--$10.6 million in child support payments could have been collected--

View Audit Report (pdf)

New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr., today released an audit estimating that the Department of Finance's Office of the Sheriff failed to find and serve an estimated 1,545 parents who were delinquent in child support payments, leaving as much as $10.6 million in child support payments uncollected.

“The Sheriff's Office is ineffective in carrying out its responsibilities in serving summonses and subpoenas for child support,” Thompson said. “Thousands of families rely on child support in order to take care of their daily needs. It is incumbent on the Sheriff's Office to improve its enforcement services so that the City's children do not have to do without.”

The audit, which covered Fiscal Year 2003, reviewed whether the Sheriff's Office effectively carried out its responsibilities of serving summonses and subpoenas for child support as outlined in its written agreement with the Human Resources Administration (HRA). In 1995, the Sheriff's Office created a Family Court Warrants Unit in partnership with the Office of Child Support Enforcement, which is now part of HRA, targeting parents who fail to make child support payments. The agencies entered into a written agreement to assist custodial parents in obtaining child support payments owed by noncustodial parents by serving summonses and subpoenas within the five boroughs and executing arrest warrants throughout the entire State.

Among the audit's findings:

• The Sheriff's Office did not adequately research respondent address information. Of the 144 cases sampled in which respondents were not found, 72 respondents were not found because of insufficient or inaccurate addresses. The Sheriff's Office relied only on the database, Child Support Management System (CSMS), to verify address information for respondents. However, auditors were able to find 52 of the respondents by searching various computer databases, such as Lexis Nexis.



• The Sheriff's Office did not attempt to find respondents at different times on different days as required. Of the 144 sampled cases in which respondents were not found, 98 were cases in which the Sheriff's Office made two or more attempts to find respondents. For 69 of these 98 cases, the attempts were not performed at different times.



• Initial attempts to find a respondent were not performed in a timely manner. Among all sampled cases, the number of days between the dates cases were filed and the dates of initial attempts to find respondents ranged from one day to 64 days, with a nine-day median. Of the 297 cases reviewed, 147 exceeded the nine-day median.



• Alternate personal service – serving a person other than the respondent – was used on initial attempts to find respondents instead of completing the three required attempts to find them. For 67 of the 153 sampled cases in which summonses and subpoenas were served, alternate personal service was used on the initial attempt, even though there was time to make the three required attempts to serve the respondent.

“The Sheriff's Office should work diligently to ensure that personal service is used and that alternate personal service is used only after an established number of attempts to serve respondents personally have been unsuccessful,” Thompson said.

As a result of the findings, Thompson urged the Sheriff's Office to:

• Gain access to various computer databases such as Lexis Nexis to increase the automated search options for finding respondents.



• Ensure that it complies with its written agreement with HRA and makes attempts on different days and different times (one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one in the evening).



• Establish written guidelines governing the length of time it should take to make its initial attempts to find respondents.



• Monitor adherence to its established guidelines.



• Ensure that it adheres to its written agreement with HRA by using personal service – the preferred method of service. Alternate personal service should only be used after an established number of attempts to serve respondents personally have been unsuccessful.
  

###