Four companies have bid to take over the state’s child-support disbursement service, but the estimated costs of each proposal have not yet been made public.
Officials with the Illinois Department of Public Aid opened the four bids in Springfield on Wednesday, and a team of public aid employees will take six to eight weeks to evaluate the bids on technical merits, said Ellen Feldhausen, spokeswoman for the department.
Pricing from the four companies have not yet been unsealed, Feldhausen said, because the department wants to first focus on the technical requirements.
A final decision on a vendor should be made by fall, with a new company in place by June 30, 2003, Feldhausen said.
In the coming fiscal year, which starts July 1, the state is budgeting $25.7 million to handle the process of collecting child-support payments from non-custodial parents, usually from their employers, then disbursing the money to custodial parents.
