The Office of Legislative
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Fact Sheets

The Department of the Treasury, Financial Management Service (FMS), has developed a debt management program known as Debt Check. This program will allow agencies and outside lenders to obtain information regarding whether applicants for federal loans, loan insurance or loan guarantees owe delinquent child support or delinquent non-tax debt to the federal government.

Federal agencies are required to deny loans, loan insurance, or loan guarantees to entities that owe delinquent non-tax debt to the federal government pursuant to 31U.S.C. § 3720B and 31 C.F.R. § 285.13. Executive Order 13019 extends this bar to delinquent child support debtors whose debts have been referred to the Treasury Offset Program (TOP) for administrative offset.

Debt Check is an Internet based system for use by federal agencies and outside lenders engaged in making federal loans, loan insurance, and loan guarantees. Agencies are able to conduct a search of the FMS Debt Check Database to confirm whether applicants for federal financial assistance owe delinquent non-tax debt to the federal government or owe delinquent child support. Queries are submitted individually on-line or by batch (a future operation). If records indicate that a debt is owed, the applicant would potentially be barred from receiving the loan, loan insurance, or loan guarantee. Agencies that are owed delinquent debt are likely to experience an increase in requests from debtors who wish to resolve their delinquencies in order to qualify for future financial assistance.

Presently, at least three options exist for use by agencies and outside lenders in collecting information on applicants: credit bureau reports, the Credit Alert Interactive Voice Response System (CAIVRS) managed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and the General Services Administration (GSA) sponsored web site listing those people or vendors barred from federal procurement activities. Debt Check will complement these and other systems, serving as an additional source of debt information.

Initial rollout of the program began with the Small Business Administration in February 2003. Agency users complete and return to FMS the Fiscal Service PKI Certificate Action Request form. FMS then issues a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) certificate to users on a USB port enabled fob. Access to Debt Check is via the internet.

Questions concerning this program may be directed to the Debt Program Division at (202) 874-0540.