The Richmond County Child Support office is expected to move to the county’s Department of Social Services building after being shifted from the state to the county with the beginning of the new fiscal year July 1.

The impact on clients should be minimal, according to officials from DSS and the child support office.

Many counties throughout the state had already taken on their child support offices, after the state began transitioning them to counties as a cost-cutting measure. As of July 1 the state is out of the business of overseeing child support collection.

Richmond County DSS Director Tammy Schrenker said her department will be supervised through the DSS’s Family Services Department.

“We’re not sure how much it’s going to eventually cost us (to administer child support),” Schrenker said. “Our estimates are about $100,000 a year, but that may come down some because this is all really new to us.”

Schrenker said the first year stands to be the most expensive for the county, because it will require a project to retrofit a portion of the agency’s lobby into office space to accommodate the child support office.

“Once we get them over here, we expect that project to pay for itself in a matter of a couple of years, because we won’t have to keep up a separate office and pay the utilities, and so on,” she said. “Fortunately, child support has a very high reimbursement rate from the federal government.”

She said DSS expects to recover two-thirds of its expenditures on the child support department through the reimbursements.

The child support offices will be located in the corridor between DSS and the Health Department at the county offices on Caroline Street in Rockingham.

“There will still be a walkway to go from DSS to the Health Department,” Schrenker said. “We’re fortunate in that we had all that vast space sitting there that we can use.”

The project has already been put out to bid, and the county commissioners could consider a proposal to award the project as early as this month or next.

There are 14 employees whose salaries are being shifted to the county payroll, Schrenker said. Reimbursements will pay for them in part.

“We were able to offer everyone their position, and have hired two additional workers to fill vacancies the state was making them hold open,” Schrenker said. “So, they are fully-staffed.”

“We think that by placement under DSS, it’s probably going to enhance some of our services, because so many of the programs we run are tied to child support,” Schrenker said.

She pointed out recipients of WorkFirst funding are required to apply for child support, and child support status in a case may play into decisions on Medicaid eligibility and other programs.

“The two agencies have always worked closely together, and the goal is to make the transition so smoothly that clients don’t even realize anything has happened,” Schrenker said. “We will, of course, be sending out notifications to everyone who receives their services when they make the transition to our office.”

Richmond County Child Support Supervisor Ramonda Anderson and DSS Family Services Supervisor Lee Ann Sago agreed there should be little impact on those who look to child support for services in Richmond County.

“Everything will continue as it has in the past,” Anderson said. “We will continue to provide the services we have in the past.”

“I think this move will streamline our service delivery, and improve service delivery for our clients,” Sago said.

Schrenker pointed out there is some difficulty with the timing of the transition.

“The hardship was just the cost to the county in a budget year that was already a tough, tough budgeting year,” she said. “We already had to cut corners throughout our agency for this budget.”

Schrenker said that despite the added cost of taking on child enforcement, the agency managed to submit “a break-even budget,” at about $10 million total with about $3 million in county-funding.

“This was accomplished mainly by cutting departmental costs,” Schrenker explained, pointing out that no one was let go and the county agency has continued to fill its vacant positions.

“Child support clients will also still have use of the automated 800 number set up so they can check the status of their checks, and whether the money has been posted yet,” Schrenker added.

Staff Writer Philip D. Brown can be reached at (910) 997-3111 ext. 32, or by e-mail at pbrown@yourdailyjournal.com.