Child Support Services is the largest activity in the Office of Recovery Services. It is responsible for the management of the federal Title IV-D (Social Security Act) Child Support Enforcement program for the state. This program is required by federal law in order for the state to receive the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant. The primary purpose of the program is to increase family income through collection of child support and enforcement of medical support. Combined with other income, child support collections assist families to become self-sufficient or help prevent the need for public assistance including Medicaid.
During the 2015 General Session, the Legislature appropriated for Fiscal Year 2016, $23,988,800 from all sources for Child Support Services. This is a 2.7 percent increase from Fiscal Year 2015 revised estimated amounts from all sources. The total includes $6,143,000 from the General/Education Funds, an increase of 6 percent from revised Fiscal Year 2015 estimates.
For the most recent completed fiscal year, the following information represents the purposes for which the money was used:
Regarding the positive trend greater than 5% in child support collections from the Office of Recovery Services Child Support Collections program performance measures, the agency states, "Collections have generally trended upward from year to year throughout ORS's history, but some of the increase during the past few years has been due to the recovering economy."
COBI contains unaudited data as presented to the Legislature by state agencies at the time of publication. For audited financial data see the State of Utah's Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports.