SENATOR TAYLOR brought SB 302 (UNIFORM INTERSTATE FAMILY SUPPORT ACT) before the committee as the next order of business. JOHN MALLONEE, Deputy Director, Child Support Enforcement Division, Department of Revenue, said SB 302 addresses one of the most complex and complicated areas of child support. Passage of the legislation will improve services to case parties involved in the interstate enforcement of child support orders by clarifying the process and moving to a one order system honored by all states which have passed this uniform law. Currently, eight states have passed this uniform law and 25 other states have it in their current session. Mr. Mallonee said that while the bill contains many provisions, the most significant is the one maintaining only one valid order at one time. Under the current interstate laws, there can be several orders in effect at one time in several states. This creates much confusion - obligors can be paying and be current in one state and have arrears and not be meeting their child support payments in other states because there is not one order in effect at one time. Number 182 SENATOR LITTLE asked if this Act is a mandate of the federal government. MR. MALLONEE answered that it has not been mandated by the federal government at this time. Uniform Law Commissioners, who look at laws that need to be uniform throughout the states, have recommended passage of this particular law and repealing the Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act (URESA). SENATOR LITTLE asked if there has been any opposition to the legislation. MR. MALLONEE answered that he does not know of any opposition to it, although an attorney in Anchorage, who represents a group of obligors, has suggested some minor changes to it. Number 214 There were several questions raised on the waiving by a "tribunal" of the petitioner's filing fee or other costs. DONNA PAGE, Senior Hearing Officer, Department of Revenue, clarified that the bill was drafted using the word "tribunal" because, currently, child support is established both by the courts and by the agency. Right now, URESA is not used very much by the agency because in order to use URESA, they have to go to court and that causes a huge backlog of their work in trying to get it through the court system. She explained if the word "tribunal" is used and the agency is included in this Act, as opposed to the way it is done in URESA, the agency will use the Act and in a much more expeditious manner administratively establish child support in an interstate case. If a state has jurisdiction over a child support case, another state cannot create another child support order. The child support agency can be the entity that takes another state's order and enforces it or modifies it if that is appropriate. MR. MALLONEE added that the modification must come from the state that has continued exclusive jurisdiction in the case. Number 340 Mr. Mallonee and Ms. Page responded to several questions from committee members on how the information is currently shared between states, how this Act will enable the state to function better in collecting child support payments, and how a state gains jurisdiction over a child support case. Number 500 SENATOR LITTLE asked for an explanation of the term "default order." MR. MALLONEE responded that in the establishment of a notice of finding a financial responsibility, the number one thing that the agency does is attempt to locate information on what an individual makes by checking Department of Labor statistics, as well as requesting information from the person. A default order is only set once they have no information. The courts do the same thing, and in many cases, they set it using a $60,000 figure. If they ask the person to provide financial information and they do not, the court normally sets it using $60,000, which is the maximum in the guidelines. Number 531 SENATOR TAYLOR commented that he understands the concern and the desire to make certain that people conduct themselves in an appropriate fashion, but he thinks the entire weight of the State of Alaska, the Attorney General's office and the Child Support Enforcement Agency are set up for one purpose only and that is to gain money. Number 590 SENATOR HALFORD asked what would happen if the word "tribunal" were changed to "court" throughout the bill. MS. PAGE responded that she thought that the situation would be the same as it is now. She thinks it is necessary to have it "tribunal" in order to make it easy for the administrative agency to administratively respond to interstate cases. If they can't, they have other statutes that allow them to do what they are doing now, and that is to establish an Alaska order every time they've got an interstate case. TAPE 94-34, SIDE B Number 050 SENATOR HALFORD said it is absolutely asinine to have a minimum payment level of $50, which is nothing, and the obligor is getting money under the table to avoid having to pay more child support, while at the same time, he is driving around in a new truck. He suggested it would be better to go back into the 90.3 statute and rewrite new minimum and maximum payments, and say that is the degree of motion that the system has got. He added that the court has said that in the case of that set of rules, they would like to see that done. Number 068 LARAINE DERR, Deputy Commissioner, Department of Revenue, said she just recently assumed the administrative responsibility for child support, and she thinks there are problems in every area. She stated this bill is one way of starting to fix an interstate problem and addresses the problem of an individual having multiple court orders and which one should be followed. Number 115 SENATOR HALFORD stated the current system is a mess and he is not willing to make a system work any better that is not worth fixing. Number 130 SENATOR TAYLOR asked Mr. Mallonee to comment on the federal aspects of the program. MR. MALLONEE said 66 percent of operating expenses of the entire child support program is federally funded. They also receive incentives anywhere from 6 to 10 percent based on the AFDC collections that they return, of which 50 percent goes to the state to replace its share of the AFDC and 50 percent goes to the federal government to replace their share of the AFDC. In most cases, they have more than 100 percent of their budgeted expenses covered by federal funds. Therefore, the federal government has laid down some fairly significant rules in the child support area based on giving funding to these programs. He reiterated that this particular program is not mandated by the federal government, as yet, but he suspects that before too many more years the federal government will mandate this program or something similar. He also agreed that there are a lot of problems within the system, and one of the most complicated ones that creates a lot of confusion and hardship to a lot of people is the interstate one. Number 160 There being no further testimony or questions on SB 302, SENATOR TAYLOR stated he would like to hold the bill in committee to take a closer look at it.