Key Points
- Federal Regulation (45 C.F.R. § 302.56(h)) requires states to review case data on the application of the guidelines including the limited use of deviations.
- As part of the review of the Georgia Child Support Guidelines, the Commission is responsible for examining case file data to analyze the application and deviation from the Guidelines. In other states, this responsibility is done by consultants or other agencies.
- Several years ago, Commission (through the direction of Dr. Roger Tutterow) decided to use data from 12 counties (out of 159 counties) chosen through scientific means and represent a cross-section of the socio-economic factors of the general population.
- The data is gathered by requesting temporary and final child support orders (including worksheets) for a specific month from county clerks.
- Here are the links to the last four Case Samplings: 2006, 2010, 2014, 2018
- Looking at the Number of Cases by Type by County for the past four Guideline Reviews, the largest sample was 275 cases in 2006 and the smallest sample was 184 cases in 2018. Given a population of 11 million and sampling sizes of other states, Georgia needs a better way to gather data. In fact, sample size was mentioned as an issue in the 2018 Final Report.
- Given that data is being sent primarily by fax and the received documents are reviewed for the required data and being manually entered in a spreadsheet, the error rate might be considerable. In fact, the spreadsheet containing 2018 Case Study had nine rows where the county was entered but no other data.
Analysis
- Unlike other states, Georgia does not maintain case data in a state-wide repository like other states.
- Looking at the Number of Cases by Type by County for the past four Guideline Reviews, the largest sample was 275 cases in 2006 and the smallest sample was 184 cases in 2018.
- Given a population of 11 million and sampling sizes of other states, Georgia needs a better way to gather data. In fact, sample size was mentioned as an issue in the 2018 Final Report.
- Given that data is being sent primarily by fax and the received documents are reviewed for the required data and being manually entered in a spreadsheet, the error rate might be considerable.