Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services Child Support Advisory Committee met July 11.
WebEx Meeting
Committee Members Present via WebEx/Phone:
Darryl Apperton, Maggie Bennett, Turyia Clay (for The Honorable Iris Y. Martinez), The Honorable Grace Dickler, Geraldine Franco, Dr. Kirk Harris, Stephanie Pointer and Juanita Sanders (for Secretary Grace Hou), Elizabeth Lingle, The Honorable Judge Pamela Loza, Christina Mahoney, The Honorable Judge Amy McFarland, Nicole McKinnon, The Honorable Judge Alana Mejias, Phillip Mohr, Jessica Patchik, Chlece Walker-Neal-Murray, Richard Zuckerman
Committee Members Absent:
Trent Cameron, Howard Feldman, The Honorable La Shawn Ford, Niya Kelly, Christine Raffaele, The Honorable Judge Regina Scannicchio, Vickie Smith, The Honorable Judge Alicia Washington
HFS Staff Present:
Carrie Benson, Irene Curran, Patricia Dulin, Hilary Johns Felton, Gina Hemphill, Celeste Kannall, Steve Sharer, Bryan Tribble, Eric Watson
Public Guests:
None
• Welcome CSAC members – Bryan Tribble and Richard Zuckerman
• Roll Call of Committee Members – Richard Zuckerman
• Approval of the April 11, 2023 meeting notes – Richard Zuckerman
▪ Motion to approve – Maggie Bennett
▪ Seconded by Jessica Patchik, passed unanimously.
• Formation of the Community Child Support Advisory Council – Eric Watson & Dr. Kirk Harris
▪ Introduction of the program – Dr. Kirk Harris
▪ Recruitment Strategy
▪ Importance of the Council – Eric Watson
▪ Excited for this project
▪ Formed due to the Town Hall meetings
▪ Questions:
Niya Kelly asked if the people involved would be compensated for their time and expertise? Will there be any impact on those receiving public benefits? Could there be some unintended consequences with their benefits?
Dr. Kirk Harris responded that yes, the plan is to support those that are participating in this council. He then asked Niya if she would be interested in serving as part of the advisory work? Niya responded that Dr. Harris could circle back to her and if she can lend her support, she can and will.
• Legislation – Richard Zuckerman, Bryan Tribble and Christina Mahoney
o House Bill 3301 Update - Richard Zuckerman
▪ Passed both houses, is now on the Governor’s desk.
▪ It has not yet been assigned a public act number.
▪ The Governor has until August 8, 2023 to veto or sign. If the Governor does nothing by August 8th, it becomes law.
▪ This Bill requires private contractors or gig economy workers be reported by their Payor of Income.
▪ Allows us to identify those that are working vs. those that are unemployed.
o House Bill 3301 background - Bryan Tribble
▪ The basic performance metric shared by Bryan Tribble.
▪ Child Support Services (CSS) has improved in every metric.
▪ Nationally we are up 15% in overall performance.
▪ Every state is trying to do what Illinois is doing; provide the greatest level of services for the families we serve.
▪ Over the last couple of years, we achieved historic highs with percentages. Percentage of cases with orders.
▪ Paternity is recovering after COVID. We are currently at 91.9%.
▪ Our percentage of paying arrears is very close to the highest it has ever been.
▪ This is a joint effort by HFS and guidance from the Child Support Advisory Committee (CSAC).
▪ COVID and the ending of unemployment benefits in August of 2021 gave us an opportunity to look at the lagging current pay metrics.
▪ Over the last 10-15 years, when an individual stopped unemployment benefits, we could see a match come through from New Hire. The individual was no longer receiving unemployment benefits and was employed elsewhere. We are able to serve an income withholding order.
▪ COVID opened an opportunity for private contractors to begin receiving unemployment insurance benefits. We were able to track the receive from these benefits.
▪ This was a joint effort with HFS, Christina Mahoney and her office of the Attorney General to close the gap. This was the emergence of the Gig economy.
o House Bill 3301 background - Christina Mahoney
▪ 2022 we were able to propose age and draft legislation under the New Hire directory to include independent contractors as part of the mandatory reporting for employees. The Attorney General approved the idea.
▪ We only had access to the database of W2 income and not the W4 independent contractor employees.
