Client Name

State of Arkansas DF&A-Revenue Division Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE)

Description of Services Provided

A central State Disbursement Unit (SDU) was required in all states to accept child support enforcement payments by the PRWORA amended Family Support Act. The State of Arkansas had previously employed a collections and receipting vendor to accept payments, send receipts, and post all child support payments. In 2001, the State conducted a feasibility study that resulted in the it's decision to assume the SDU function from the vendor. Under the ARCSIS development and maintenance contract additional services were requested of Protech for the SDU.

Protech initially assisted the State of Arkansas in the acquisition of the correct type of equipment and software to equip the State to undertake the operation of the SDU. Protech provided specifications for the receipting and processing equipment and assisted the State in on-site evaluation of the hardware and proprietary software purchased by them. Protech also aided in the installation of the equipment and provided the initial software vendor with assistance in installing the purchased software. Protech helped format the required data exchange to transmit the daily collections file to ARCSIS for the distribution of funds in accordance with State and federal regulations. Protech then established a subsequent transmission to the State's banking institution where the checks to clients were produced.

On assumption of the SDU function, Arkansas had underestimated their volume of receipts and found problems in the purchased software and services of the software vendor (only 1/3 of the payments received were processed using this method; other payments were processed manually online by SDU staff). This created problems in identification of payments and timely processing of payments. Other issues such as security, inadequate automation of functions, lack of sufficiently clear audit trails, supervisory performance, and financial reporting mechanisms also provided a need for sufficient structure in the initial days of operation.

As a continuation of the SDU work done by Protech, a number of recommendations were provided to improve the processes and to manage the backlog of payments. As a result, Protech was asked to undertake a business process re-engineering effort, to create new software for accounting and receipting, as well as implementation of any process and automation recommendations accepted by the State.

Protech provided Arkansas with recommendations of new processes and procedures for the SDU. These included recommendations to automate as many of the receipting processes as possible, provide greater segregation of functions and tracking to ensure appropriateness of cash handling operations, provided supervisory personnel with automated audit mechanisms to evaluate accuracy of worker performance, and provide new financial reports to identify problem areas and to assist in automated balancing of daily business.

Protech's efforts required new development and installation of a desktop application. The recommended application provided additional imaging capabilities and transmission of SDU files to ARCSIS to update the financial module with daily business.

Protech developed PC programs for the SDU and LAN to provide new accounting and receipting functions to meet the needs of the Arkansas SDU. The SDU is a desktop system that is configured as a VB LAN application. The LAN server and PCs were installed and configured by Protech, (as are all State equipment and software under the ARCSIS Maintenance and Operations contract). Protech also provided network connections and installed security applications for this separate SDU application. The new receipting process interfaces with a variety of devices such as touch screen monitors, printers, high-speed scanners and MICR readers for faster turnaround in processing the receipted money. The application provides high volume payment processing that read MICR encoding and efficiently provide imaging and processing of an average of 15,000 receipts a day. Protech staff continue to provide services to the Arkansas SDU on a daily basis.

Technologies Employed

VB, SQL, 3rd Party Control Spread Sheet, ASP, XML, and HTML

Testimonial

Gwen Terrell - Collections/SDU Administrator - Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration

"...In my experience with Protech Solutions, Inc., I have found them to be extremely knowledgeable and thorough in the area of IV-D system requirements. Over the past 22 years, my position with the State of Arkansas Office of Child Support has put me in contact with a wide range of contractors, and I have found Protech to be one of the most conscientious and enjoyable companies to work with..."