Child Support Specialist
for each section heading. Use - for any list of duties/requirements/benefits, and
for prose. Do NOT repeat the job title as a heading. Do NOT put Job ID/requisition numbers as headings — fold minor metadata into a short
or drop it. Preserve ALL substantive information; do NOT invent or summarize away detail. Remove cookie/navigation/legal/EEO/equal-opportunity/scam-warning boilerplate, duplicated lines, and application instructions. Include a section ONLY when the posting has real, specific content for it — never emit a heading followed by filler/placeholder text (e.g. "commensurate with experience", "not specified", "N/A", "varies", "TBD") and never create Pay/Schedule/Benefits sections unless the posting actually states them. Prefer a few substantive sections over many thin ones.
We need to extract substantive content: The posting includes:
- General Description: POSTING TYPE, DEPARTMENT, HOURS, PREFERRED HIRING RANGE, FULL SALARY RANGE, LOCATION, UNION, CLOSE DATE, multiple vacancies.
- What You’ll Do: description of duties.
- Who We Are: description of Dakota County.
- Minimum Qualifications.
- Preferred Qualifications.
- Duties & Responsibilities: list of duties.
- ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS: Duties 1-9 essential.
- Knowledge, Skills & Abilities And Work Environment: list of abilities.
- WORK ENVIRONMENT: description.
- LOCATION AND SCHEDULE: hybrid, remote, office, business hours.
- SELECTION PROCESS: description.
- Benefits: list.
We need to decide which sections to include: About the role (maybe combine What You’ll Do and Who We Are?), Responsibilities (Duties & Responsibilities), Requirements (Minimum Qualifications), Qualifications (Preferred Qualifications), Skills (Knowledge, Skills & Abilities), Benefits, Pay (salary ranges), Schedule (LOCATION AND SCHEDULE includes schedule info). Also maybe include "About the Agency" as part of About the role? The instruction: use headings for section headings (e.g. About the role, Responsibilities, Requirements, Qualifications, Skills, Benefits, Pay, Schedule). So we can choose which of those are present.
We must not repeat the job title as heading. The job title is "Child Support Specialist". Not to be used as heading.
We must not include Job ID etc. There's none.
We must preserve all substantive info; do not invent or summarize away detail. So we need to include details like salary ranges, location, union, close date, hours, etc. Where to put them? Possibly in a short
under About the role or maybe a separate meta section not using headings? The instruction: "do NOT put Job ID / requisition numbers as headings — fold minor metadata into a short
or drop it." So we can include metadata like POSTING TYPE, DEPARTMENT, HOURS, etc in a short paragraph.
We need to avoid boilerplate like EEO etc. There's none.
We must not create sections with filler text. So we must ensure each heading has substantive content.
Let's plan sections:
- About the role: could include description of what the role does (What You’ll Do) and Who We Are? Might be too much. But we can put "What You’ll Do" as About the role. And maybe include Who We Are as a separate paragraph under About the role? Or we could have a separate "About the Agency" but not in list of allowed headings. The allowed headings are limited to those examples; we could still use other headings? The instruction: "use
for section headings (e.g. About the role, Responsibilities, Requirements, Qualifications, Skills, Benefits, Pay, Schedule)." It suggests those are examples; we could use others but likely they expect those. Safer to stick to those.
Thus we can have:
About the role
with prose summarizing what the role does (What You’ll Do) and maybe who we are? But we need to preserve all substantive info; we can include Who Are as part of About the role? Might be okay.
Responsibilities
with list from Duties & Responsibilities (including essential functions). Could combine.
Requirements
with Minimum Qualifications.
Qualifications
with Preferred Qualifications.
Skills
with Knowledge, Skills & Abilities And Work Environment (maybe split skills and work environment? But we can put abilities list under Skills.)
Benefits
with Benefits list.
Pay
with salary ranges (Preferred hiring range, Full salary range). Also maybe note union? Could include.
