TO:	  Commissioners, TA Directors and Excess Support Contacts

FROM:	Russell Sykes, Deputy Commissioner, Division of Employment & Transitional Supports

SUBJECT:	WINR-4402:  Excess Child Support Exception Report – New Exceptions and Necessary Action

EFFECTIVE DATE:	Immediately

CONTACT PERSON:	Temporary Assistance Bureau at 1-800-343-8859, ext. 4-9344 or for WMS questions: ext. 3-9780

With the June run of the excess child support cases, districts will find two additional exceptions on the WINR-4402 exception report, “Invalid Name Match” and “Archive Name Match”.

The match to first name and last name between the CSMS support account name and the WMS case has been instituted to prevent excess support payments from going out to the wrong person.  Although districts have worked hard to insure the validity of the TA and CSMS data, there have been isolated instances of payments being authorized to the wrong individual and this problem is usually tracked to the reuse of the TA case number for either the adult child of the original case, or by a individual or family unrelated in any way to the original holder of the case number.

The WINR-4402 will provide the CSMS account name.  Compare that CSMS account name to the WMS head of household name.  Single fields such as an initial will not create a mismatch but incorrect spellings of the first or last name will create a mismatch.  If the worker determines that misspelling is the problem, he or she must determine the correct spelling and update WMS if necessary.

In resolving the Name Match exception, the worker should also be aware that the case may be an exception for another reason.  For example, unless IV-D can verify that the address on WMS is a valid address, the worker must first issue a manual address verification letter prior to issuing a payment.  Note that an address is considered valid when child support was collected by IV-D and sent to that address within the past two months and there is no evidence that a payment was undeliverable.

Additionally, if the individual on the CSMS record and on the WMS case are not the same person, the amount of the excess support is very likely to be an incorrect amount.  For example, if Mary Smith received assistance from January 1, 1996 through July 31, 1999 in case number P012345, and Harriett Jones is currently receiving assistance in that case number and has been since October 1, 2005, then the excess support payment owed to Mary Smith would not only go to the wrong person (Harriett Jones) but the amount of excess support would be incorrect because the assistance paid to Harriett is included in the total of the assistance counted for case number P012345 since January 1, 1996.

When there is a mismatch, districts must:

1.	Determine when the individual (caretaker of the child(ren)) who is entitled to the excess support payment last received assistance in the case number associated with the IV-D support account.  The amount of assistance issued in the case number for any period after that date must be backed out of the total of assistance used to calculate the excess support amount.  This means that the amount of the excess support payment will be more unless it is determined that the caretaker received countable assistance in another case and that assistance has not already been counted.

2.	If the case of the “wrong” individual is active, the worker must close the case and reopen the case under a new case number.  The closed case must then be changed to the name and address of the individual who is entitled to the excess support payment and the payment must be issued under that case number.

3.	If the case is closed and there are child support collections for both families who received assistance under the same case number, contact the Temporary Assistance Bureau (TAB).  TAB will confer with the Division of Child Support Enforcement (DCSE) and WMS to determine the correct action for the specific situation.

In testing we have found rare instances where the CSMS and WMS name appear to match exactly.  Local district TA must confer with their IV-D unit to determine the correct person entitled to the excess support payment and if any correction to the assistance amount and or case number is required as indicated above.