CSDE Implementation and Process Study

The first phase of the CSDE evaluation contained an implementation analysis of the program during its first six months and a process analysis that described implementation and operation of the program over the full four years of its existence. (This was required by the terms of the federal waiver allowing Wisconsin to conduct the experiment.)

The data used in these analyses included

• administrative data on client placement and progression, staff resources, expenditures;
• policy documents, including administrative rules, contracts, and policy directives;
• formal surveys of program staff and administrators and of program participants; and
• field research, entailing observation of programs in operation and discussions with program officials.

The analysis also explored agency actions: for example, how and when program information was given to the counties and how the computer system for calculating benefits was structured and operating. It looked at agency-client interactions: how the pass-through was explained to clients, what custodial and noncustodial parents were told about the duration of the benefit structure in which they were participating; control group attitudes and local staff responses. And it examined the effects of the policy on the enforcement activities of the child support system.

Major Conclusions of the Implementation Study

Because many fewer people participated in W-2 than had been anticipated under the original budget projections, significantly more resources were devoted to each participant. These participants were, on average, more disadvantaged relative to earlier participants in Aid to Families with Dependent Children than had been anticipated.

As W-2 agencies addressed fewer but needier program participants, the incentive structure under which the agencies operated evolved from an emphasis on maximizing profits to satisifying a set of six standards measured by data entered into the W-2 management information system, CARES. This administratively demanding system became even more central to the daily work of the front-line workers, the Financial Employment Planners (FEPs) and their supervisors.

FEPs generally had more formal education than the program participants with whom they interacted--around two-thirds in Milwaukee, but just under 40 percent in other urban counties and less than one-third in rural areas had a bachelor's degree or higher. In Milwaukee, caseloads for each FEP averaged about 55, in other urban and rural counties caseloads averaged about 105, including Medicaid, Food Stamp, and child care benefit cases.

Program participants were not highly enthusiastic about the W-2 program; they were far more positive about their case managers. The case managers themselves reported significant noncompliance with W-2 requirements and often, but far from universally, applied financial sanctions in response to the noncompliance.

Owing to the geographic mobility of program participants and the employment mobility of FEPs, and perhaps also to changing program models, participants were likely to experience supervision by different case managers over their W-2 careers. In addition, in Milwaukee, nearly 80 percent of FEPs said that at least a few of their W-2 cases saw a domestic violence specialist, and nearly 95 percent reported that at least a few of their clients saw mental health and substance abuse specialists.

Publications

W-2 Child Support Demonstration Evaluation, Phase 1: Final Report, April 2001
Volume I: Chapter 2 Implementation of the W-2 Child Support Reform
Volume II: Chapter 1 The Implementation of W-2
Volume III: Technical Report 2 Implementation of the Demonstration