Ask the child support officer

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’ve been debating about starting this thread for a few weeks now, but what with the thread in Great Debates regarding abortion and child support, I decided to bit the bullet and dive in.

I’ve worked as a Child Support Officer for over 12 years. In Minnesota, child support is a state program run by counties, usually under either the division of Public Health or Social Services.

Cases open for two reasons: A custodial parent has filed an application with us and paid $25 to open the case or the case was opened automatically under federal law due to public assistance being expended on behalf of the child (medical assistance, child care assistance, welfare). Orders may have already been established - such as a domestic abuse order or a dissolution or we may establish an order.

Since 01/01/07 Minnesota has used income shares to calculate child support. Here is a link to a basic calculator. It’s still not the fairest method, but a far sight better than using just a percentage of a non-custodial parents’ modified gross income. Note child support does not include what the court may order as child care support and / or medical support.

Once an order has been issued requiring one party to pay support, the case moves into what is called ‘enforcement’. A client can either abide by the court order or not. It’s his/her choice. If s/he decides not to abide by the court order, I get the case. People on my caseload have not paid child support in a minimum of 4 months. By this point some automated “remedies” kick in, such as federal and state tax intercepts, student loan levies, credit bureau reporting, passport denial, and s/he often has been noticed for drivers and occupational license suspension.

When I say it’s a clients choice as to whether s/he abides by the court order, that does not mean if a court order requires income withholding we waive it just ‘because’. During the court process if no public assistance is being paid out for the child, the parties can agree not to have our services and to pay each other directly. It’s not overly common, and we often see those cases a year or so later when the payor decides for whatever reason to quit paying.

A typical day for me consists of a lot of counseling. How to change a child support order. How to enter into a payment agreement. Enrolling a client into a work program or directing him/her to outside assistance. What can we do to help the payor get back into compliance with his/her order. I do quite a bit of locate work. I file civil and criminal contempt charges against payors who meet the criteria (my criteria to file is higher than some of my counterparts. I’m a softie). I hear a lot of history. More than enough he said / she said that anyone would ever need to hear.

I have seen many types of cases across my desk. One thing that seems to be voices in the anti child support threads is that many of the children out there are the result of a one night stand or an oops. That’s not been my experience. The broad majority of the children were wanted by both parents. In fact, the majority of non-custodial parents seem to desire some sort of relationship with the child, but issues with the other party prevent that.

In 2008, our county had 56,000 open cases, collecting $112 million dollars. Approximately 81% of open cases do not have public assistance being expended. The child support payments on these cases average $328/mo per family. On the cases where public assistance is being expended, the average collection is $222/mo. We have a collection rate of approximately 66%, which is higher than the national average and in the past we have been one of the highest collections county in the states.

We do have orders set at -0-. We have orders that are set at $3000.00. It depends on the circumstances at the time the order was issued.

Okay, I think that’s a broad enough overview. I am off now until Tuesday. Once I am back at work I will not even open this thread during work hours. I am not a mouthpiece for my employer. I am not an attorney either here in Minnesota or wherever you live. Child support is NOT custody/visitation.

And yes, I do love what I do and I do sleep well at night.

2

I pretty much know the answer to this from Googling but it can’t hurt to get some feedback from a person who’s involved in the system directly.

What is the probability of getting a child support order for a parent who is a citizen of a country that does NOT have a Child Support Enforcement Agreement with the US and actually receiving any sort of payment from said parent. Do you run into this much, if at all?

3

If there isn’t an agreement with the US, it’s pretty much nil. I have heard of situations where a payor has had assets in a bank account and the bank also had locations in countries that do cooperate with the US. A levy could then be placed against the account.

I have not had much luck with cases like that, but I have been able to use it as leverage to obtain settlements.

4

Yeah that’s pretty much the answer I was expecting. When I first started looking into this, I was shocked to see the country in question didn’t have an agreement. But then once I started researching the family laws for their own citizens I wasn’t surprised at all.

5

Can people who are in need get enforcement to kick in earlier?

6

When driver’s licences are suspended, to the deadbeats cough up some cash, or do they join the unemployment line? (Here in Ontario there has been a lot of success through driver’s licence suspension.)

7

Can a recipient file a separation agreement with you for enforcement, or does there have to be an Order?

8

Once funds are in your hands, how long until the recipient receives them?

9

How this part ever made it into law, I’ll never know.

You user name explains it all.

I was told, to my face, by people in your office in Minnesota that, “All you are is a billfold,” and, “There’s fairness and there’s justice. You won’t get either in this building.”

Sleep well, lamprey.

10

In your state, does child support begin when it’s filed, or can it be retroactive? Suppose Johnny is ready to turn 18 in two months, and his mom decides that she wants child support for all the years she raised Johnny by herself (18 of them). Can she file for child support for the past 17 years and ten months, or can she file for support for only the next two months until Johnny turns 18?

11

What mechanisms are in place to make sure that money paid out is actually spent/saved for the benefit of the child for whose support it’s levied? I don’t have a personal axe to grind here, but I’ve seen a few horror stories of neglect by the custodial parent (not in Minnesota) – so the question becomes one worth asking.