▪ This Bill passed unanimously in the House and Senate. If signed, it will take effect in January of 2024.
▪ Illinois will be joining other states where this has already implemented. This will help in the court room with finding income and locating parents due to that income.
o House Bill 3699 - Bryan Tribble
▪ Opens up HFS as a conduit to connect families with careers.
▪ We now know all the individuals who are working and those that are not.
▪ Provision that allows HFS to work with CMS to help families setup profiles to apply for State of Illinois job opportunities.
▪ Discussions began with HFS medical programs. Behavioral health connects individuals with mental health or substance abuse opportunities.
▪ Hoping to start in January 2024.
▪ Bill was sent to the Governor on June 15, 2023.
o House Bill 3677 - Bryan Tribble
▪ 5-year hunting and fishing licenses.
▪ HFS has historically been able to deny hunting and fishing licenses for those individuals not paying their child support.
▪ HFS is trying to see how a 3-year license period would work.
▪ Changes will happen with this project over the coming months.
• Formation of workgroups - Bryan Tribble
o Bryan Tribble thanked the group for their commitment.
o The 4 subcommittees are:
▪ Imputation of Income
▪ Incarcerated Obligors
▪ Shared Parenting
▪ Self-Support Reserve and Minimum Child Support Orders
o Subcommittees will meet periodically and will update this committee.
o The entire Committee will vote on the recommendation put forth by the sub committees.
o Emails forthcoming regarding setting up meetings and leading workgroups.
• Formation of the Community Child Support Advisory Council - Eric Watson & Dr. Kirk Harris
o Community Advisory Board – Eric Watson
▪ The Community Advisory Board was a topic at all of the Town Hall Meetings.
▪ We are really close to having a document ready to share.
▪ Family Advisory Council for Engagement (FACE).
▪ We want our members to have ownership.
▪ Our goal: Share on the front side, communicate and share what it means to our customers.
▪ We want our customers to be advocates to us and we want to be advocates to them.
▪ The document discusses the purpose.
1. The purpose is much like CSAC. We want to find members interested in sharing the subject matter, their experiences, and help guide the future of child support and find ways to make it better.
2. The specifics are to share, strategize, educate, and actively listen.
3. The scope is to improve child support services and assure equity. To improve communication, simplify our messaging.
▪ Our approach is to solicit an application. We are working on a simple one-page application on the front side and possibly a second page for more detail.
1. We will get the application and the charter documents out and will share the information to attract interest.
▪ We are discussing a maximum of 20 members and a minimum of 12 with a 1-year term with a continuation intent.
▪ Other states have identified what makes this successful and encouraged us to be active listeners.
▪ Our responsibility will be committee assignments.
▪ We have discussed ways to evaluate and ways to budget.
▪ This is very important and exciting.
o Community Advisory Board – Dr. Kirk Harris
▪ This document will serve as a fantastic foundation for the initial engagement.
▪ It will be good to think strategically about connecting to partners for recruitment purposes and to ensure diversity.
▪ The next step is to figure out what networks look like and to be clear about the values we are trying to advance.
▪ We need to embrace the uncertainty of what it means to engage parents and harvest their ideas/information to build better practices and policies.
▪ This will put Illinois on the cutting edge.
• Old/New Business
o Old Business:
▪ No old business.
o New Business:
▪ Maggie Bennett: On the list of committees, we have a cliff committee. The physical shared care formula. Other states are paying a consultant to assist with the data. Hoping HFS can provide some monies towards an economist for guidance.
o Using our new guidelines but utilizing Kansas, Minnesota, Oregon, and Indiana’s formulas. She is looking at some of the more interesting formulas and removing the cliff.
o Also, increasing our multiplier that is currently 1.5.
▪ Richard Zuckerman thanked Maggie Bennett for her suggestions and stated we will follow up on this.
• Public Comments
• Next meeting is September 12th.
• Motion to adjourn by Richard Zuckerman
▪ Motion to adjourn by Maggie Bennett.
▪ Seconded by Grace Dickler and Dr. Kirk Harris.
▪ Approved by the group.
• Richard Zuckerman thanked everyone for attending.
https://hfs.illinois.gov/content/dam/soi/en/web/hfs/sitecollectiondocuments/07112023csacnotes.pdf
Alerts Sign-up