Child Attorneys

Enforcement of child support obligations enters a new era on Oct. 1, when the Federal Government will start operating a computerized directory showing every person newly hired by every employer in the country so Federal and state investigators can track down parents who owe money to their children.

States will be able to use the directory to locate parents and dun them, typically by securing court orders to employers to deduct child support from wages and salaries.

Keeping track of parents who move from state to state is one of the most difficult tasks in collecting child support, officials say. More than 30 percent of the 19 million child support cases involve parents who do not live in the same state as their children.

President Clinton will soon announce the National Directory of New Hires, which is required by the 1996 welfare law. But the directory is not just for welfare recipients. It will record basic information, including names, addresses, Social Security numbers and wages, for everyone hired after Oct. 1 for a full- or part-time job by an employer of any size.

It will be one of the largest, most up-to-date files of personal information kept by the Government. Michael Kharfen, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said the Government expected to receive data on 60 million newly hired employees a year. Wages must be reported every three months; the Government expects to receive 160 million wage reports each quarter.

The size and scope of the database have raised concerns about the potential for intrusions on privacy.

More : query.nytimes.com

A judge ruled today that the mother of one of two girls switched at birth at a Virginia hospital could keep custody of the child she has been raising but has no right to financial help from her ex-boyfriend.

”I can’t order child support from people who aren’t parents,” Judge Frank Somerville told the mother, Paula Johnson, and her former boyfriend, Carlton Conley.

Ms. Johnson, 31, learned in July that Callie Conley, the girl she has raised, and Rebecca Chittum were switched three years ago.

Rebecca’s parents, Kevin Chittum and Whitney Rogers, were killed in a car crash on July 4.

In January, Ms. Johnson asked Judge Somerville for an order to force Mr. Conley to pay child support. Judge Somerville ordered a paternity test, which revealed that neither Mr. Conley nor Ms. Johnson was a biological parent to Callie.

Source : query.nytimes.com

Whether deadbeats or just dead broke, parents who owe back child support will be warned this week that liens will be placed on their homes, cars and other personal property until three small words can be pronounced over their debts:

The initiative - called the Child Support Lien Docket program - is just one of a series of get-tough policies being implemented nationwide under a 1996 federal welfare reform law aimed at making non-custodial parents more responsible for their children.

The first phase of the initiative will target roughly 4,200 parents statewide who owe more than $30,000 each in back child support payments. About 1,700 of those parents reside in Milwaukee County.

If successful, the program will expand to include parents who owe as little as $500 in back child support or one monthly payment, whichever amount is greater.

“The number one goal is to get money to families,” said John P. Hayes, director of the Milwaukee County Department of Child Support Enforcement.

The lien program comes on the heels of a Washington, D.C.-based Urban Institute study that found that child support payments can be the determinant factor in whether children live in poverty.

The authors of the study, who reviewed child support payment figures in Wisconsin and 12 other states, contend that child support “lifts about half a million children out of poverty, reducing poverty among these children by 5 percent.”

A 1997 survey shows that 30% of Wisconsin children with a parent living outside the home under a child support order got the full amount due. That was still more than in any other state and higher than the national average of 22%.

More : www2.jsonline.com:80

The baby mama drama just won’t stop for P. Diddy. The mogul also known as Sean Combs says he’s hurt that the mother of his first child has gone to court to increase his child support payments, claiming that “it’s ridiculous to think any of my kids would want for anything.”

Combs called The Associated Press on Thursday night to talk about the legal action filed against him by Misa Hylton-Brim, the mother of their 10-year-old son, Justin.

“We’ve had a great relationship, and then all of the sudden I got hit with a lawsuit for more money,” he said.

In August, a Westchester County magistrate ordered Combs to increase his child support from a reported $5,000 per month to about $35,000. That’s the same amount he pays to model Kim Porter, the mother of his second child, Christian. Combs and Porter are currently “together.”

Hylton-Brim is a fashion stylist for Lil’ Kim and other stars. A message left for her attorney after hours was not immediately returned.

But Combs said he has always paid her more than $5,000 per month, a figure he says the pair agreed to years earlier. Combs said he has paid for his son’s schooling, medical care, clothes and anything else his child wanted.

“My son goes to the best schools, he has full-time tutors,” he said — not to mention the restaurants he named after the boy. “I wouldn’t know what else to do to give my son.”

