Pennsylvania Domestic Relations Sections

Best Practices in the Child Support Program
Eighth Edition

Allegheny County

Information on the two limited amnesty programs that we created to help clean up some of our 7,000 warrants.  

In May 2006, we began a judicially approved limited amnesty project, by mailing letters to defendants with active warrants, but who are in compliance with their support payments via a wage attachment.  The goal of this project was to dismiss as many warrants as possible by having those defendants who are working and paying their support obligation voluntarily appear in Court.   The letter (attached Bench Warrant Letter) advises the party to appear in the Family Division to address the outstanding issues on the case, without risk of being arrested and/or incarcerated on a conviction of direct criminal contempt for failure to appear for court on the original bench warrant.   In essence, the party is being given a guarantee that he/she will not go to jail that day.   These cases are handled by the enforcement Domestic Relations Officers and the Hearing Officers, if necessary, depending on the issues.  We found approximately 1,000 cases that met this category.  Letters to defendants were sent in batches of 50 every three weeks to allow us to better manage the number of defendants who may appear.  Approximately 50 percent appeared to have the warrant dismissed and to address any outstanding issues on their cases without going to jail. 

In December 2006, the Allegheny County Enforcement Department began another judicially approved limited amnesty project, by mailing letters to defendants with active warrants, but no order for support has been established.  The goal of this project is to dismiss as many warrants as possible by having those defendants voluntarily appear in Court to address their support case without being arrested and possibly lodged in jail and to enter orders for support where appropriate.  The letter (attached Bench Warrant Letter EST) advises the party to appear in the Family Division to address the outstanding issues on the case, without risk of being arrested and/or incarcerated on a conviction of direct criminal contempt for failure to appear for court on the original bench warrant.  The party is being given the same guarantee that he/she will not go to jail that day.  These cases are also handled by the enforcement DROs and the Hearing Officers, if necessary, depending on the issues.  There are approximately 682 cases identified for this project.  The letters are sent in batches of 25 every 3 weeks.  We are mailing a lower number of batch letters than the first amnesty project since these cases involve establishment issues and may take more time to address.  So far, in the first two months of the project approximately 24 percent have appeared and had their support complaints addressed by either an order being established,  the complaint dismissed or the complaint continued to a later date.

We have plans to address other categories of warrants in the upcoming year as a means to both reduce the number of warrants we have and to improve our performance measures.

Bench Warrant Letter #1

COURT OF COMMON PLEAS OF ALLEGHENY COUNTY

FIFTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA

FAMILY DIVISION - ADULT SECTION

440 Ross Street

PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA  15219-2117

(412) 350-5600

Re:                                                                 

Date:                                                              

This letter is to serve notice that you currently have an active Family Division warrant for your arrest resulting from either your failure to appear in court or your failure to comply with a court order.  If you are arrested you may be held in the county jail up to 72 hours prior to a hearing at which you may be sentenced up to six (6) months on the charge of Direct Criminal Contempt.  Be advised that you have been entered into a state-wide law enforcement system and that you may be arrested anywhere in the state of PA.

In researching your warrant in preparation for placing it on the state-wide system, we note that you are in substantial compliance with the payment of the court ordered support. Therefore, we would like to offer you a ONE TIME OPPORTUNITY TO AVOID BEING ARRESTED BY A SHERIFF, CONSTABLE OR OTHER LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT and to avoid being incarcerated for a period of up to six (6) months upon conviction of direct criminal contempt for your failure to comply with the order to appear.

In order to avoid being arrested and/or jailed you must report within fourteen (14) days of the date of this correspondence.  You must report no later than 12 noon to the Family Division, 3^rd Floor Enforcement desk, 440 Ross Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15219. 

Should you comply with the terms by appearing in the Family Division as stated, a conference/hearing will be held the same day you appear to dismiss the warrant and address the outstanding issues on your case.  You will be free to leave after addressing these issues.

Sincerely,

Enforcement Warrant Office

Bring this letter with you to the 3^rd floor Enforcement Desk, 440 Ross St., Pittsburgh, PA before 12 noon.

Bench Warrant Letter #2

COURT OF COMMON PLEAS OF ALLEGHENY COUNTY

FIFTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA

FAMILY DIVISION - ADULT SECTION

440 Ross Street

PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA  15219-2117

(412) 350-5600

Re:                                                                                                 Case ID____________________________

Date:                                                              

This letter is to serve notice that you currently have an active Family Division warrant for your arrest.  If you are arrested, you may be held in the county jail up to 72 hours prior to a hearing at which you may be sentenced up to six (6) months on the charge of Direct Criminal Contempt.  Be advised that you have been entered into a statewide law enforcement system and that you may be arrested anywhere in the state of Pennsylvania.

