Statement of Organization, Functions, and Delegations of Authority

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES <SUBAGY>Administration for Children and Families</SUBAGY> <SUBJECT>Statement of Organization, Functions, and Delegations of Authority</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Administration for Children and Families, HHS. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> Statement of Organizations, Functions, and Delegations of Authority. The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) has renamed the Office of Child Support Services. This notice changes the name of the office from Office of Child Support Services (OCSS) to Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE). </SUM> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Linda Boyer, Deputy Commissioner, Office of Child Support Enforcement, 330 C Street SW, Washington, DC 20201, 202-401-5410. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This notice amends Part K of the Statement of Organization, Functions, and Delegations of Authority of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Administration for Children and Families (ACF), to be revised as follows: Chapter KF, Office of Child Support Enforcement, as last amended 88 FR 36587, June 5, 2023. I. Under Chapter KF, Office of Child Support Services, delete KF in its entirety and replace with the following: <E T="03">KF.00 Mission:</E> The Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) advises the Secretary, through the Assistant Secretary for Children and Families/Director of the Office of Child Support Enforcement, on matters pertaining to the child support and access and visitation programs. OCSE provides direction, guidance, and oversight to state and tribal child support programs, the Central Authority for international child support cases, and state access and visitation programs for activities authorized and directed by title IV-D of the Social Security Act and other pertinent legislation. OCSE's core mission is dedicated to establishing paternity and obtaining child support in order to encourage responsible parenting, family self-sufficiency, and child well-being, and to recognize the essential role of both parents in supporting their children. The national child support program assures that assistance in obtaining support, including financial and medical, is available to children through locating parents, establishing paternity, establishing and modifying support obligations, and monitoring and enforcing those obligations. The specific responsibilities of this Office are to develop, recommend, and issue policies, procedures, and interpretations for state and tribal programs for locating noncustodial parents, establishing paternity, and obtaining child support; develop procedures for review and approval or disapproval of state and tribal plan material; conduct audits of state child support programs; assist states and tribes in establishing adequate reporting procedures and maintaining records for the operation of their child support programs and of amounts collected and disbursed under the child support program and the costs incurred in collecting such amounts; operate the United States and Tribes Central Authority for International Child Support; monitor the access and visitation and fatherhood programs; and provide technical assistance and training to the states and tribes to help them develop effective procedures and systems for services provided by the child support program, including automation, outreach, referral, and case management in partnership with employers, courts, and responsible fatherhood, workforce, and other programs to increase the long-term reliability of support payments available to children. OCSE also operates competitive grant programs for child support in collaboration with several other components within ACF. It also operates the Federal Parent Locator Service (FPLS); certifies to the Secretary of the Treasury amounts of child support obligations that require collection in appropriate instances; transmits to the Secretary of State certifications of arrearages for passport denial; submits reports to Congress, as requested, on activities undertaken relative to the child support program; approves advance data processing planning documents; and reviews, assesses, and inspects planning, design, and operation of state and tribal management information systems. FPLS also assists other federal, state, and local agencies not involved in child support to fulfill their respective missions, save taxpayer dollars, and improve service to the public. <E T="03">KF.10 Organization.</E> The Office of Child Support Enforcement is headed by the Director. The office is organized as follows: <FP SOURCE="FP-1">Office of the Director/Deputy Director/Commissioner (KFA)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">Office of Audit (KFAA)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">Office of the Deputy Commissioner (KFB)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">Division of Business and Resource Management (KFB2)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">Division of Customer Communications (KFB3)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">Division of Policy and Training (KFB5)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">Division of Program Innovation (KFB7)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">Division of Regional Operations (KFB8)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">Child Support Services Regional Program Units (KFB8DI-X)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">Division of Federal Systems (KFB9)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">Division of State and Tribal Systems (KFB10)</FP> <E T="03">KF.20 Functions.</E> <E T="03">Office of the Director and Deputy Director/Commissioner (KFA):</E> The Director is also the Assistant Secretary for Children and Families and is directly responsible to the Secretary for carrying out OCSE's mission. The Deputy Director/Commissioner has day-to-day operational responsibility for OCSE. The Deputy Director/Commissioner assists the Director in carrying out responsibilities of the Office and provides direction and leadership to the Office of the Deputy Commissioner and the Office of Audit. The Deputy Director/Commissioner provides leadership and direction to OCSE and is responsible for developing regulations, guidance, and standards for state/tribes to follow in locating absent parents; establishing paternity and support obligations; maintaining relationships with Department officials, other federal departments, state and tribal and local officials, and private organizations and individuals interested in the child support program; coordinating and planning child support program activities to maximize program effectiveness; program outreach, as well as access and visitation programs and advocacy interests; and approving all instructions, policies, and publications. The Deputy Director/Commissioner is also responsible for the operations and maintenance of FPLS, management and financial analysis and strategy development, internal OCSE operations, and compliance with federal laws and policies. The Deputy Director/Commissioner is responsible for collaborating with the Office of Legislative Affairs and Budget and the Government Accountability Office on studies related to the child support program. In addition, the Deputy Director/Commissioner maintains OCSE's Continuity of Operations Plan. <E T="03">Office of Audit (KFAA):</E> The Office of Audit develops, plans, schedules, and conducts periodic audits of child support programs in accordance with audit standards promulgated by the Comptroller General. The office is headed by an Office Director and reports directly to the Commissioner. The Office conducts audits, at least once every 3 years (or more frequently if it is determined that a state has unreliable data or fails to meet the performance standards) to determine the reliability of state financial and statistical data reporting systems used in calculating the performance indicators used as the basis for the payment of performance-based financial incentives to the state. These audits include testing of the data produced by the system to ensure that it is valid, complete, and reliable. The audits also include a review of the state's physical security and access controls. The Office will also conduct financial audits to determine whether federal and other funds made available to carry out the child support program are being appropriately expended, and properly and fully accounted for. These audits examine collections and disbursements of support payments for proper processing and accounting. In addition, the Office conducts other audits and examinations of program operations, as may be necessary or requested by program officials for the purpose of improving the efficiency, effectiveness, and economy of state, tribal, and local child support activities. The Office develops consolidated reports for the Commissioner, based on findings, provides specifications for the development of audit regulations and requirements for audits of state programs, and coordinates and maintains effective liaison with the HHS Inspector General's Office and with the Government Accountability Office. <E T="03">Office of the Deputy Commissioner (KFB):</E> The Deputy Commissioner reports to the Deputy Director/Commissioner and assists the Commissioner in carrying out the responsibilities of OCSE. The Deputy Commissioner provides day-to-day supervision and oversight of the Division of Business and Resource Management, Division of Customer Communications, Division of Policy and Training, Division of Program Innovation, Division of Regional Operations, Division of Federal Systems, and Division of State and Tribal Systems. The Deputy Commissioner leads OCSE outreach efforts and builds collaborations with federal, state, tribal, local, and community agencies to efficiently improve child support services. The Office of the Deputy Commissioner provides coordination for all OCSE contracts and internal IT systems. <E T="03">Division of Business and Resource Management (KFB2):</ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 22k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━