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Wednesday, February 12, 1997
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WASHINGTON — Sixteen years ago, the federal government agreed to pay states to develop computer systems to track deadbeat parents. Taxpayers have spent $1.5 billion since then, but only a dozen states have operational systems.
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The money, most of it spent in the last two years, went to computer companies, state workers and numerous consultants. There were consultants to design the systems, to write bids, to build software and even to police other consultants, according to an Associated Press review of audits and other documents.
The purpose was to modernize the collection of overdue support money — a figure that has grown to $35 billion owed to 29 million children.
But when officials are asked why more has not been accomplished, fingerpointing abounds.
State officials said that they received bad advice and systems that didn't work. Vendors said technical difficulties and changing federal requirements were to blame. Federal officials said some states
The computers are expected to deliver big payoffs. They'll store all case data, process and distribute payments, connect to tax- and welfare-agency computers and share information with other states
didn't manage the projects properly. And congressional auditors contended that the federal agency overseeing the effort did little to hold states accountable.
The last is a crucial component because one-third of all child support cases involve out-of-state parents.
But a year and a half after the federal deadline passed for states to computerize their collection systems, only three states — Washington, Virginia and Wyoming — have met all federal requirements.
Washington developed its own system, without using consultants, for $30 million. After a false start with one vendor, Virginia jointly developed a system with a contractor for $21 million. Wyoming maintained strict control of the consultants it hired and built a system in three years for less than $10 million. All three states have relatively small caseloads.
Nine states have been given conditional federal certification, meaning that their systems meet most of the requirements but need minor adjustments to gain final approval.
Many other states have spent tens of millions of dollars for contractors but only have partial systems, at best, to show for it. When the federal deadline for completing the systems
"No one is denying that there's much more to do," said David Ross, deputy director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Child Support, the agency that oversees the effort.
passed in 1995, Congress extended it two more years, and hundreds of millions of dollars of additional federal aid has flowed to these states.
michigan serves as a case in point. With one of the largest child-support caseloads at 1.4 million, Michigan has spent $116 million in federal and state funds to build a computer system. But the system is riddled with technical flaws and doesn't meet federal standards.
Some contractors lacked technical know-how, so Michigan paid for their training at a cost of $100,000 for classes and lost time on the job, state auditors said. Some sessions had nothing to do with technology. A seminar entitled Seven Habits of Highly Effective People cost the state $30,770.
Michigan spent $35 million more than its budget, state auditors concluded. The consultants are still on the job with new, more stringent contracts. Officials said they were needed to fix the system.
North Carolina officials said it needed an additional $25 million for its project. It has already spent more than $40 million, but its system is missing crucial pieces.
IAB IBM subsidiary, which was paid $18 million, had problems because it was redesigning a system from another state that was meant to han-
"It sounds like an easy thing to do, but it hasn't been."
David Ross Deputy director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Child Support
dile a much smaller caseload, said Jim Edgerton, assistant secretary at North Carolina's Human Resources Agency.
Ohio fired its first developer — after paying a $400,000 settlement for breaking its contract — and started again from scratch, using in-house staff and 100 contract employees.
The government first agreed in 1980 to provide federal funding for states to build computerized child-support collection systems. In 1988, the government made it mandatory for all states and gave them seven years.
Its system has cost $43 million so far and is running in only three of the state's 88 counties. Ohio officials said they needed another $60 million.
As the deadline approached, federal spending revved up. In 1995 alone, the government distributed
$591 million.
States with only part of their systems in place already are reaping benefits. Nationwide, collections rose to $12 billion last year from $8 billion in 1992
When the deadline passed, the government did not shut off funding as the 1988 law required. Instead, Congress extended the deadline, and an additional $481 million was distributed in 1996, according to preliminary figures.
The federal government complicated matters by changing system requirements along the way and making states import systems designed by other states, officials said.
government officials and vendors said the costs were staggering because the projects were so complex. Hundreds of thousands of case files must be converted from old computers, and data from various offices must be linked. Most states expect to have systems complete in time to make the new October 1997 deadline.
"It sounds like an easy thing to do, but it hasn't been," Ross said. Children's groups disgrace.
"Every business has a database with customers' names, social security numbers, and how much they owe on their account," said Geraldine Jensen, national president of Toledo-based Association for Children For Enforcement of Support Inc. "It doesn't make any sense that private industry can do this, and the government can't."