In researching your warrant in preparation for placing it on the state-wide system, we note that an order to establish paternity and/or support has not been entered. Therefore, we would like to offer you a ONE TIME OPPORTUNITY TO AVOID BEING ARRESTED BY A SHERIFF, CONSTABLE OR OTHER LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT and to avoid being incarcerated for a period of up to six (6) months upon conviction of direct criminal contempt for your failure to comply with the order to appear.

In order to avoid being arrested and/or jailed, you must report within fourteen (14) days of the date of this correspondence.  You must report no later than 12 noon to the Family Division, 3^rd Floor Enforcement desk, 440 Ross Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15219.  You must bring proof of income for the last six months.

Should you comply with the terms of this letter by appearing in the Family Division as stated and bringing the required proof of income, a conference/hearing will be held the same day you appear to dismiss the warrant and address the outstanding issues on your case(s).  You will be free to leave after addressing these issues.

If you fail to appear within fourteen (14) days, sheriff deputies, PA State constables or other law enforcement officials will be directed to arrest you.

 Sincerely,

Enforcement Warrant Office

Bring this letter with you to the 3^rd floor Enforcement Desk, 440 Ross St., Pittsburgh, PA before 12 noon.

Bucks County

In our effort to reduce the amount of warrants we currently have in Bucks, we have and continue to implement new ideas.  Two of our ideas, in particular, have demonstrated surprising results.  

When the DRS warrants were being added to the J-NET system, we felt that it was imperative to get the word out to the local police departments so that they knew how to access the DRS warrants through J-NET. We knew that general outreach was being administered to the police departments by the State, but we brainstormed on how we, at DRS, could address our local Police Departments, directly. 

Our first idea was to print a flyer explaining to the police about DRS warrants and the importance of finding these individuals. The flyer also explains how to access the warrants through J-NET and/or our local sheriff’s office.  All of our warrants are lodged in the Sheriff’s computer. The police can call the radio room, which checks the Sheriff computer to confirm if there is a warrant and then arrangements are made to get the warrant to the prison once the individual is arrested.  These flyers are distributed at our police training center to all officers. 

The second idea was to reach out to all our local Police Chiefs.  Our County Sheriff attends a monthly Police Chief’s meeting. The Director of Bucks DRS and the head of the warrant unit, attended this meeting last year. Contact information and a brief overview of the DRS office was presented as well as an explanation on the importance of checking to see if an individual who is stopped or detained has a DRS warrant.  The Chief’s were very cooperative and interested and took the information back to their   officers.

Almost a year later we reviewed the results. The local police departments had apprehended 287 individuals with DRS warrants.  We were very pleased with the results and decided to attend another meeting to supply the Chief’s with the results of their efforts.  The Chiefs with many arrests were pleased and proud The Chiefs who had little or no arrests were concerned and indicated they would re-address the importance of checking for DRS warrants with their officers.  The cooperation between the police and our Deputy Sheriffs (who are primarily responsible for our warrants) has been outstanding and has proven to be highly effective in reducing the number of our warrants. 

We plan on continuing our meetings with the Police Chiefs, annually to give them up-to-date statistics and to stir up a little friendly competition.

Carbon County

The Carbon County Domestic Relations Office had a situation where there was an individual that was in arrears over $86,000 for support in two cases. The man was gainfully employed as a truck driver, but it would be decades before the arrearage would be paid. During a hearing for modification the hearing officer reviewed a spend thrift trust that was established for his benefit Accordingly, as part of the finding in the recommended report, there was a requirement that the trust provide an accounting and a separate hearing was set up to determine whether or not the trust could be attached for the arrearage. Using a recent Superior Court Case, a decision was made that the trust was responsible to pay support and invade the principle to clear the arrearage plus, on a quarterly basis, to pay a percentage of the trustee’s income thereafter in support. An $86,000 lump sum payment was then made. The arrearages were cleared and in addition to his regular support payment, there was a quarterly addition that is paid based on the income to the trust.

Under the new Bankruptcy Code, exemptions are ineffective as to support and support arrearages. When a notice comes in that a bankruptcy has been filed by a Defendant, the office should be looking at the arrearage and contact the Trustee that is on the notice directly. The Trustee, while he gets paid his costs and expenses ahead of support in many cases will be willing to sell assets to clear up your arrearage. As a rule of thumb, talking to several trustees, they will not look at cases where there is under $5,000 in arrearages since economically it is not feasible for them to hire professionals that are needed to sell for the benefit of the recipient.

