3. a. The Commissioner of Human Services shall establish a pilot project in three counties whereby the county probation department shall enter into a contract with a private collection agency for the purpose of collecting from an obligor, any arrearage of child support owed to a custodial parent that has not been paid for the past six months. Cases forwarded to the private collection agency shall include those whose arrearages have been outstanding for at least 18 months, but not more than 10% of the cases shall be delinquent for more than 18 months.

b. The obligor parent shall be responsible for payment of the private collection agency fee, which fee shall be a percentage of the amount collected in the contract.

c. Once an obligor parent becomes current on his child support payment and has established a regular payment schedule for at least four months, the case shall be referred back to the county probation department.

d. The county probation department shall be required to provide a listing of all outstanding cases of child support to the private collection agency under contract to collect the arrearage. Any arrearage collected by the private collection agency shall be forwarded to the county probation department for disbursement to the custodial parent. The disbursement shall not exceed 10 calendar days from the date of receipt by the probation department. The contract shall be made and awarded pursuant to the provisions of the “Local Public Contracts Law,” P.L.1971, c.198 (C. 40A:11-1 et seq.).

L.1993,c.110,s.3.