Schedule
with LOCATION AND SCHEDULE info (hybrid, remote, office, business hours, flexible schedule after probation). Also location (West St. Paul) maybe also location? Could include location in Schedule or About the role? The location is substantive; we could put it in About the role or Schedule. Since Schedule heading is for schedule info, location could be separate but we don't have a Location heading. Could fold location into About the role or Schedule. Probably include location in About the role.
We must not repeat job title as heading. Good.
We must not include duplicated lines. We'll need to deduplicate.
We must not include application instructions (SELECTION PROCESS) maybe we could include under About the role? But selection process is substantive; we could include it under About the role or maybe a separate section? Not in allowed headings but we could include as a paragraph under About the role. The instruction: "Prefer a few substantive sections over many thin ones." So we could combine selection process into About the role or maybe into Responsibilities? Better to put under About the role as part of description.
We must not include boilerplate like EEO etc. None.
Now we need to output only HTML fragment, no /, no markdown fences.
Let's craft.
First, About the role: combine What You’ll Do, Who We Are, Selection Process maybe.
We need to preserve all substantive info: So we need to include details like: helps safeguard family financial stability, services, etc. Also Dakota County description, values, etc. Also selection process steps.
We'll write a paragraph(s) maybe multiple
under the heading.
Responsibilities: list from Duties & Responsibilities and essential functions. We'll produce
- items.
Requirements: Minimum Qualifications: bullet list? It's a set of alternatives. We'll put as
- each option.
Qualifications: Preferred Qualifications: bullet list.
Skills: Knowledge, Skills & Abilities And Work Environment: list of abilities. We'll bullet.
Benefits: list from Benefits section.
Pay: include Preferred hiring range and Full salary range, maybe also note union? Could include union in Pay or About the role. We'll include union maybe in About the role.
Schedule: include hybrid, remote, office location, business hours, flexible schedule after probation, also note location West St. Paul.
We need to ensure we don't create sections with filler text. All have content.
Now let's extract details precisely.
From posting:
General Description:
- POSTING TYPE: Open Competitive
- DEPARTMENT: Employment & Economic Assistance
- HOURS: Full-time
- PREFERRED HIRING RANGE: $58,606 - $73,257 /year
- FULL SALARY RANGE: $58,606 - $91,571/year (106 salary grade)
- LOCATION: West St. Paul
- UNION: AFSCME 306
- CLOSE DATE: 9/28/2026 at 4:30 p.m.
- This posting will be used to fill multiple vacancies.
What You’ll Do:
- This position helps safeguard family financial stability by ensuring that parents who live apart receive assistance in obtaining child support.
- Services available to families include locating parents, establishing paternity, establishing and modifying support obligations, and monitoring and enforcing court-ordered child support obligations.
- Depending on the work function assigned, a Child Support Specialist might perform some or all the duties as assigned.
- The Child Support Specialist works with parents to ensure the financial stability of families receiving or paying court-ordered child support.
- They provide services to families by enforcing court orders for basic support, medical support, and childcare support through a variety of case management tasks and tools, include monitoring cases for court order compliance, reconciling financial accounts, utilizing administrative and legal remedies to induce payments and working with parents when their financial circumstances change.
- The Child Support Specialist works closely with the Dakota County Attorney’s Office in initiating appropriate legal actions and preparing legal documents to support paternity and enforcement actions.
- This career is ideal for someone who enjoys performing a mix of administrative, program and legal tasks, using multiple computer programs and software, synthesizing and analyzing complex information, applying discretion in approaches to case management, and having a high degree of public contact (in person, virtually, by phone and in writing).
- Child Support Specialists work with individuals that may be experiencing crisis, trauma, poverty, homelessness, unemployment, domestic violence, incarceration, mental illness, chemical dependency, and other challenging circumstances.
- This position requires attention to detail, strong conflict resolution abilities, and interpersonal skills to work with parents holistically, using person-centered approaches to reduce barriers, solve problems and meet outcomes.