12

Rysdad, you don’t seem to be clear on the difference between the judicial system and the enforcement system.

If you want justice, take your case to a judge, not to the person who enforces the judge’s order.

If you don’t like the judge’s decision, then take it to further judges on appeal.

If you don’t like the various appellate decisions, then look only to yourself.

Do you honestly think that the poster is a mistake and a lamprey, or are you just trying to lash out at that poster because you are not satisfied with judicial decisions that went againt you?

13

Doesn’t it seem counterproductive to suspend driver’s and/or professional licenses, and risk a parent’s livelihood, and thus the ability to pay child support?

Also, how many voluntary open claims are against men, vs. against women? (I’m talking about the $25 fee cases, not the ones triggered by public assistance.)

For that matter, is there a distinction made between public assistance due to poverty and that due to disability, etc?

Robin

14

How many cases do you see which involve the non-custodial parent saying, but wait, I am paying as ordered according to the agreement, you are not seeing it because I pay the money to some entity in another state, I don’t know why the custodial parent would not be getting it?

15

I had an interesting chat with a couple of the people who are tasked with doing that in Ontario. They were quite certain that it did not lead to the loss of livelihood, and that it did result in obtaining funds for the child support recipient. They had the figures to back it up.

They explained it to me as being a matter of forcing the payor to shift priorities – even go bankrupt if necessary, rather than put support on the back burner while paying other bills.

When I pressed them, they said that yes, occasionally it has caused peopple to lose their jobs, but since these people had already failed to pay support for extended periods, it made no real difference to the recipients, for no support is no support, whether it was a result of the payor being a deadbeat, or the payor losing his job after losing his driver’s licence.

BTW, up her in Ontario, there is a lot of notice given to the payor before his license is lifted, and it includes a judicial process so that no one loses his license without it going before the courts.

16

No, not if there isn’t an order for support already and courts can be slow. If clients agree up front on a level of payment and they already have an order in place, they can do a stipulation which gets walked through a judge or referee during open court time. We have a few hours per day of open court time rotated through the referees and judges. If the ref/judge agrees to the stipulation, s/he signs off and viola - a new court order. Bring it to the child support office and it is entered usually within 48 hours.
(I don’t know how to multiquote, so bear with me)
Muffin re: drivers licenses
There are many options a person has to stop suspension before it occurs. In fact, once a noncustodial parent receives notive s/he has over 110 days to do something about it. Once it has been suspended s/he still has many options to get it back. S/he can enter into a payment plan which may or may not be what is the ordered amount of support - it can be less depending on the circumstances. S/he can obtain a 90 day limited license allowing them to look for work and hopefully start remitting. Once we see payments coming in for 3 months we automatically reinstate the DL-well, in my county we do. A client can, at any time, file a motion with the courts to have their support reviewed and include a request for the courts to either reinstate their DL or enter into a payment plan. Also, if a payor receives public cash assistance we are required to reinstate. License suspension has general guidelines we must follow, but we have latitude to reinstate depending on a particular clients’ situation.
(Note: this also includes occupational licenses)
Muffin re: orders
There has to be an order. It can be a temporary separation agreeemnt, as long as it has been signed off by the courts.
Muffin re: money to clients
All clients are required to either have direct deposit or a ReliaCard (US Bank debit type card). If the payment just floats on through the payment center, the client will see it within 48 to 72 hours. When my ex paid, it always arrived on Friday, I had it Tuesday. Sometimes payments get hung up - and we are required to review our list of suspended payments daily. There are also people at the state level who spend their days trying to reconcile unknown payments with cases.

Rhysdad: I am sorry. You should NOT have been treated that way. One of my friends was telling me about her worker - it was unbelievable how she was treated. I was angered. I gave her the workers supervisors name and the worker ended up being disciplined.
It can be - well, often is - not a fair system. People don’t know how it works and once they’re caught in it it can be difficult to work through some of us. Like everything, it’s a one size fits all thing when we know all cases are different.

I also do not know how the student loan levy became law. I don’t agree with it, personally. It does, however, allow me to tell a client that maybe s/he should have their support reviewed based on going back to school. The courts do reduce / suspend support often when a payor goes back to school.

Again, I truly apologize for the way you have been treated by our office. It’s workers that like whoever you had that makes doing this job hard. By the time a case has come to me, often a client has been beat down by the courts, other workers, job loss, their ex… it’s my job to get them back on track. It does no one any good to deliver a beatdown on someone who has already been beat down.

BTW, my name is more oops, I made a mistake not that I like to take.

WRT the justice and fairness quote - understand we enforce whatever the court has deemed appropriate. We can not arbitrarily change an order. It’s not always fair or just. The courts need to be used in order to obtain justice.

phall0106 re: retroactive establishment
The most we can ask the court to go back is two years when initially establishing an order. For a while almost every order had a retroactive judgment. Now it’s not common. It’s not right to slam a person with a few thousand dollars in back support before they even walk out of court.
If a person files his/her own motion, the court can only go back to the date the motion was filed. Child support would then continue until the child is 18, or graduates from high school but no later than age 20. There are other ways a child is considered emancipated, but the 18/graduation covers 95% of our cases.

