House committee hears bill to add oversight and private verification to child support guidelines

Helena, Mont.

On Jan. 30, 2025, the Montana House Health and Human Services Committee heard testimony on House Bill 352, sponsored by Representative Schomer, a proposal to revise state child support guidelines, require certain staff expertise, establish a guidelines review oversight committee, require DPHHS to contract with a private software vendor to verify the agencycalculator and amend MCA 40-5-209.

The billproposes placing several calculation-related requirements into statute and creating a committee to report to the Children, Families, Health and Human Services Interim Committee. Proponents said the change would restore outside checks and increase public input; opponents said the measure duplicates federal regulations and existing administrative rulemaking and could constrain procurement.

Temple McLean, an expert witness testifying remotely, described the bill as a response to recent recommendations from the stateguidelines review committee (referred to in testimony as GROC). McLean said the committeequadrennial report recommended at least two significant changes to the child support calculator and argued that statutory language and outside verification would preserve fairness during any change. She told the committee that for many years CSSD had used a private vendor known as MTCS (formerly Bordeaux) as an independent check and that MTCS historically charged about $5,000 annually. McLean said MTCS was used as a primary calculator at times when CSSD updated its internal calculator and that since 2023 CSSD had ended that relationship.

Kelsen Young, representing the Montana Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, told the committee her organization supports more public involvement, including from custodial and noncustodial parents, and said better communication and oversight of the child support system is important because child support outcomes have large effects on low-income families.

Christy Twardowski, division administrator for the Child Support Services Division at DPHHS, testified in opposition. Twardowski said the bill is overly prescriptive and duplicative,citing the federal Code of Federal Regulations 45 CFR 302.56(h) and state administrative rules beginning at ARM 37.62.101 as already setting committee requirements and public input procedures. She said the bill would shift policy approval authority from the department to a committee that would meet quarterly, and that the billspecifies procurement and verification procedures tied to a proprietary vendor, potentially limiting fair competition. Twardowski asked the committee to give the bill a do-not-pass recommendation.

Patrick Quinn, an attorney providing legal services to CSSD, told the committee that Title IV-D child support work is federally funded (about 66% of allowable expenditures) and that roughly 30,000 families received about $70 million in child support last year. Quinn said rulemaking and guidelines changes already include public comment opportunities and legislative oversight under Montana law (Mont. Code Ann., Title 2, ch. 4, part 3), and he cautioned that the bill would create redundant oversight layers that could slow agency responses.

Committee members repeatedly asked DPHHS to provide concrete calculation examples and cost details. Twardowski and other agency witnesses said they did not have example calculations or the weighting of factors on hand and agreed to follow up with the committee. Representative Schomer told the committee he had distributed handouts showing an alleged nearly $85 million TANF carryover and said broader oversight was warranted. Jesse Counts, an informational witness, clarified that the roughly $83 million TANF carryover cited by the sponsor is the statewide TANF balance and not specific to CSSD.

The hearing record shows disagreement on whether statutory language is needed: proponents cited lost institutional knowledge at CSSD and the value of a vendor check; DPHHS witnesses said federal regulation and current rulemaking already create review and public-input mechanisms and that the billwould duplicate or hamper agency processes. No formal action or committee vote was taken on House Bill 352 during the hearing.

The sponsor told the committee a fiscal note had been requested Jan. 30; the bill record shows follow-up requests from committee members for procurement, cost, and calculation examples from DPHHS.