Cold catches illegal aliens before Border Patrol can
14 deaths result from trek to U.S. in frigid weather
The Associated Press
CAMPO, Calif. — Martin Facio can thank the U.S. government for reminding him of the proper way to dress when sneaking across the border.
Because of a U.S. border crackdown in the balmy San Diego area, illegal aliens have been trying to cross into the United States by trekking through the cold, wind-swept mountains to the east. As a result, at least 14 immigrants have died of exposure in the past month.
To prevent more deaths, the U.S. and Mexican governments are broadcasting public service announcements warning illegal immigrants to stay away from the area.
"Well, I'm not saying we should tell them how to get here, but sometimes we find them wearing trash bags they've found — like that's going to keep them warm and dry," said Ronny Kastner, a Border Patrol agent in Campo, where an average of 125 immigrants are arrested each night.
Facio, a 33-year-old auto repairman from Mexico City, heard radios crackling in Tijuana with helpful hints for would-be crossers.
He and his nephews bought long underwear and flannel shirts and stayed in a Tijuana way station until the temperatures climbed to the mid-50s. Facio and his nephews set out on their journey, heading more than 50 miles east of Tijuana.
By the time Border Patrol agents caught them and put them in a detention cell just after nightfall on the same day they set out, the temperature had dipped to 38 degrees.
perature had tripled. In the next 24 hours, 126 other immigrants were detained by agents based at Campo, an enforcement area that encompasses an Indian reservation, the Cleveland National Forest and the site of most of the 14 deaths—the Laguna Mountains.
Although the international border and the main highway are only two miles apart, impassable mountains turn the trip into a 22-hour marathon. And that's if the aliens don't stop to rest or eat. The average illegal immigrant logs three to four days between the border fence and downtown Campo.
Several years ago, immigrants sneaking into Southern California crossed over from the booming city of Tijuana into San Diego, where even winter temperatures overnight
Protected only by thin jackets, jeans and sneakers, some of the 14 victims had spent days walking through calf-high snow without food or water. With temperatures in the low 30s and a stinging wind in their faces, two of the men were nearly delirious from cold and hunger when they approached Border Patrol agents, begging to be rescued.
Although Facio was disappointed the Border Patrol had caught him, he said the trip wasn't entirely worthless.
But a federal program called Operation Gatekeeper tightened up the border in urban San Diego. Launched in 1994, Operation Gatekeeper bolstered the U.S. side of the border with night-vision equipment and more than 600 additional Border Patrol agents.
"Next time I am going to wear gloves," he said.
are in the mid-40s and 50s.
It's a straight 20-minute sprint from the streets of Tijuana to the closest San Diego highway — so easy that some teen-agers used to run back and forth between countries several times in one night just for kicks.
To avoid the fortified region, illegal immigrants have shifted their crossings eastward to the more treacherous mountains where Border Patrol reinforcements are just now arriving. The results have been tragic.
Appointments to commission turning out to be big gambles
President's choices coming under fire from outside groups
WASHINGTON — More than a year ago, President Clinton expressed worry about the social, economic and political costs of the spread of legalized gambling, and he endorsed the creation of a national commission to study the issue.
But now, as the White House narrows a list of appointments to the commission, gambling opponents fear the panel will be dominated by people protective of the casino industry.
The Associated Press
"It looks to me like we're going to get rolled," said Tom Grey, a Methodist minister who is head of the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling. "It may be the best commission money can buy."
White House officials, already reeling from accusations of special-interest access, are scrambling to avoid the appearance that Clinton's three picks for the panel are a payoff for industry campaign contributions.
Clinton's spokesman, Mike McCurry, said the president was
A senior administration official said it was unlikely that the gambling industry will get more than one or two of the president's slots. The appointments, which under the law were supposed to be made before last year's elections, are not expected for a week or more.
looking for people who were well qualified and were open to the issues the commission will address.
At least nine people connected with gambling interests attended White House coffees during the last two years, many of them from Indian tribes that have made large donations to the Democrats.
The industry as a whole has given heavily to both parties, donating $2.35 million in 1995-96 to each party. Last May, Clinton played a round of golf with Steve Wynn, chairman of Mirage Resorts, a Las Vegas casino company.
Vegas casino company. Gray said gambling opponents have been unable to get that kind of access. The best they could manage was a meeting with Carol Rasco, Clinton's domestic policy adviser, more than a year ago.
