LANSING -- State government, struggling to make its inadequate child-support computer system work, has turned to Wayne County for a solution.
   The state, which has spent $327-million over 17 years on a system that still isn't operating fully, will modify a system now being developed for the Wayne County Friend of the Court.
   The federal government requires the system so deadbeat parents can be tracked from county to county and state to state.
   Michigan has paid $30.5-million in federal fines for missing deadlines to get all the counties on one system, and the state is expected to be fined $38.7-million this year.
   With plans to complete the system by September 2002, the state hopes to avoid another $50-million fine, said Maureen Sorbet, an agency spokeswoman.
   Despite years of effort with a series of contractors, the state has only been able to get 73 of its 83 counties on its Child Support Enforcement System, which still would require major reworking to handle the largest county, Wayne.
   Wayne County, whose 221,000 child-support cases represent 45 percent of the state's total, hired its own contractor more than a year ago, Wayne County Friend of the Court Alexander Luvall said.
   State delays in creating a workable system have hurt children, said Geraldine Jensen of Ann Arbor, president of the California-based Association for Children for the Enforcement of Support.
   "The feds gave them that money and from what we can tell, they've squandered it," Jensen said. "In order for them to track down people who don't pay child support, they have to know who's paying and who's not paying. Right now ... you can actually elude the law by moving to a new county."
   At the end of 1999, parents owed 665,000 Michigan children $5.9 billion in child-support payments, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
   
State studies options
   State officials confirmed they will adapt parts of the Wayne County system developed by Protech Solutions Inc. of Little Rock, Ark., to help bring nine other counties, including Oakland, into federal compliance.
   It isn't known yet whether the 73 counties now using the Child Support Enforcement System developed for the state will switch to the Protech system, said Mark Jasonowicz, deputy director of the Michigan Family Independence Agency.
   "That's a possibility," he said. "We'll look at what are the best options to pulling together a single application for the state."
   Michigan's decision to turn to Wayne County for help comes just months after Gov. John Engler rebuked Wayne and a handful of other counties in his State of the State speech. Engler said the counties were hurting children by not getting behind the state's effort to satisfy the federal government.
   "I will not ask this Legislature to continue to pay outrageous penalties because some counties wish to have it their way," Engler said in the speech.
   Luvall said he was taken aback by Engler's speech because Wayne could not join the state's system if it wanted to. "That was a little disingenuous of the governor," he said.
   
Congress set deadline
   In 1984, Congress set a 1995 deadline for states to install the computerized tracking systems. The deadline was extended to 1997, but Michigan was among nine states to miss it. The state now is among four that are not in compliance.
   Engler spokeswoman Susan Shafer said she sees nothing inappropriate about his comments in the State of the State speech. The state would have likely found the Protech system whether Wayne were using it or not, she said.
   "I don't recall the governor mentioning any counties by name. The bottom line right now is making sure we're in compliance," she said.
   Sorbet, the Family Independence Agency spokeswoman, said she didn't know how much more would be needed to complete the computer system. Since parts of it are operating, it's impossible to say how much of the $327 million was wasted, she said.
   "I would assume that there might be some of that in there," she said. "How much, I don't know."
   Luvall said the state will likely pick up some of the $10 million to $15 million Wayne County has paid to Pro Tech. The county's system is now being tested and should be operational by July, he said.
   Jensen, the child advocate, said she is pleased the state may be close to a solution, but said Wayne County's involvement doesn't bolster her confidence.
   "The Wayne County Friend of the Court is the worst in the state," Jensen said. "They can't even get anybody to answer the phone over there."

The Detroit News

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