3. Southeast Regional Child Support Enforcement Unit Improvement Plan

For FFY 2005, of 8,620 open cases, the Fargo region had 7,499 cases with orders established, for a percentage of87.0%, with the top region at 89.3%. While the Fargo Unit had increased the number of cases with orders established (Line 2) by 358 over the course ofFFY 2006, the gains to the measurement percentage were muted by the growth in the overall number of open cases (Line 1) by 387. So despite increasing the hard-count of cases with orders by 358 (by far the largest increase among the 8 regions), the measurement only increased by .24. The measurement's dependency on the changing number of open cases is apparent. This is further demonstrated by the performance of the other regions. Of the eight regions, in FFY 2006, two had improved performance of 2% or more in this measure, and one other region was quite close at 1.98%. All three of those regions had a reduction in Line I. In fact, two of those three regions had reductions in Line 2 as well, meaning that the percentage of cases with orders went up despite the fact that there were fewer cases with orders. Ana~vsis While the number of total cases is not something that can be controlled by the Unit, how we work a case from referral to establishment is something that can be controlled. Some obstacles facing the Unit's achieving the goal of increased performance are the large amI growing caseload and turnover in the legal staff. With a relatively large and growing caseload, the base ofthe measurement is growing as well. In order for the measured percentage to grow, the number of orders established must grow substantially more. As was pointed out in the description of the measurement, case load growth seems to limit performance improvement. Another obstacle facing the Unit is the recent turnover of legal staff. Over the last year the Unit has replaced three of four staff attorneys and the administrator/attorney. While the newcomers have taken to their jobs quite nicely, the fact is they replaced a group with very significant child support experience. This is particularly important with this performance measure since it measures an output ofthe legal group - court support orders. Two opportunities to increase performance in this measure are the opportunity to redistribute work duties and recently provided reports from the State Office. The opportunity to redistribute work duties has come through a combination of the creation ofthe interstate unit and turnover. With 1,800 cases going out the door, the opportunity exists to fill that void with other duties. The creation of the North Dakota Outgoing Interstate Unit and the expectation of further centralized functions created some capacity within the case analyst group to assume duties. 2