State Disbursement Unit (SDU)

As a part of the PWORA Legislation passed by the Federal Government (commonly called the Welfare Reform Act), each state was required to create a single entity for employers to remit the child support payments/maintenance they were deducting from employee's wages. In Illinois, the State Disbursement Unit, located in Carol Stream, Illinois became operational in October, 1999. This resulted in hundreds of thousands of child support payments previously processed at the local level by the 102 Circuit Clerk's offices across the State being shifted to the SDU.

The SDU is merely a clearinghouse for child support payments. They do not maintain historical records of the payments that they process and are not trained to provide customer service. However, if you receive assistance, enforcement services or medical assistance from the Illinois Department of Health and Family Services or your payments are handled via Income/Payroll Withholding, your checks will be issued by the SDU and not by your local Circuit Court Clerk.

If your case is on file in McLean County, our office receives periodic reports of payments processed by the SDU for McLean County cases and we post these to the child support history that we maintain for your case. Your payment record currently still resides with the McLean County Circuit Clerk.

IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS WITH AN SDU CHECK, OR YOU WISH TO HAVE YOUR SDU PAYMENTS PLACED ON DIRECT DEPOSIT, PLEASE CONTACT THE STATE DISBURSEMENT UNIT AT 1-877-225-7077.