In 1988, Congress enacted the Family Support Act, which required all states to have a central automated Child Support Enforcement System in place by a 1997 federal deadline.

Despite paying $29.8 million, nearly $6 million of which was state money, for the creation and installation of such a system, the DSS, a decade later, is still operating without one.

This failure means DSS is losing out on millions of federal dollars every year and adding to the budget woes of an agency already reeling from nearly $38 million in state cuts since 2001.

This problem was highlighted again in a recent report issued by the governor's Commission on Management, Accountability and Performance. In the report, officials noted the system's "torturous 10-year record," and recommended that measures be taken to fix the problem.

"This is something the state needs to get done and done right," says Jennie Johnson, chairwoman of the MAP commission committee that reviewed DSS.

No one knows this better than DSS officials. South Carolina is one of only two states without a fully certified Child Support Enforcement System. That shortcoming has cost the agency $20 million since 2001 in penalty fees alone.

Those fees come out of federal dollars the agency receives each year, compounding the agency's existing budget woes. Since 2001, DSS' state funds have been cut by 30 percent. During that same period, the agency experienced major increases in clients.

As a result of the cuts, DSS has lost 1,300 employees in the past 18 months, 700 since January.

In short, the federal cuts could not come at a worse time.

"This has been quite a setback for us," says Ginny Williamson, DSS general counsel. "They are taking money away from us, exactly when we need it to implement a new system."

In 1994, DSS contracted with Unisys Corp. of Blue Bell, Pa., to create the new S.C. Child Support Enforcement System. The computer system was supposed to communicate between DSS and the state's 46 clerks of court, helping to streamline and improve a number of duties that relate to the collection of child-support payments.

Unisys was to have CSES in place by Oct. 1, 1995. By 1997, however, Unisys began abandoning the project in failure.

The state took Unisys to court and in 2001 received a settlement from the company for $17 million, which DSS has used to offset the federal penalties it incurred since then.

The agency's proposal for a new system, which was awaiting federal approval as of October, will be costly.

DSS said it needs $27 million in state funds to match $53 million in federal dollars to implement it, a hard sell in the current economic climate.

Not implementing one could cost more. As it stands, it would take an estimated three years from the time the bid is awarded for CSES to be operating.

This means by the time a new system is in place, DSS will have paid about $77 million in penalty fees, $49 million of it between now and 2007.

"Getting a program like this up and running is not easy," Williamson says.

"It's complicated and it's costly. There is programming. There is training. It's complex."

The state can't just import a program from another state, according to Williamson. South Carolina's system is different than most. Each county's clerk of court receives money from the absent parent, keeps the records and makes the payments to custodial parents, all of which means the state will need a system designed specifically for this process.

Lost in the discussion of federal mandates and failed programs is the fact that South Carolina does pretty well under its current system.

According to the latest numbers, South Carolina ranks 17th in the country for collections, in total, of child support payments, and, on average, higher than 36 other states and territories, 33 of which have certified systems.

"The clerks of court have been a critical part of our state's success with child support, and I think they will continue to be vital to it," Williamson says.

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