WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF NEW HIRE REPORTING AND WHAT ARE THE REPORTING REQUIREMENTS?

Utah enacted New Hire Legislation during the 1997 General Session, under Chapter 7 Section 35A-7-101. This chapter is known as the "Centralized New Hire Registry Act". Our State Legislation is similar to the Federal Legislation, adopting the same minimum reporting requirements. The Utah Department of Workforce Services has been given the responsibility for administering the State New Hire Registry program.

States will match New Hire reports against their child support records to locate parents, establish an order, or enforce an existing order. Once these matches are done, the State will transmit the New Hire reports to the National Directory of New Hires (NDNH), which allows the Office of Child Support Enforcement to be able to assist States in locating parents on a national level.

States Unemployment Insurance and Workers Compensation Programs may also have access to their State New Hire information to detect and prevent erroneous benefit payments. In addition, the State can conduct matches between the New Hire database and other State programs to prevent unlawful or erroneous receipt of public assistance payments.

This initiative will result in significant increases in child support collections, reductions in welfare payments, and millions of dollars saved in Medicaid, Food Stamps, Unemployment Insurance benefits, and Workers Compensation claims.

All Employers are required to report six mandatory data elements within 20 calendar days of the new employee's first day of work:

In order to simplify the new-hire reporting process, Employers have a number of options for reporting employee information. Employers may submit reports on:

• Paper (DWS Form 6, See Exhibit 11 W-4 form, or computer print)
• Magnetic tape or cartridge
• Diskette
• Internet (currently under development)

Regardless of the format used, employers should make certain that all of the required information is included. The employer street address should be the address where child support orders should be sent.

An Employer who fails to timely report the hiring or rehiring of an employee as required by law is subject to a civil penalty of:

• $25 for each such failure; or
• $500 if the failure to report is intentional and is the result of an agreement between the employer and the employee to not supply the required information, or to supply false or incomplete information.

For further information on new hire reporting or technical specifications on electronic/magnetic reporting, a New Hire Reporting brochure is available upon request.