Texas company offers private sector option for parents seeking to collect child support

AUSTIN (January 12, 1998) - Sunset review of the Texas child support enforcement program and upcoming welfare reforms mean change is in store in 1998 for custodial parents seeking to collect child support, the head of the nation’s largest private child support enforcement company said today.

Families moving off welfare and possible Sunset reforms mean more parents will be looking for options in collecting unpaid child support, said Casey Hoffman, president of Supportkids. The Austin, Texas-based company, which has clients in all 50 states, receives more than 20,000 calls a month from custodial parents seeking help in collecting child support.

“For welfare reform to work, the child support check has to replace the welfare check,” said Hoffman, a former special assistant attorney general who headed Texas’ child support enforcement program for five years. Hoffman noted that nine out of ten children on welfare are owed child support.

Hoffman said he views his company’s role as helping to reduce government caseloads, which number as high as 1,000 cases per enforcement specialist. He said his company, which works on a contingency basis, offers an option to custodial parents. Parents can also seek help through the attorney general’s office, a private attorney or one of a handful of private child support enforcement companies.

More than $3 billion in child support is owed to Texas children.

“The climate is right for more private sector involvement in this arena,” said Hoffman, who is also president-elect of the National Child Support Enforcement Association, the largest and oldest association of public and private child support enforcement professionals.

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