When the state assumed control of distributing child-support checks in October, financial turmoil ensued for Robin Jackson.

For 10 years, Jackson, a Columbus resident, said she could rely on a $60 check appearing each week in her mailbox. Franklin County routed the money to her from the father of her 15-year-old daughter.

Ohio was under mandate from the federal government to put all 850,000 child-support cases from 88 counties on the new Support Enforcement Tracking System computer -- or face a $56 million fine. Franklin County has 70,000 child-support clients.

Now the state handles the collection and dispersal of about $1.9 million in support payments. The state assumed responsibility for the distribution of Franklin County's support checks on Oct. 1.

That nearly caused a disaster for Jackson. She said she didn't receive checks for 10 weeks -- putting her $600 behind.

"It drained my savings account down to nothing,'' Jackson said. "It had gotten ridiculous.''

Jackson works full time as a billing specialist for the county sanitary engineer's office but depends on the support check to make ends meet. She had to borrow money to pay her bills.

Jackson said she recently received $600 in back support checks. But during her travails, she said she couldn't get a straight answer from the state Department of Jobs & Family Services.

That department has agreed to meet this month with county officials and answer such questions. The department received a letter in December from Joe Pilat, director of the county Child Support Enforcement Agency and Harold K. Weller, director of the county Domestic Relations court.

The letter complained of "serious problems'' in the computer system.

"I know they're aware of their problems,'' Pilat said. "We want to impress on them that it's hurting a lot of people. A lot of people I talked to want to go back to the old system.''

The three-page letter sent to Jacqui Romer- Sensky, director of the state agency, outlined the following problems:

Mistakes with the posting of payments or lost payments have caused a sharp increase in complaints.

"This situation is compounded by the process which places the local agency in the position of having to attempt to answer client questions without having sufficient resources to research individual payment problems,'' the letter states.

The computer system has too much downtime. It is unavailable if the first day of the month falls on a weekday. The letter says that for every hour the computer is down, the county incurs a lost labor cost of $3,350.

"Work becomes backlogged and the county finds itself in a catch-up mode and, in many cases, overtime costs are incurred to process necessary work.''

There is a lack of accountability with vendors who process payments and research unidentified payments. Bank One is the main contractor handling the payment system. While the state claims an error rate of just 3 percent, the letter points out that, on the basis of 25,000 payments processed a day, that equates to 750 errors per day, the letter said.

The Ohio Department of Jobs & Family Services is aware of problems with the system, said Jon Allen, department spokesman.

There will be a meeting this month with all directors of child-support enforcement agencies from around the state, Allen said.

To improve performance, the state has assigned more employees to answer complaints, Allen said.

"We know some of the local knowledge gets lost with the new system,'' Allen said.

For instance, a county child-support enforcement worker might know the intricacies of a certain account better than a state worker.

The only consolation is that Ohio seems to be handling its child-support payments better than other states, Pilat said.

In Illinois, the state legislature had to temporarily bail out the child-support system with a $20 million subsidy, Pilat said.

The Columbus Dispatch

-- Anonymous, January 12, 2001