Who We Are:
- Dakota County is Minnesota’s third largest county and home to more than 400,000 residents.
- We strive every day to achieve excellence in public service, with a focus on four values: Service, Integrity, People, and Innovation.
- Dakota County aims to create an environment that is welcoming and inclusive of diverse people, backgrounds, and experiences.
- Our goal is to have a workforce that is reflective of the communities and individuals we serve.
- We promote an equitable and culturally aware work environment where everyone can be their authentic selves.
Minimum Qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree OR Associate's degree and two years full-time experience working in an office setting providing services to the public OR High School graduate or equivalent (G.E.D.) and four years full-time experience working in an office setting providing services to the public
- AND Must be proficient at keyboard skills including typing at least 35 WPM.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Completed degree in human services, humanities, social sciences or paralegal/legal assistant.
- Direct work experience as a child support worker, collections specialist, public assistance worker, human services case manager or similar position.
- Direct work experience with accounting, accounts payable/receivable or bookkeeping.
Duties & Responsibilities (list):
- Engages with parents and others in child support matters to obtain information and documents to establish paternity and establish, modify, and enforce support obligations.
- Reviews and assesses cases to develop implementation strategies and appropriate case actions, including but not limited to income withholding, suspension of driver's licenses, seizure of bank accounts, suspension of occupational or recreational licenses, referral to the Dakota County Attorney for contempt of court actions, and/or working with jurisdictions outside of Minnesota to establish paternity and obtain, modify or enforce child support orders.
- Manages and updates case files using state child support computer system and county electronic document management system.
- Reviews and ensures accuracy of case information and retention of records requirements.
- Monitors payments, determines and ensures correct charging pursuant to court order, ensures incoming payments are applied correctly to obligations, reconciles accounts using business mathematical computations and completes case financial adjustments.
- Monitors cases for change in parents’ circumstances and recommends modifications of existing child support obligations when appropriate.
- Conducts interviews and uses investigative tools, software/computer systems and other resources to locate individuals
for prose. Do NOT repeat the job title as a heading. Do NOT put Job ID/requisition numbers as headings — fold minor metadata into a short
or drop it. Preserve ALL substantive information; do NOT invent or summarize away detail. Remove cookie/navigation/legal/EEO/equal-opportunity/scam-warning boilerplate, duplicated lines, and application instructions. Include a section ONLY when the posting has real, specific content for it — never emit a heading followed by filler/placeholder text (e.g. "commensurate with experience", "not specified", "N/A", "varies", "TBD") and never create Pay/Schedule/Benefits sections unless the posting actually states them. Prefer a few substantive sections over many thin ones. We need to extract substantive content: The posting includes: - General Description: POSTING TYPE, DEPARTMENT, HOURS, PREFERRED HIRING RANGE, FULL SALARY RANGE, LOCATION, UNION, CLOSE DATE, multiple vacancies. - What You’ll Do: description of duties. - Who We Are: description of Dakota County. - Minimum Qualifications. - Preferred Qualifications. - Duties & Responsibilities: list of duties. - ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS: Duties 1-9 essential. - Knowledge, Skills & Abilities And Work Environment: list of abilities. - WORK ENVIRONMENT: description. - LOCATION AND SCHEDULE: hybrid, remote, office, business hours. - SELECTION PROCESS: description. - Benefits: list. We need to decide which sections to include: About the role (maybe combine What You’ll Do and Who We Are?), Responsibilities (Duties & Responsibilities), Requirements (Minimum Qualifications), Qualifications (Preferred Qualifications), Skills (Knowledge, Skills & Abilities), Benefits, Pay (salary ranges), Schedule (LOCATION AND SCHEDULE includes schedule info). Also maybe include "About the Agency" as part of About the role? The instruction: use headings for section headings (e.g. About the role, Responsibilities, Requirements, Qualifications, Skills, Benefits, Pay, Schedule). So we can choose which of those are present. We must not repeat the job title as heading. The job title is "Child Support Specialist". Not to be used as heading. We must not include Job ID etc. There's none. We must preserve all substantive info; do not invent or summarize away detail. So we need to include details like salary ranges, location, union, close date, hours, etc. Where to put them? Possibly in a short
under About the role or maybe a separate meta section not using headings? The instruction: "do NOT put Job ID / requisition numbers as headings — fold minor metadata into a short
or drop it." So we can include metadata like POSTING TYPE, DEPARTMENT, HOURS, etc in a short paragraph. We need to avoid boilerplate like EEO etc. There's none. We must not create sections with filler text. So we must ensure each heading has substantive content. Let's plan sections: - About the role: could include description of what the role does (What You’ll Do) and Who We Are? Might be too much. But we can put "What You’ll Do" as About the role. And maybe include Who We Are as a separate paragraph under About the role? Or we could have a separate "About the Agency" but not in list of allowed headings. The allowed headings are limited to those examples; we could still use other headings? The instruction: "use
for section headings (e.g. About the role, Responsibilities, Requirements, Qualifications, Skills, Benefits, Pay, Schedule)." It suggests those are examples; we could use others but likely they expect those. Safer to stick to those.
Thus we can have:
About the role
with prose summarizing what the role does (What You’ll Do) and maybe who we are? But we need to preserve all substantive info; we can include Who Are as part of About the role? Might be okay.
Responsibilities
with list from Duties & Responsibilities (including essential functions). Could combine.
Requirements
with Minimum Qualifications.
Qualifications
with Preferred Qualifications.
Skills
with Knowledge, Skills & Abilities And Work Environment (maybe split skills and work environment? But we can put abilities list under Skills.)
Benefits
with Benefits list.
Pay
with salary ranges (Preferred hiring range, Full salary range). Also maybe note union? Could include.
Schedule
with LOCATION AND SCHEDULE info (hybrid, remote, office, business hours, flexible schedule after probation). Also location (West St. Paul) maybe also location? Could include location in Schedule or About the role? The location is substantive; we could put it in About the role or Schedule. Since Schedule heading is for schedule info, location could be separate but we don't have a Location heading. Could fold location into About the role or Schedule. Probably include location in About the role.
We must not repeat job title as heading. Good.
We must not include duplicated lines. We'll need to deduplicate.
We must not include application instructions (SELECTION PROCESS) maybe we could include under About the role? But selection process is substantive; we could include it under About the role or maybe a separate section? Not in allowed headings but we could include as a paragraph under About the role. The instruction: "Prefer a few substantive sections over many thin ones." So we could combine selection process into About the role or maybe into Responsibilities? Better to put under About the role as part of description.
We must not include boilerplate like EEO etc. None.
Now we need to output only HTML fragment, no /, no markdown fences.
Let's craft.
First, About the role: combine What You’ll Do, Who We Are, Selection Process maybe.
We need to preserve all substantive info: So we need to include details like: helps safeguard family financial stability, services, etc. Also Dakota County description, values, etc. Also selection process steps.
We'll write a paragraph(s) maybe multiple
under the heading. Responsibilities: list from Duties & Responsibilities and essential functions. We'll produce
- items.
