Focusing on the wrong measure

76 As the state’s largest urban jurisdiction, DAFS is responsible for delivering child support services for more than half of the state’s total caseload. This means that DAFS practically drives the state’s overall performance. Nevada was one of the poorest performing states in the nation until around 2010/11 when it began to show some improvements in its performance scores. When the state was at its lowest in terms of state ranking, the FPMs were not known among DAFS’ employees. They were focused on a different measure: total collection (an important component in calculating a state’s incentive payment award, but not one of the five measures). Almost all of the study participants claimed they were not aware of the FPMs or their ‘object’ of measurement until a change in leadership occurred in 2008. Although the FPMs since 1998 had been the federal government’s basis for evaluating child support programs across the nation, their circulation in DAFS encountered some difficulties. As one of the attorneys remarked:

…They’ve always been there. But I would say for the first five years I was at this office, maybe from 2002 to 2008, we didn’t talk about federal

performance measures much. Then all of a sudden, almost overnight, it became of utmost importance and we were getting training on federal performance measures. (Alex, FG5Attorneys)

Most of the study participants conveyed a similar message.

When I first started, I had no clue what a performance measure was. They never talked about it…. (Sarah, FG2Supervisors)

When I started here, when I worked here from 2000 to 2006, we did not know about federal performance measures. When I say we, I mean the staff, line staff. We had no idea. We would get emails saying, this is how much we collected this month, which apparently meant nothing... (Kristine, InterviewSrStaff)

In the 16 years that I’ve been here, I was never made aware that there is state ranking, including the US territories, until we were told that we are the 54th in the state rankings when it comes to collections. (Edelyn, FG3Caseworkers)

77 Indeed, with very few exceptions, employees across all levels of the

organization shared the same opinion when asked about their awareness of the FPMs. Even those who claimed to have been aware of their existence acknowledged their lack of understanding of the FPMs. They recounted how that all changed when a new leader stepped in. But before I discuss the change in leadership, it is important to explain why or how the FPMs were not known back then.

Under the previous administration, the five measures were kept backstage and hardly mentioned. As Judith said, ‘[t]hey kept us in the dark’ (Judith, FG6Support). When they described their previous work practices, they referred to a different measurement regime focused on a single measure: total collection. This measure translated to the total amount of child support payments collected within an FFY. They recalled how Mr. Smith, then Assistant Director, would send out an official email announcement to all staff at the end of each year stating the total dollar amount the organization managed to collect from noncustodial parents. This information was compared to the previous year to determine how much higher (or lower) the

organization performed. If they exceeded the previous year’s collection, ‘[we] would get emails saying, ‘good job, pat yourself in the back, you did an excellent job’

(Edelyn, FG3Caseworkers). These regular references to an aggregated collection amount instilled in them a notion of a measure that conveyed magnitude to define GP, a representation of a ‘reality’ of the organization’s state of affairs. It gave employees an opportunity to know and assess their collective performance against a moving standard that they themselves defined and tracked.

The underlying logic of the ‘total collection’ measure provided the focus and justification for employees’ actions – that is, to collect as much child support

payments as they could from those who could pay or hunt down delinquent or late payers in response to custodial parents’ complaints for not having received their child support – to produce the outcome that counts. The sheer difference in magnitude of what was collected served as the criterion for valuing good action. The increasing collection amount was enough indication of their GP anchored on a quantitative dimension that corresponded to accumulation (Fourcade, 2016); ‘more’ simply meant ‘good’. This process of aggregating and reporting on the total collection reinforced the notion of what is and must be valued. Hence, reaching a higher collection amount

78 that conveyed a measurable difference enabled the valuation of their performance

according to the ‘total collection’ measure and made them a categorically good performer that was difficult to dispute. This precious measure turned into a ‘matter of fact’ (Roscoe & Townley, 2016) and a ‘fact’ worth knowing to situate themselves in their self-assessment. Because the ‘fact’ was based on a simple measure of count, it was accessible, knowable, acceptable, and stable for a very long time.

Despite the numerous tasks involved in securing child support payments, the articulated measure drew employees’ attention to what mattered most: collection. But what this meant or what it entailed varied. For Lesley and others, this meant focusing on establishing the highest possible child support obligation amounts because it meant increasing the possibility of collecting more dollars. If you ask for more, then you can collect more. As Lesley explained:

But back when I did not know about [the FPM], I was all about just making sure… You know, we used to set really high child support orders. For some reason, in our minds, we thought the higher the better. (Lesley,

InterviewManagement)

For many, it was about collecting as much dollars as possible and not who or how many owed child support or how much was owed. Their focus was on

demanding payments from noncustodial parents regardless of their circumstances. Rachel alluded to this as she described their practice back then:

So, when I first started, it was, ‘you’re not paying, you don’t have a job, I’m taking your license, I’m throwing you in jail’. …Noncustodial parent…would say, ‘well, I’m not paying ‘cause I can’t see my children’. And we would say, ‘Family Court, that’s not our issue. Sorry, you can’t see your kids but you still have to pay your child support’. They don’t have a job. ‘Sorry, your problem. You’re going to jail’. They don’t have a license. ‘You better take the bus’. It was all about the hard core, banging him over the head. (Rachel,

InterviewManagement)

Indeed, for years, DAFS seemed to have epitomized the traditional view of a child support enforcement agency due to its ‘punitive system’ that was ready to ‘beat

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you up for not paying’ (Eddie, InterviewManagement). This logic was held in high esteem and tied directly to their valued ‘good’ because each year that passed with a higher collection was enough to confirm their GP. As Allison, one of the managers noted, ‘we were looking at just how much money we collected over the month, over the year. So, we would look at, ‘oh, we collected $100,000 last month; oh, we collected this; oh, we finally reached $1M’ (Allison, InterviewManagement). The increasing collection amount, therefore, was a validation of their version of GP (or GP1.0).