The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 made cuts to federal funding for child support enforcement that significantly reduced child support collections. This budget bill eliminated the child support federal incentive match. The federal government has matched the incentive payments that states reinvest in their child support enforcement programs since the early days of the child support program. These incentives have given states the resources needed to improve their child support program and helped states double their child support collection rates in the last decade. That change will result in a net reduction of $1.6 billion over five years and by $4.9 billion over ten years. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the cut in federal funding from the elimination of the child support federal incentive match will cost families $8.4 billion in child support in the form of payments owed to children by their non-custodial parents that will go uncollected-leaving children without the support they need. An already stressed system will be broken.
I live in the state of Ohio. I have a total of 5 children, 4 of whom are living with me. Three of my babies are under the age of 18. Right now I'm working two jobs. For the last 12 years I've worked at least two jobs. I recently went back to college and now I attend a full-time nursing program. I'm twice divorced. My two ex-husbands are habitual deadbeat parents.
As conditions of both divorce proceedings, I am required to use my county's Child Support Enforcement Agency (CSEA). The CSEA administers- establishes, collects, and enforces -child support orders. Every state in this country has an agency that enforces child support orders, though they may use varying names and the agency may be administered under other larger agencies such as the state attorney general's office. Every state agency follows certain federally mandated guidelines. Every county follows established state guidelines. In Ohio each county writes their own procedural manuals on how to enforce the orders based, sometimes loosely, on state guidelines. The procedure manuals are HUGE unwieldy binders, and the actual procedures change so frequently that the lowest employees on the totem pole have a difficult time finding and following the proper procedures.
In Ohio, we have what is called the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services. Under this umbrella services like child adoption/foster care, children's services, child support enforcement, job training/education/placement, financial assistance for needy families, food stamps, and unemployment offices are established. Every Ohio county has a Department of Jobs and Family Services office. My county ODJFS is administered by a group of three county commissioners. At any given time, there may be 6-10 regular employees enforcing about 8,000 active child support orders. Employee turnover is an issue, as the workers are underpaid and stressed from being overworked. My county's budget as of 2000 (that's the most recent data I have been able to find) included a little more than $1 million annually to pay the child support enforcement caseworkers, and establish and enforce child support orders.
For this diary, I'm only going to describe my situation with one of my deadbeat exes. To do more would make the diary entirely too long. It'll be long enough as is.
My ex comes from a wealthy, well-respected family in this community. At the time of our marriage, he sat on his family-owned company's board of directors (they own about a dozen large Kroger-like grocery stores in OH and WV). We lived pretty well. I never worried about money. I don't want to get into the reasons why, but after many years we divorced. I had two children at the time, aged 6 and 1. Our home was sold to pay off the loan and there was not much money left after the sale. I moved into a rental property. I started working immediately, a part-time job. I had been a stay-at-home mom for years and my previous schooling and job skills were outdated (I was a computer programmer in my single life). My ex did not help at all financially with the care of our children during this time. Our divorce took a year to complete and then I had to turn over the divorce papers to the child support enforcement agency. It took that agency 7 months to establish a court order for support.
My ex couldn't wrap his brain around the idea that the money was to support his children. He always felt that he was giving money to me and me only, and he didn't want to do it. He learned how to game the system. He quit working for his family and took a long series of jobs over the years. Every time he started a new job it would take time to find where he was working, and even longer to establish a withholding order with the new company. Payments would be deducted from his paychecks for a few months and then he would quit the job. The process of finding the new employer would start all over again. At one point he was nearly six digits in arrears. Theoretically speaking, the state of Ohio could have suspended his driver's license, his professional licenses, seized his assets, frozen bank accounts, dragged him into court for contempt hearings, etc. Once the county CSEA seized his stock in his family's company and we did receive about $19,000 from the proceeds of the sale of it. Other than that, none of the other possibilities ever happened. He learned how to wait until the last possible moment before being arrested and taken into court, then he would make one payment and arrangements for further payments. The court case would be dropped. He got married again and learned to put his assets in his new wife's name. He showed her how to file an injured spouse claim so that his federal and state tax refunds would not be seized. He learned to become self-employed so that he did not have to report all his income, and so no one could effectively track all that income. Theoretically speaking, the federal government could've stepped in while he was so far in arrears. The county and state never shared that information with the federal government.
I learned how to track him. I could never afford to hire private detectives so I enlisted the help of family and friends. My ex started selling art on eBay, and I had one of my friends bid on an item so that I could have proof of the name and address on the account. The county CSEA did nothing with that information--they didn't find his name and address and last 30 days of sales to be sufficient proof of income. My oldest brother has followed him to work on many occasions so that we could find his newest employer. My girlfriends have followed him home from work so that we could find where he was living. My ex's sisters would send information my way. You see, he had never moved away--he's always lived within 30 minutes of us. Why was it so hard for the county CSEA to find him and do something about the arrearages he owed? I discovered the answer to that question along the way.
Remember I mentioned this county's annual budget a while back? Well, the budget suffers when cases are in arrears. The amount of time and money spent auditing cases in arrears and the amount of money it takes to put those cases in the court system blows the annual budget. Tracking deadbeat parents takes time and money that the agencies can't afford. Hiring outside attorneys to file paperwork and appear in court takes money that the CSEA can't afford. And after the federal government reduced funding in 2006 it is even less likely a case in arrears will be effectively enforced. This county CSEA is working with outdated computers and software that do not effectively collect information. They do not do so much as alert the caseworker when a parent is behind on child support payments. It is up to the custodial parent to notify the agency that they are not receiving court ordered payments. It is often the custodial parent's responsibility to find and pass on any information on the deadbeat parent--where he or she is living and working, etc. The caseworkers are overworked and underpaid, and their budget is dwindling.
12 years I've lived with this madness. When the exes are paying willingly it all runs smoothly. But when they don't, the system doesn't work. Now imagine my one case multiplied by 8,000 in this one county alone. Imagine my case multiplied by one hundred thousand, and then one million. There are a lot of children in this country suffering, and it's only going to get worse.
Imagine, just for one second, what it might be like to lose 25% of the money on which you rely to feed and clothe your children. Could you survive?