Mailboxes will contain a little less next year
The state is switching to electronic banking for child support payments.
By D.A. WILKINSON
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
LISBON -- Sometime in 2006, the check won't be in the mail.
All of the 11,000 families in Columbiana County who receive child support checks from the Ohio Department of Human Services will no longer get an actual check.
Eileen Dray-Bardon, director of the county DHS, told county commissioners Wednesday that families who receive child support will have a choice of having payments directly deposited into a checking or savings account or credited to a debit card.
So far, about 1,950 families in the county are using direct deposit and an additional 721 families are using a debit card.
The move is part of a plan to eliminate support checks statewide with electronic payments.
The change is being made in phases. No date has been set for the county's switch.
As of Nov. 1, people in new support cases in the county will pick one of the two options. Those who don't make a choice will get the debit card.
The card will work like a typical debit card, but is different in two ways: users won't have to have a bank account and they won't be able to add other money to the card.
Reduce paperwork
Dray-Bardon said the change will mostly prevent her agency from having to quickly do paperwork on new support cases and get the information to Columbus within 48 hours of the order. All support payments are made from the ODHS in Columbus instead of county departments.
The new program will also eliminate the approximately 10,000 support checks statewide that can't be delivered for various reasons.
The county department beat the statewide percentages in three of four categories for support collections for the 2005 federal fiscal year. The categories were paternity establishment, support establishment, and arrearage collections. The county was slightly lower than the state average in support collections.
Dray-Bardon said that the lower figure may reflect the county's tradition of making low support orders and the county's general economy.
The department has been on a drive to increase child support collections, including advertising names of nonpayers and pressing criminal charges. Figures were not available on the amount of the increased payments.
In the county since 2004, paternity establishment went up by 6.8 percent and support establishment went up by 2.5 percent. Current support went up by 1.2 percent and arrearage collections rose by 2 percent.
wilkinson@vindy.com