Milwaukee County’s goal is to enrich your life by providing essential services that meet your needs and those of your family, neighbors, co-workers and friends.
We enhance the quality of life in Milwaukee County through great public service.
Milwaukee County is home to over 950,000 people living in one of 19 communities, which range in size from the City of Milwaukee, with 595,000 residents, to the Village of River Hills, with roughly 1,600 residents.
Still a manufacturing stronghold, the region features 16 Fortune 1000 companies and thousands of others in the financial services, medical device, hospitality and retailing industries.
Find information about things to do and happenings in Milwaukee County.
Establishment includes multiple functions including: initiation of cases, establishment of paternity and establishment of case support orders.
We establish orders for cases when there is no current child support order. You may apply for child support services by completing our Application for Services form. Download the form, call customer service at (414) 615-2593 or visit room 101 of the Milwaukee County Courthouse.
The paternity establishment unit's primary responsibility is to conduct interviews and file court actions to establish paternity for the children of Milwaukee County.
Call (414) 278-5200 to schedule paternity interview.
The Case Management Division responds to customer service inquiries from case participants via the telephone, email or walk-in services. In addition, the division handles medical support orders and works with other states and tribes to establish paternity and support orders and to enforce existing orders.
Enforcement monitors cases to ensure timely payment of child support orders and, if necessary, takes administrative and/or legal action to enforce payment.
We locate parents who are delinquent in support and find income and assets that may be used to satisfy support orders.
When court orders need to be modified (due to a change in income, employment or other life event), we work with the modification motions.
Applicants for child support services automatically receive tax intercept services. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the State Department of Revenue (DOR) intercept tax refunds to support payers who have outstanding support debts.
We use all enforcement tools to collect child support arrears including Financial Institution Data Match (FIDM), lien docket and license suspension.
The Financial Division is responsible for maintaining Milwaukee County family court orders on KIDS, the statewide support computer system. We are charged with entering all court orders on KIDS ensuring that support payments properly pay out to the custodian as ordered.
Additionally, we report allowing payments to flow through the case accounts and pay out in an accurate, timely manner. We are responsible for manually allocating payments to cases that cannot be processed automatically by pulling files and printing payment records for the courts, participants, agencies and co-workers. We complete financial record reviews for cases that are placed upon the State Support Lien Docket.
The Legal Division is responsible for representing the Department of Child Support Services in Milwaukee County Family Court hearings. The division’s attorneys represent the department and the State of Wisconsin before the County’s Family Court judges and Family Court commissioners. They also appear, as needed, in probate and bankruptcy proceedings affecting the department’s cases.
The Enforcement Division Interstate Unit works with other states to establish support orders and to enforce existing orders.
Parents may apply for child support services from their local child support agency no matter where the other parent lives or where their order was established. An intergovernmental case is a case where Wisconsin needs another state's help establishing or enforcing support. Actions taken outside of Wisconsin sometimes take longer than actions taken in Wisconsin. Other states might charge fees for intergovernmental cases.
If the mother, child and/or father leave Wisconsin, Wisconsin has no legal jurisdiction to establish or change a support order. In some cases, the Wisconsin Child Support program may continue to provide services to parents. Click here for more information about intergovernmental cases, tribal cases or cases in other countries.
Child support cases for military parents stationed overseas are generally handled as if the parent lived in another state. Learn More.
Artis Landon, Administrator 901 North 9th Street, Room 101 Milwaukee, WI 53233-1425
Hours: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday - Friday
Customer Service: (414) 615-2593
Fax: (414) 223-1865