Each year, the federal Office of Child Support Services (OCSS) auditors select a random sample of 50 cases that Oklahoma has reported as paternity being established on the OCSS-157 Report, also known as the Data Reliability Audit. The audit is part of the incentive program that evaluates states’ performance in establishing paternity, establishing child support orders, and other indicators of performance. The intent of this incentive program is to determine the amount of funds allocated for each state.
The Federal Office of Audit evaluates the completeness, reliability, and security of performance indicator data reported by the states via electronic files, and the accuracy of the reporting systems used in calculating the performance indicators. The electronic files contain complete and unduplicated child support case information as of September 30 of a particular year. This includes all open IV-D cases, closed cases, and non-IV-D cases. The audit follows each line on the OCSS-157 to determine appropriate performance indicators. Only two mistakes out of 50 data points are allowed to pass the audit.
Oklahoma’s Child Support Pre-Audit assists with meeting the stringent data accuracy requirements of the federal government. The pre-audit is conducted once per calendar year. The Paternity and Establishment related data that are reviewed include the Statewide Paternity Establishment Percentage (Statewide PEP) and the Child Support Order Establishment Percentage.
For the OCSS-157 report, Oklahoma has 9 months, until September 30th of the current year to change or update legal status for children with paternity being reported as established or support orders established during the previous calendar year.
Programming is in place to analyze certain OSIS screens to monitor and manage cases that meet criteria, such as how the case came into the system, obligation information, out-of-wedlock indicator information and legal status progression and history data. The CMOD report (CS370M01) lists all cases from the previous calendar year which OSIS reads as court-ordered paternity and establishment. As a reminder, child support offices have until September 30th of the current year to review the cases and ensure that they are coded correctly.