Monday, June 18, 2007
Mercer County has the third-highest collection rate in the state this year.
MERCER, Pa. — Some new initiatives by Mercer County’s Domestic Relations office are paying off for county children.
Rank Nikoloff, department director, says the agency has seen an 8.81-percent increase in its collection rate this year compared with where it was five years ago.
“Last summer we went through a very thorough review,” he said. And this year the staff visited all nonpayment cases again and renewed efforts to collect.
He’s proud of the success this has brought his department.
“The impression of child support is that we’re ineffective and not doing anything,” he said. “The reality of the numbers shows different.”
What’s changed
Mercer County has seen its collection ratio in child support cases go from 74.40 percent in 2002 to 83.21 percent this year, an increase of 8.81 percent that is the third-best among all 67 counties in the state during that time span. Only Beaver County with an 11.16-percent increase and Greene County with a 9.68-percent increase enjoyed a bigger increase.
Eliminate out-of-state collections, which are much more difficult to secure, and the county’s figures are closer to 87 percent.
Nikoloff acknowledges living in a county that borders another state can make the job of collecting support more difficult because there is often back and forth movement by parents from Pennsylvania to Ohio.
“We are very pleased with the improvement we’ve made by virtue of the approach we’re taking to work cases better,” Nikoloff said.
The state has the best numbers in the country and part of that can be attributed to the fact Pennsylvania has “probably one of the most outstanding computer systems designed for child support in the country,” he added.
What county has done
What Mercer County has done in recent years, he continued, “is embrace the use of this system to more thoroughly and actively work cases than some other jurisdictions.”
The Pennsylvania Child Support Enforcement System maintains case, personal and payment information. Domestic Relations staff members use PACSES to monitor support payments and enforce support orders. It can be accessed at www.childsupport.state.pa.us.
According to numbers compiled by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Pennsylvania officials collected 74.65 percent of all current support ordered and collected arrears in 75.21 percent of the cases in which it was owed. Only North Dakota —73.42 percent and 70.1 percent, respectively — surpassed the 70-percent benchmark in both areas. Wisconsin hit 70.64 percent in current collections, but no other state hit 70 percent in either area. The national averages are 60.35 percent and 60.79 percent.
“I hope this reflects the level of service and effort made by the child support staff across the state,” Nikoloff said.
Perhaps as impressive, the county’s numbers were increasing from 2004 to 2007 by a 4.51-percent margin while 28 counties saw their collection percentages decline.
At one time, Mercer County was 55th among counties in collections. It now stands at 29th. Nikoloff believes it’s not necessarily fair lumping all counties in one collections basket because of demographics, but when Mercer is compared to many counties in the region he said it stacks up pretty well.