Crawford County

Crawford County connected with our local Career Link Office and created a work search program.  We sent the person we selected for our Work Search Coordinator to the Career Link office as a “pretend” unemployed client.  We thought her experience of what services they had to offer and how the program at Career Link worked would be beneficial to her being the coordinator. 

We use the Career Link Service Interest Questionnaire in a different color to designate at Career Link that he/she is a DRS client for their first appearance.   Career Link completes the form accordingly, and the client is to return that sheet to the DRS at their next visit.  After the initial visit they are instructed to sign up on the DRS sign in sheet at Career Link in order to receive credit for their attendance.

Career Link and the Work Search Coordinator communicate via e-mail on the attendance confirmations and issues.

The referral process is through the enforcement officer.  They meet with their clients or talk to them over the phone to set up the work search.

We provide the clients with an information sheet explaining the program, a Career Link Interest Questionnaire and a work search order at the time they are being placed in the program.  This is done by the Enforcement Officer at the enforcement conference and if it is done over the phone it is all mailed to them.

The coordinator meets with the clients every Wednesday at 9:00 am or 1:15 pm at their choice and it is first come first serve.  In order to help our front desk person we have implemented a sign in sheet so they do not need to bother her with checking in.  (First name only).

The weekly meeting is about 10 minutes long and the Coordinator talks with the clients and asks them how things are going, what interviews or job prospects they have, and what they think they need.  She will enroll them in the 3 classes that are offered monthly if the coordinator/client feels they need that service.  (This is my Resume, The Hidden Job Market, and the Dreaded Interview). We also refer them to get their GED which Career Link coordinates with a partner agency through the Crawford County Literacy Council called READ.  Clients are also referred to Temp Agencies that have contacted our office and asked for referrals.  We have also had employers call and ask if we have any persons that need employment and we will refer.

The clients will return every week no matter what until they find a job.  If they have completed all the classes then we start over and they will go for a second time if necessary.  If they fail to appear, we will generally give them a second chance after talking to them and getting their excuse.  We will file contempt if they continue to non- comply.

There are Career Links in every County and they all have the same basics but have different partnerships with the Counties they are involved in.

Cumberland County

Following a statewide meeting in the fall of 2006 wherein counties detailed methodologies they employed to try to improve service and performance we decided to attempt a process where we would take a team approach to cases. Over the past 4 months we have been modifying, we like to think fine tuning, our approach to reach a point where we think we are successfully improving how we handle individual cases. Cases which might have fallen through the cracks are being updated and worked on.

In the latter part of the afternoon at least one day per week we gather together 1 Conference Officer (eventually will be UIFSA/IFSA Officers as well), 1 Assistant (Secretary), Assistant Director, PACSES Administrator and PACSES Coordinator. In a separate area of the office, where they can’t be disturbed, this team reviews the Non-Compliance Report for that specific CO’s caseload. What we have found is that over time, even though CO’s or caseworkers were charged with reviewing their specific caseload, the repetition of the same case showing up every month caused some to be skipped over. It was not necessarily done on purpose, but the CO might have reached a point where it was, what can I possibly do now since I’ve tried everything else?

The benefit of this team approach is fresh eyes, experienced people and a cross section of staff can come up with new ideas and different methodologies to approach enforcement or location. With the cross section of staff all looking at the same case, PACSES can be immediately updated; actions taken can be updated on the spot. What we are attempting is to initiate all sorts of activity on any given case to see what shakes out in any given area. The most immediate result is we have been able to identify cases where defendants are in prison and cases where an NFOB might be a better approach to doing business. We are updating information, receiving correspondence back from obligees/obligors/employers and generating activity on cases which may have suffered from little or no activity. We believe this can never be a bad thing, because all action is being documented for audit purposes, clients are happier to extent that all parties are being contacted and updated. If they are updated on their case status, the less likely we will be receiving complaints regarding lack of action. It seems a win, win.

Monroe County

1.                  JNET agencies law enforcement portal schedule search; having an agencies ORI number to input into this link allows the investigator to view that departments officer district court schedules – by officer name, showing defendant, hearing type, date and time and DJ with a quick link to the complaint.

2.                  My Space subpoena – following the My Space law enforcement handbook procedures for police information shows step by step how to file a subpoena to My space, and retrieve information on the site registrant, which will often lead to a confirmable address in any state. We used this twice with success as far as California.

3.                  Cable company subpoena; will allow access to local cable company records, which often follow a defendant by name, soc, phone and or address, shows if the current location is on line, and has directions to the residence.

