THE SENATE                           S.C.R. NO.            86
TWENTIETH LEGISLATURE, 1999                                
STATE OF HAWAII                                            
                                                             
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                    SENATE  CONCURRENT
                        RESOLUTION

  REQUESTING THE STATE AUDITOR TO CONDUCT A FOLLOW-UP MANAGEMENT
    AUDIT OF THE CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT AGENCY.



 1        WHEREAS, the Child Support Enforcement Agency's (CSEA)
 2   primary function is a fiduciary one of collecting payments on
 3   behalf of others and disbursing these payments correctly; and 
 4   
 5        WHEREAS, the impetus for establishing Hawaii's child
 6   support program came from a 1975 federal law that focused on
 7   services to families receiving welfare assistance, which since
 8   then has been expanded to include non-welfare families; and 
 9   
10        WHEREAS, Hawaii's CSEA, a division of the Department of
11   the Attorney General, has a history of program fragmentation,
12   poor management, and inadequate staffing; and 
13   
14        WHEREAS, during 1990-1992, the agency was the third
15   largest source of complaints to the Ombudsman and a source of
16   concern to the Legislature; and 
17   
18        WHEREAS, in November 1992, the Auditor conducted a
19   management audit of the CSEA and reported findings in Report
20   No. 92-22; and 
21   
22        WHEREAS, the Auditor found that the CSEA "neglected its
23   fiduciary responsibilities and internal controls were weak to
24   the point that they did not know how much money it had, how
25   much it collected, or how much it disbursed"; and 
26   
27        WHEREAS, the Auditor found that the CSEA "had serious
28   bottlenecks in processing cases" and "management controls for
29   for ensuring appropriate and timely action on cases were
30   virtually nonexistent"; and 
31   
32        WHEREAS, the Auditor found that many parents were "neither
33   aware of nor understood the legal requirements imposed on the
34   agency"; and 
35   
36        WHEREAS, the Auditor conducted a follow up audit of the

 
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                                     S.C.R. NO.         86
                                                        
                                                        

 
 1   CSEA in April 1995, and reported findings in Report No. 95-18;
 2   and 
 3   
 4        WHEREAS, the Auditor found that the Attorney General had
 5   addressed many of the problems raised in the 1992 audit and
 6   improvements were occurring in the CSEA; and 
 7   
 8        WHEREAS, more specifically the Auditor found that the CSEA
 9   had contracted out certain functions to streamline caseflow,
10   begun to reconcile financial and case records, made
11   improvements to safeguard data integrity, and submitted a
12   reorganization plan; and 
13   
14        WHEREAS, despite these improvements, the CSEA, the
15   Auditor, and the Legislature still receive complaints by
16   parents that over-charging and errors in record keeping still
17   occur; now, therefore,
18   
19        BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Twentieth Legislature
20   of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 1999, the House of
21   Representatives concurring, that the Auditor is requested to
22   conduct a follow-up Management Audit of the Child Support
23   Enforcement Agency; and
24   
25        BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Auditor is requested to
26   report findings and recommendations to the Legislature twenty
27   days before the convening of the Regular Session of 2000; and 
28   
29        BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a certified copy of this
30   Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the Auditor.
31 
32 
33 
34                         OFFERED BY:  ____________________________