want that to happen. And then their attorney starts sending demand letters to you saying, "Hey! You're supposed to be paying child support." Okay, that's the negative side of non-IV-D. So we want to give you a few tips of how to avoid some of these bad things that can happen. Okay so first is think about how to process private orders. You're looking for an Income Withholding Order. Now that's a standard federal form. It's used by all entities to direct withholding of income for child support payments. So it's the same form in every single state on how it's structured. Some states have pretty versions and others are... it looks like it comes from a computer, so they may have font thatÆs a little bit different size, but the format of the form itself is standardized from state to state. So when you get an Income Withholding Order, the first step is document the day you received it. Verify that the following information is on that notice: so it's supposed to tell you to direct payments to the State or Tribal Centralized Support Registry. You need to make sure that it's the current Income Withholding Order form. So if it has a date of prior to May of 2011, it's not the current form. You'll want to look for the expiration date of the form. If it's not the current form, you do have the ability to send it back to whoever sent it to you and, you know, request for them to use the current form. If you've received this document from someone other than a state or tribal child support agency or a court, then the court order must be attached to it so that you know that there really is a court order that is supporting that Income Withholding Order. Follow the terms of the Income Withholding Order. It has instructions in there about calculating the amount of support to match the pay period for your employee. So many child support orders in Oklahoma will give you a monthly amount, but the Income Withholding Order will give you the amounts broken down to, say, on a weekly basis, on a bi-weekly, semi-monthly, and that way you can match it up to how your employee's actually paid. Fax a copy of the Income Withholding Order and the order to the CCR and we've got the fax number here: 405-522-8901. And provide your contact information on the fax and then the CCR will provide the case number back to you the Family Group Number, also known as the FGN. So when you get the Income Withholding Order, and you see that it's on a non-IV-D case, here are the instructions on, you know, what you need to do. Okay second on processing private orders, if you receive a letter or a private IWO from an attorney directing you to take an action that's different from what... that normal, legal process is, you know, what we described in the positive non-IV-D experience, document the day that you got that and then call the Oklahoma Employer Services Center. We got our phone number here: 866-553-2368. Explain to the OKESC what the private attorney is requesting for you to do. Now remember this is your opportunity to protect that the payments go to one location instead of trying to go to multiple locations. So if you get any letters or any Income Withholding Order that's telling you to do something differently from, you know, what's been explained here, then, you know, call the OKESC and ask for assistance. Another document that you may receive is the Summary of Support Order. Now this is not a notice to withhold child support. The Summary of Support Order is not filed in the court. It's a form that is used by the Central Case Registry to establish a child support case in the state's database. What that means is that this is the official notice from a private attorney to the Central Case Registry that this court order exists. If you have received a Summary of Support Order, please fax it to the Central Case Registry. Here's the phone number - it's area code 405-522-8901. Provide your contact information on the fax and then the CCR can provide you information about the case itself - you know, like the case number and whether to start sending income withholding or not. Now, if you've not received an Income Withholding Order, you have not been directed to start withholding from your employee's paycheck. Something that is very important: is do not share a copy of the Summary of Support Order with your employee. It has confidential information that's contained on it and Oklahoma Child Support Services we're required by law to protect the location of a family if family violence has been indicated. You won't have enough information on the Summary of Support Order to determine if this is one of those protected cases or not. So don't share the information with your employee so that you stay safe, and the employee's family stays safe. So that leads us into our next question is, what information can you share with your employee? You do want to share a copy of the Income Withholding Order when the box on page two of the Income Withholding Order is checked. That indicates that yes, you need to give your employee a copy. You want to tell them how much that you're going to be withholding from their paycheck, so their withholding amounts, please share that information with them. Let them know what the case number is, that Family Group Number. Definitely share with them the OCSS CARE call center phone number of 1-800-522-2922. This is the location for your employee to be able to ask questions about their child support case. The customer service representatives who work at the CARE call center are specifically trained to be able to answer questions for parents. Now don't share a copy of the Summary of Support Order if you receive it. Don't share the Oklahoma Employer Services Center phone number of 1-866-553-2368. That phone number is for you, for employers. Because the Employer Services Center Reps are trained specifically to answer your questions. Also, do not share the Social Security Number, date of birth, or address of family members listed on any forms that you might receive related to child support. Your next question might be, well now that I've withheld the payment where do I send it? All payments must be submitted within seven days of the pay period whether it's a IV-D or a non-IV-D case. Those payments need to be sent to the Oklahoma Centralized Support Registry. So, if you have a check, a money order, or a cashier's check, you can send it by mail to the OCSR and that's at P.O. Box 268809 in Oklahoma City. The zip code is 73126-8809. A great option is that you can remit payments electronically through Electronic Funds Transfer, also known as EFT. You can do online bill pay, known as WebPay. Or if you have cash that you want to remit, those can be received at a payment kiosk. Now, please don't send any cash through the mail. That's not safe. We can't accept cash through the mail. By law, you cannot send payments to a private party. And if you have any questions about that, please contact the OKCSE toll-free at 866-553-2368, or if you are in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area, you can call area code 405-325-9190. Once you've sent in the payment you may ask, well what information do I need to send with this payment? How do you know which person's case is going to receive the payment? Well, you need to make the check payable to OKDHS or it could be to the Oklahoma Centralized Support Registry - OCSR or OCSS. You know, one of those entities... we would be able to actually cash the check. If you make it out to someone else like the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission we wouldn't be able to cash that check. You need to tell us who is connected to this payment. So tell us about your employee: what's that person's name, the Family Group Number, the Social Security Number, and what was the amount that you withheld from their wages from their income? Now notify Oklahoma Child Support Services if this is the employee's last payment, if this happens to be off of a lump-sum bonus, if you are about to pay a lump-sum bonus, and tell us about if this is a partial payment due to special circumstances. Now say you have an employee that didn't work enough hours during the pay period for you to be able to do the withholding. Please let us know that. Another question is, how do you know when to stop withholding? Well you stop withholding when you receive a Termination of Income Withholding Order. So if it's on an Oklahoma IV-D case, that notification would come from Oklahoma Child Support Services, OCSS. If it's on a non-IV-D case, that notification would come from a custodial person or a private attorney. Now if you have a case from another state or from a tribal entity, you know, that would be a termination Income Withholding Order, that would also be appropriate. And then the other method that you might receive a termination is that it is a court order signed by a judge and file stamped from the court clerk. When you receive one of those, it could be delivered by the custodial person, private attorney, the non-custodial parent, your employee, but as long as it is a court order signed by a judge and it is file stamped from a court clerk, then you would know that that is valid information. Now, on the non-IV-D cases when you receive a termination notice, please fax that to the Central Case Registry and here's the fax number: it's area code 405-522-8901. That will give notice to the CCR to update their database, and that will keep any other payments from passing through on that particular case. Now, if you've got any questions, please contact OKESC, the numbers that we've got listed on the screen. And make sure that you document when you received any notice about the case. If you have questions about non-IV-D cases, about anything else on child support topics you can always contact the Oklahoma Employer Services Center. The phone number, toll free is 866-553-2368. There's an email address of OCSS.Contact.ESC@okdhs.org. You can fax questions to area code 405-325-8210 and then there's also a website: www.OKESC.org. Now, this website has the employers handbook listed online, there are some instructional videos, there's a calendar of events that are coming up, so that you have an opportunity to get all sorts of resources from the OKESC about child support topics. Now, that concludes our presentation portion of the webinar, and we'll now move into questions and answers.