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The key to understanding the amounts shown on your support check is learning how PACSES distributes support collections.
The basics:
- If the payer has more than one support case, PACSES automatically distributes collections among them. For example, if the payer owes child support on more than one PACSES support case, PACSES will automatically distribute support collections to each of them.
- PACSES distributes collections - called receipts - to the payer's debts using a "distribution hierarchy" after it identifies the receipts as collections for a specific month.
- Examples of a PACSES "debt" include the following: a regular charging support order, a regular amount the payer is ordered to pay on arrears, a collection fee, or a court cost.
- The "distribution hierarchy" ranks the debts for payment. It assigns debts various levels of importance, and insures that more important debts are paid first. For example, a month's receipts must pay the entire month's support order debt before any excess receipts for the month are applied to lesser debts, such as fees.
- The highest ranked debt in the distribution hierarchy is the Annualized Periodic Amount, or APA. PACSES distribution pays APA before any other debt. PACSES will not distribute receipts to any other debts until the month's receipts have fully paid APA. APA is the regular charging support order, expressed as a monthly amount.
How PACSES calculates your APA:
The annualized periodic amount is defined as the amount of current support due for the month for an obligation. The annualized periodic amount will be calculated by the Aging Process at the same time as the accruals are determined. The annualized periodic amount is the maximum amount of funds from collections that will be applied toward the current obligation during the month. The annualized periodic amounts which are accrued at a frequency of monthly or less (bi-monthly, quarterly, annually, one-time) are calculated as the amount of the accruals which occur in that month.
PACSES calculates the Annualized periodic amount by multiplying:
- Weekly accrual times 52 divided by 12
- Bi-weekly accrual times 26 divided by 12
- Semi-monthly accrual times 2
Distribution is determined by the monthly accrual.