Polycarp: where the support goes
There have been many motions through the legislature to require accountability for support. They have all failed. It would be a logistical nightmare. Like everywhere, budgetary cuts have hit us hard and we are very short staffed. The courts are short staffed too. File a motion today and you’ll be lucky to get into court before June.
However, I have seen cases where the support was not spent maybe as wisely as it should have been. If a client is wealthy enough s/he can hire an outside administrative agency to handle the child support privately. I have seen orders where portions of support were paid into trust. It can be done.
My ex and I have discussed it before - he wanted my to keep a separate account for the support he paid and he wanted to see a spending report. He wanted to make sure every penny of what he paid went only to her. I replied that I used the support to pay the bills. Our bills. Yes, his money went to pay the electricity that benefitted both of us. I was not going to divvy up grocery bills between her and I. It was a control issue. Then he quit paying, so it became moot.

17

Do not insult other posters outside the BBQ Pit.

18

It can be a come to the mount situation. If a client really desires to retain his/her license, s/he will find employment or a way to pay. It’s astounding how many people feel they cannot find employment without a drivers license. Dude, you’ve always worked retail/mcjobs and now that you’ve lost your license you want to become a professional driver? Try again or file a motion with the court and ask them to reinstate. I get that situation almost daily.
Also, more than half of the clients on my caseload do not have a drivers’ license anyways due to non child support reasons, so suspension means nothing.

In the last post I noted there are many ways for a client not to lose his/her license, be it drivers or professional. If a person has a professional license there’s a very good chance s/he is paying. I have suspended more than a few barbers licenses. Most tend to keep on barbering sans license.
The clients I do feel sorry for are those with CDL licenses. If we suspend their drivers license I guess it’s difficult to get the CDL portion reinstated. Then it becomes a matter of working with the client to figure out what steps s/he needs to take prior to the suspension.

Ten years ago I would say maybe 5% of our cases were ones with the father maintaining custody. Now it’s between 12-15%. Another 5% have someone else maintaining custody (not foster care). The courts are paying more attention to who is best able to raise the child. A lot of it, though, comes down to how much effort a father wants to expend to obtain custody. Every day I talk to men who really should file for a change of custody, but won’t.

As far as application? Yes. If the child receives medical assistance, child care assistance, or cash assistance the case opens and an order is obtained. It may not necessarily be a charging order, but in order to satisfy federal requirements an order is obtained.
If a child receives social security, often s/he also receives medical assistance and the case is opened.
If a payor is on social security whether s/he will be ordered to pay depends on the situation. If s/he receives RSDI and the child receives derivative benefits on his/her behalf, under state law the benefits can be considered child support. If the payor is straight SSI, then no support would be ordered. SSI is essentially federal welfare and we cannot impose an order against it.
Right now we’re working on getting clients who were granted SSI after an order was established back into court to end their orders. If a SSI payor sends me proof of permanent disability, I close the case.
If the payor receives public assistance there are some things we can and cannot do and where the case is (if there is an order or not). It’s a case by case review.

lee re: interstate cases
I guess I’m not entirely clear on your question. I don’t always know if a person has a case open in another state. All states are supposed to talk to each other, but it doesn’t happen. If a person who pays support resides in Minnesota but the other party doesn’t, it depends on whether the other person receives public assistance in that other state. If s/he doesn’t, the payment is issued directly to him/her. If public assistance is involved, payment is issued to the other state and they disburse to the party based on their laws.
I receive calls from employers asking how to split income withholding between multiple states - first we may know that the payor has cases in other states.
If a payor comes to me with pay stubs or receipts showing money is going to another entity, we follow up on it to find out what is going on, and credit is given.
Note, though, if the custodial parent has applied to work though a private collection agency (as advertised on Maury and the like), we would give you credit for payments but we would not investigate where the money went after it left our doors.

19

When a payor or recipient calls in to an enforcement office (perhaps with a question, a concern, or to provide further information to the office), is there a wait time before a live person gets on the phone, and if so, what is a typical wait time.

I ask this because here in Ontario the wait times tend to be long – twenty minutes to forty-five minutes. I’m a family lawyer who often requires information from Ontario’s support enforcement agency. If I make the calls, my clients get hit in the pocket book. If my client’s make the calls, the information gets muddled by the time it gets to me. If I simply send a fax, I don’t get a timely response. Do you folks suffer from a similar problem in staffing levels, or are you able to speak with people who call in without them having to wait too long?

20

Notice is sent to the payor three months after a missed month. They’re at 4 months without payment right there.
Once notice is sent a payor can, within 30 days of the notice, request that we file a motion with the courts to address license suspension. After the 30 days is up they can file thir own motion.
Our standard procedure is that if a client files a motion prior to suspension we place a stay of suspension until issuance of an order. That means a person can, on day 109, file a motion with a hearing another 3 months out, then the court has 30 days to issue an order… right there is over 7 months of retaining a license after notice.
Once a license has been suspended we tend not to reinstate pending the hearing.
If a person has entered into a payment plan for reinstatement and misses a month we send notice of delinquency giving him/her another 30 days to catch up before we end the payment plan.