‘unf-ck’ its child support program
A stack of cash money that noncustodial parents paid to help care for their kids sat unsupervised on a table in the middle of a room at Mississippi’s child support disbursement unit.
Local government contractor Rob Wells encountered the scene in 2010 when he visited the office to look for ways to improve a deeply flawed and antiquated system overseen by the Mississippi Department of Human Services.
The unit was responsible for intaking child support money, a debt the state imposes mostly on separated fathers, and issuing it to the correct family.
Many mothers had complained of long delays in receiving the funds. Wells knew about this because his company ran the call center where parents could call for help on their cases.