Requirements: Minimum Qualifications: bullet list? It's a set of alternatives. We'll put as
- each option. Qualifications: Preferred Qualifications: bullet list. Skills: Knowledge, Skills & Abilities And Work Environment: list of abilities. We'll bullet. Benefits: list from Benefits section. Pay: include Preferred hiring range and Full salary range, maybe also note union? Could include union in Pay or About the role. We'll include union maybe in About the role. Schedule: include hybrid, remote, office location, business hours, flexible schedule after probation, also note location West St. Paul. We need to ensure we don't create sections with filler text. All have content. Now let's extract details precisely. From posting: General Description: - POSTING TYPE: Open Competitive - DEPARTMENT: Employment & Economic Assistance - HOURS: Full-time - PREFERRED HIRING RANGE: $58,606 - $73,257 /year - FULL SALARY RANGE: $58,606 - $91,571/year (106 salary grade) - LOCATION: West St. Paul - UNION: AFSCME 306 - CLOSE DATE: 9/28/2026 at 4:30 p.m. - This posting will be used to fill multiple vacancies. What You’ll Do: - This position helps safeguard family financial stability by ensuring that parents who live apart receive assistance in obtaining child support. - Services available to families include locating parents, establishing paternity, establishing and modifying support obligations, and monitoring and enforcing court-ordered child support obligations. - Depending on the work function assigned, a Child Support Specialist might perform some or all the duties as assigned. - The Child Support Specialist works with parents to ensure the financial stability of families receiving or paying court-ordered child support. - They provide services to families by enforcing court orders for basic support, medical support, and childcare support through a variety of case management tasks and tools, include monitoring cases for court order compliance, reconciling financial accounts, utilizing administrative and legal remedies to induce payments and working with parents when their financial circumstances change. - The Child Support Specialist works closely with the Dakota County Attorney’s Office in initiating appropriate legal actions and preparing legal documents to support paternity and enforcement actions. - This career is ideal for someone who enjoys performing a mix of administrative, program and legal tasks, using multiple computer programs and software, synthesizing and analyzing complex information, applying discretion in approaches to case management, and having a high degree of public contact (in person, virtually, by phone and in writing). - Child Support Specialists work with individuals that may be experiencing crisis, trauma, poverty, homelessness, unemployment, domestic violence, incarceration, mental illness, chemical dependency, and other challenging circumstances. - This position requires attention to detail, strong conflict resolution abilities, and interpersonal skills to work with parents holistically, using person-centered approaches to reduce barriers, solve problems and meet outcomes. Who We Are: - Dakota County is Minnesota’s third largest county and home to more than 400,000 residents. - We strive every day to achieve excellence in public service, with a focus on four values: Service, Integrity, People, and Innovation. - Dakota County aims to create an environment that is welcoming and inclusive of diverse people, backgrounds, and experiences. - Our goal is to have a workforce that is reflective of the communities and individuals we serve. - We promote an equitable and culturally aware work environment where everyone can be their authentic selves. Minimum Qualifications: - Bachelor's degree OR Associate's degree and two years full-time experience working in an office setting providing services to the public OR High School graduate or equivalent (G.E.D.) and four years full-time experience working in an office setting providing services to the public - AND Must be proficient at keyboard skills including typing at least 35 WPM. Preferred Qualifications: - Completed degree in human services, humanities, social sciences or paralegal/legal assistant. - Direct work experience as a child support worker, collections specialist, public assistance worker, human services case manager or similar position. - Direct work experience with accounting, accounts payable/receivable or bookkeeping. Duties & Responsibilities (list): - Engages with parents and others in child support matters to obtain information and documents to establish paternity and establish, modify, and enforce support obligations. - Reviews and assesses cases to develop implementation strategies and appropriate case actions, including but not limited to income withholding, suspension of driver's licenses, seizure of bank accounts, suspension of occupational or recreational licenses, referral to the Dakota County Attorney for contempt of court actions, and/or working with jurisdictions outside of Minnesota to establish paternity and obtain, modify or enforce child support orders. - Manages and updates case files using state child support computer system and county electronic document management system. - Reviews and ensures accuracy of case information and retention of records requirements. - Monitors payments, determines and ensures correct charging pursuant to court order, ensures incoming payments are applied correctly to obligations, reconciles accounts using business mathematical computations and completes case financial adjustments. - Monitors cases for change in parents’ circumstances and recommends modifications of existing child support obligations when appropriate. - Conducts interviews and uses investigative tools, software/computer systems and other resources to locate individuals