1. Regional Child Support/interagency cooperative agreement

would have been a more helpful example, except that the agreements are very old and need to be reworded. In addition, allowing any party to terminate the agreement "at will" (which was a possibility discussed at the May county director meeting) is inconsistent with the mandate that the Department "direct" child support agencies to enter into the agreement. Instead, several provisions were patterned after a similar cooperative agreement in Wisconsin between the child support program and county prosecutors. Another substantive change proposed by the county directors is to allow a county to withdraw from an agreement if sufficient appropriations are not obtained. The directors note that they have agreed to set aside 5% of the estimated amount of incentives received in 2006 ($715,000 x 5% = $35,750), and that they would need additional authority to commit to spending additional funds in CY 2006. A similar problem should be avoidable for CY 2007 because the county budgets are still being developed and budget instructions have yet to be given. A cardinal rule of statutory construction is that the Legislature does not pass idle laws; rather, laws are supposed to be liberally construed to serve their legislative purpose. In 2003, N.D.C.C. ~ 50-09-33 gave the State and regional offices the option of entering into cooperative agreements for centralized administration of child support activities. None were signed. In 2005, an additional law was passed, N.D.C.C. ~ 50-09-34, authorizing the Department to "direct" regional offices and counties to enter into such "agreements." The change in law from optional to mandatory would be rendered meaningless if a county could simply choose not to budget sufficient funds to fund such agreements. Properly understood, once the Department fulfills its duty to issue a directive under N.D.C.C. ~ 50-09-34, the directive creates a mandatory legal obligation on the regional offices and counties to enter into the agreements and fund the projects "on terms prescribed by the [Department]." either within their existing budgets or through additional funds. Notwithstanding the analysis above, the change requested by the county directors has been made to the agreements. A county that fails to appropriate sufficient funds to fulfill its legal obligation under the statute may withdraw from the agreement, but doing so also carries legal consequences, including being made ineligible to receive incentive funds. N.D.C.C. ~ 50-09-34. At the county director meeting and in the comments to the agreements, the Department was asked to reconsider whether the contributions from each participating region needed to be submitted to the Department. Initially, our interpretation of the law was that the funds needed to be provided to the State before the continuing appropriations in state law could be used to provide the reimbursement to the host region (under SWAP, any federal match on regional office costs is usually retained by the State). The county directors preferred that the host region be allowed to keep the payments and simply request reimbursement from the Department for 66% of the allowable costs. After further review and consultation with the Fiscal Division, we have determined that the federal funds can be passed through to the host regions, notwithstanding SWAP, without the State first receiving the contributions from each participating region. -2-