Northampton County

Here in Northampton County we have been utilizing Fed Ex to serve out of state defendants whom we are pursuing long arm when certified mail has been unsuccessful and various attempts at service have failed.  We pay out of our postage budget. The cost is affordable, close if not less than what it costs us for personal service locally by our deputies. The cost is of course charged back to the defendants.

Philadelphia County

Best Practices

CHIP Pilot Program

 The Domestic Relations Division of Philadelphia has become a COMPASS Community Partner as a result of the CHIP Family Court Pilot Program.  The main goal of this pilot program is to assist in the process of helping clients apply for the cost-effective, comprehensive health care for children that CHIP supplies

In Philadelphia Family Court a family can apply for CHIP in the following ways:

1. With the designated Domestic Relations staff members who are located in the Customer Service area.  These employees assist clients with the online applications process.
2. A paper application can be obtained in any unit of the Domestic Relations Division.

The Domestic Relations Division also provides written materials, and video taped information in several court units informing clients about CHIP and the application process.  Members of each unit have been trained to identify clients who may be in need of CHIP and refer them to file a CHIP application while they are in the DRD.

With expanded outreach to clients and the availability of designated staff to aid with the CHIP application process the Philadelphia Family Court, Domestic Relations Division is working towards reaching the pilot project’s goal of  all children having access to health care benefits.

Best Practices

Training Unit

The Domestic Relations Training Unit consists of a Training Coordinator, a Training Specialist and a Training Assistant.  The Unit is responsible for conducting orientation training for all new hires and providing ongoing training for all employees throughout the year.  Training courses available range from case processing and computer systems training to interpersonal skills workshops.  In an effort to bring  more diverse training opportunities to all Domestic Relations workers the Training Unit presented Summer Mini Workshops and daily “Fast Facts”.

The Summer Mini Workshops were one day one hour long courses that were designed to be basic skills refresher classes.  The classes offered included: Note Pad Writing, Telephone Etiquette, E-Mail Etiquette, Basic Writing, and Dealing with the Difficult Client.  They classes were interactive and provided a good bit of information in a relaxed atmosphere.

The Training Unit is also utilizing the power of email by sending out weekly “fast facts”. The fast facts touch on DR case processing, PACSES screen processing, or other computer tips and are sent out to all Domestic Relations employees.  This enables the training unit to reach a large audience and present  very diverse training tips on a regular basis.

Support Compliance Unit

The Support Compliance Unit is currently staffed with 16 Hearing Officers and 14 Support Staff.  The Hearing Officers assigned to the Support Compliance Unit are responsible to conduct Enforcement and Contempt of Support Conferences.  The focus of the unit is to increase child support collections primarily via traditional enforcement remedies.  However, as the name of the unit suggests, there is also a great deal of emphasis placed on assisting the obligor to come into compliance with his/her order.  Encouraging compliance is accomplished through a variety of avenues, including, but not limited to, referral to the Special Master, referral to the job placement program, referral to Intake to file to modify an existing order, scheduling periodic payment reviews, etc…

During FFY 2006, the Support Compliance Unit conducted an aggressive collections project.  During the course of this project, approximately 77,000 delinquent cases were mass scheduled for an Enforcement Conference.  More than 26,000 conferences were conducted (approximately 35% of all cases scheduled).  As a result of these conferences, the Support Compliance Unit issued over 4,000 new wage attachments and collected more than $1.6 million in delinquent child support.  An additional $1 million in future lump sum payments was order.  Since it’s inception in February, 2005, the Support Compliance Unit has conducted approximately 43,000 conferences, collected more than $2.6 million in delinquent support, and issued more than 7,000 new wage attachments. 

A portion of the Support Staff of the Support Compliance Unit is dedicated to the wage attachment process.  All new wage attachments issued from the Support Compliance Unit are monitored for compliance.  If a payment is not received, the employer is contacted and if necessary another attachment order will be generated and sent via fax and mail to the employer.  If the non-compliance continues, additional enforcement action will be taken.   The Wage Attachment staff also assists obligors resolve any issues concerning “double” wage attachments. 

            Portions of the Support Staff are also involved in our New Order Enforcement and project.  In an effort to emphasize compliance, all newly established orders are monitored for payments.  If no payment is received within 15 days from the date the order is established, the obligor is contacted via mail and/or a personal phone call.  If a payment is not received within 30 days from the date the order is established, the obligor is listed for an Enforcement Conference.  The objective is to get the obligor to comply with the newly established order as quickly as possible and to avoid the accumulation of arrears. 

 the end

 last updated 6/14/07