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Indiana Launches Web-Based Child Support Payment Solution

The system will help the state lower costs and administer child support payments more efficiently.

INDIANAPOLIS -- State officials have implemented a Web-based, child-support payment processing solution that helps state and employers collect child support payments, which helps speed up the distribution of funds to families in need.

The Child Support Online (CSO) gives states another option to improve the processing of income withholding payments for child support. The solution automates the payment posting process and reduces the burden on child support staff.

State officials said there are more than 130 employers in 40 counties use CSO, which is a component of the Indiana Support Enforcement Tracking System (ISETS), a statewide child support information and disbursement system.

"Child Support Online assists non-custodial parents in meeting their financial obligations, which, in turn, ensures that custodial parents can meet the needs of their children," said John Hamilton, secretary of the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration.

The CSO offers several Web-based features, including:

- Diverting employer withholding payments and processing them without staff involvement;

- Providing more timely payments and allowing a Web-based interface to receive answers to payment-related questions;

- Simplifying the income withholding process, which eliminates the need to write checks or produce reports from the company payroll system and requires no enhancements or changes to their existing systems; and

- Allowing connectivity to the ISETS system and flexibility to interface with other Child Support Payment Processing Systems, as necessary.

The CSO uses a payment system that executes the electronic funds transfer from the employer's account based on employer input, interfaces with the existing legacy system, deposits the funds into the state account, uses the record provided by the employer online to post payments to the appropriate accounts and initiates distribution of the payment through the existing system.

Indiana contracted with Covansys to design and build the CSO, and a company source said the contract is valued at $530,000.