Congress created the gambling study commission last year after opponents of the industry charged that the spread of casinos and other forms of gambling were taking a social toll on the nation. Clinton endorsed the idea in an Oct. 31,
1995, letter to Sen. Paul Simon, D-Lib, one of the bill's sponsors.
The bill provides that C'inton, House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott each appoint three members. Gingrich and Lott delegated one choice each to minority Democrats.
Representatives of casino interests fought back, creating a national trade association and hiring Washington lobbyists who at first tried to disband the commission. After Clinton signed it into law on Aug. 3, the industry turned its efforts to winning friendly appointments.
appointed Gingrich, R-Ga., appointed Terrence Lanni, chairman of the MGM Grand casino in Las Vegas. Gingrich acted at the request of Rep. John Ensign, R-Nev., whose family is in the casino business.
Congressional officials say House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., is poised to name another industry supporter, John Wilhelm, who is secretary-treasurer of the International Culinary Union.
or creating jobs.
The union gave $5,000 to Gephardt's campaign last year, and he received at least $41,500 from other industry-connected companies.
Wilhelm has testified in favor of the expansion of casinos as a way of creating jobs.
Discovery crew equipped to give Hubble a facelift
The Associated Press
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Space shuttle Discovery and a crew of seven blasted into orbit early yesterday on a mission to modernize the Hubble Space Telescope by swapping old instruments for new.
In the final hours of the countdown, NASA resolved minor problems with a fuel cell and an unusual but harmless presence of oxygen in Discovery's payload bay. With all of that repaired, the 4 1/2 million-pound spaceship lighted up the sky right on time.
"The Hubble Space Telescope has turned out to be one of the crown jewels of humanity in all of its history, and it is worth vastly
"With a little luck and a couple weeks, the best telescope in the universe will be even better than it is now," commander Kenneth Bowersox said just before the 3:55 a.m. liftoff.
On board were new science instruments, recorders and other improved equipment for Hubble.
Assuming all goes well on this second servicing mission, American's dividends from Hubble — which skyrocketed after NASA's last visit to the observatory — should go up again.
During the early 1990s, even some people at NASA doubted whether taxpayers were getting their money's worth out of the $2 billion telescope, launched in 1990 with a misshapen mirror. A 1993 repair mission changed all that.
NASA's chief Hubble scientist, Ed Weiler; estimates each American is paying less than $1 a year in taxes for the telescope — less than 2 cents a week.
if you liked the deep-field views of an unexpectedly crowded universe as it xisted almost at the beginning of time, snapshots of billowing clouds of hydrogen gas and dust, glimpses of 1 million-umph galaxy collisions, and red and blue close-ups of Mars and Neptune, just wait.
The two new science instruments to be installed by Discovery's spacewalking crew — a near-infrared camera and two-dimensional spectrograph — should allow Hubble to see even farther into the depths of the universe and with greater detail.
"I don't know if we'll get all the way back to seeing the galaxies as one-day-year-olds after birth because we don't know when galaxies were born," Weiler said. But the new near-infrared camera "is going to get us further back and closer to that answer."
more than we have paid for it," said NASA astronomer David Leckrone.
"The Hubble Space Telescope has turned out to be one of the crown jewels of humanity..."
David Leckrone NASA astronomer
WASHINGTON — The State Department asked the Republic of Georgia yesterday to waive diplomatic immunity for an embassy official whose car crash last month in Washington D.C. resulted in the death of a 16-year-old girl.
Department spokesman Nick Burns said that the request was conveyed to the Georgian Embassy in Washington and to the government in Tbilisi. Georgian officials also were told what charges the U.S. Attorney's office intends to file against Geuorgul Makharadze, the No. 2-ranking official in the embassy, but Burns refused to publicly disclose these.
The Associated Press
Burns said that the Georgian government reserved a final decision but reaffirmed its intention to waive the diplomat's immunity
Diplomatic immunity may be waived in crash
Police officials said Makharadze's car slammed into another car waiting at a red light Jan. 3 in downtown Washington. The impact sent the second car into the air, and it landed on a third car in which Joviane Waltrick was a passenger. She died a short time later.
from prosecution, which would allow him to stand trial here.
Georgian President Edward Shevardnadze has ordered Makharadze to remain in the United States until local officials complete their investigation of the crash.
Makharadze, 35, had been drinking, according to the official police report. Police officials also said that speed may have been a factor in the crash.
Police did not ask Makharadze to submit to a sobriety test, citing his diplomatic status.