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Show New offices will aid in cutting welfare abuse The opening of seven new offices throughout the stale will make it easier to truck down on welfare ubusers and absent parents who are not paying child support, the Director Dir-ector of the Utah Department of Social Services, Office of Recovery Services, said. According to Dennis Cooper, Coop-er, Office of Recovery Services Ser-vices (ORS), "The office is geured to track down absent parents who leave their families fam-ilies and hide from their child support obligations. New laws passed during the last regular session of the legislature have given top priority to child support enforcement. No longer will runaway parents be able to desert and assume that someone else will pay the cost of supporting the family." He also stated that the program saves the taxpayers several million dollars a year by reducing the welfare caseload case-load and making absent parents par-ents carry out their financial responsibilities. ORS provides the same enforcement services ser-vices to families not on public assistance, he said. The service ser-vice does not discriminate on the basis of sex; however, only one percent of absent parents is female. Besides collecting child support, sup-port, ORS is also charged with collecting welfare overpayments. overpay-ments. "The national emphasis empha-sis on welfare reform has made fraud and abuse a significant concern in the Office Of-fice of Recovery Services, Bureau of Collections and Disbursements, especially since recovery of the illegally obtained monies totaled over $1,673,067 in fiscal year 1977," Mr. Cooper said. In some cases, welfare a-busers a-busers also face criminal charges. During 1976, sixteen criminal suits were filed in ORS." Mr. Cooper noted that the Utah Office of Recovery Services Ser-vices is one of the few state agencies that pays for itself with a return of $2.50 for every $1.00 invested in tffe program. , New ORS offices have been opened in the rural areas throughout the state. Persons interested in the services of the programs should contact the offices listed below: 2650 Washington Boulevard, Boule-vard, 214, Ogden, Utah, (359-7572) (359-7572) 393-8644; 2250 So. Redwood Road, P.O. Box 30069. Salt Lake City, Utah 84119, 533 0068; 1601 West 820 North, Pro vo, Utah 84601, (309-7442) 377-6206; 214 East 100 North, Price, Utah 84001, 637-3465: 3 West Main, 24.' Vernal, Utah 84078, 789-664; 201 East 500 No., 8-9, Richfield, Utah 84701, 896-5461; 896-5461; 551 South 300 East, 107, St. George, Utah 84770, 673-9691, 673-9691, Ext. 45 |
