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The Texas Attorney General's Child Support Division is more successful than ever before due to advances in technology. Child support payments have more than doubled with the help of Internet access. The latest Internet access ensures that court staff and attorneys have up to the minute case information. This information has proven to assist in speedy recovery of the amount owed to the parents.
An improvement in collections is a positive thing for both the parents as well as the division of support. The federal government wants to cut funds that help run the division. Losing money may mean that less staff is available to retrieve the back child support payments that many single parents desperately need to meet the basic needs of the child.
When a parent fails to pay child support, the Internet's people finder tools can help where other methods fail. Phone calls and letters have not been as efficient as possible and technology is aiding in the quickest recovery the Texas Attorney General's Office has seen in years. Many people on court staff feel that without the aide of technology and the Internet, the time to investigate and pin down delinquent parents who owe money would take so much longer.
Now, the technologically advanced search systems search the local and state records to retrieve information. Rather than dead-end searches that involve simply letters and phone calls, the Internet helps the Child Support Division obtain information from friends, relatives and even neighbors of the suspects who are found with the help of the Internet. Addresses are tracked and cross-referenced in various computer databases, making payment recovery that much easier.
Since the advanced computer system has been implemented, child support payments have doubled in the past seven years from $756 million in 1998 to $1.8 billion in 2005. This money has gone on to assist more than 1.1 million children who depend on the Texas Attorney General's Office to collect delinquent child support.