Combs, who is appealing the $35,000-per-month ruling, claims Hylton-Brim is only seeking more money because she’s in the process of getting a divorce from her husband, with whom she has children.

“It’s not about child support, it’s about adult support,” he said. “I love the mother of my first child. I would never want to do anything to hurt her, but I have to defend the kind of father that I am.”

At one point, when Porter and Combs were not together, she also went to court to raise her child support payments, which at the time were a court-ordered $11,000 per month.

Is Hylton-Brim seeking parity with Porter?

“The fact is,” Combs said, “that the mother of my first child gets more money than the mother of my second child.”

Although Combs likened Hylton-Brim’s case to extortion, he said he had no ill feelings against her.

“I’m always going to respect her for being the mother of my child,” he said, “but at the same time, that don’t mean she has to be right.”

Source : usatoday.com

New York State will begin suspending the driver’s licenses of parents who fall more than four months behind in their child-support payments, Gov. George E. Pataki said today.

The new policy, similar to ones tried in a small but growing number of states, is designed to put some sting into an arsenal of child-support collection programs that have proved to be largely ineffective. State officials also hope that it will reduce welfare costs by pulling some families out of poverty.

Courts have ordered child-support payments in 380,000 cases in New York State. In 350,000 of those cases, or 92 percent, parents are behind in payments. Together, they owe more than $1 billion, an amount that is expected to grow by $321 million in the next year, state officials estimate. In 170,000 cases, or almost half, no payments have ever been made.

“This is a staggering figure, and it cannot be permitted to continue,” Mr. Pataki said in a statement today. “My message to deadbeat parents is simple: If you fail to make your child-support payments, you risk losing your driver’s license.”

New York is sharing in a national frustration over collecting child-support payments. Nationwide estimates say those payments are made less than 20 percent of the time.

Suspending driver’s and professional licenses has emerged as the new weapon of choice in that fight. Maine, Massachusetts and California have initiated programs similar to New York’s, and all have reported some level of success, New York officials say.

More : query.nytimes.com

New Jersey is updating its four-year-old guidelines for determining child-support payments, basing the changes on new estimates of how much it costs to raise a family. But if the State Supreme Court accepts the revisions, payments for thousands of children will actually drop.

The proposals, released by the court’s Family Practice Committee this spring, would reduce child support paid by almost all non-custodial parents, with the largest cuts for those in high income brackets. They would also give non-custodial parents financial credit for visitation time.

The 285,000 child-support orders already in effect in New Jersey would not change because the revisions would apply only to new cases. But parents who already pay support could request a reduction if their income or custody-agreement changed, said Daniel Phillips, a research analyst with the Administrative Office of the Courts.

The revisions are being discussed just as the State Legislature is overhauling New Jersey’s 25-year-old divorce law, and some overlap with proposals being considered by lawmakers. But child-support guidelines come under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, and they are not subject to legislative approval.

Non-custodial parents have praised the proposals, saying that the extra money they spend on their children during visitation periods should be factored into their support payments. But some matrimonial lawyers have expressed concern, arguing that reduced payments could have a devastating effect on poor single-parent households.

“My biggest concern is the impact this will have on families living in poverty,” said Nancy Goldhill, a senior lawyer for Legal Services of New Jersey. “When you start adding all of this up, the net effect is a dramatic reduction in payments.”

More : query.nytimes.com

In yet another chapter in the long-running case of Anonymous v. Anonymous — the not-so-anonymous child-support case involving the billionaire financier Ronald Perelman and his former wife Patricia Duff — a judge ruled yesterday that he would have to pay her $12,825 a month to raise their 4-year-old daughter, Caleigh.

To put that figure in perspective, it is $825 a month more than Mr. Perelman, the majority owner of Revlon Inc., has been paying, but $119,175 a month less than Ms. Duff asked for. It is also roughly the price of a Cartier Panther watch, including sales tax.

In a 22-page decision laced with words like ”absurd” and ”rubbish,” the judge, Franklin R. Weissberg of State Supreme Court in Manhattan, rejected Ms. Duff’s demands for as much as $132,000 a month in child support. Before announcing the $12,825 figure, Justice Weissberg said he hoped that Ms. Duff and Mr. Perelman could teach Caleigh ”to value people for who they are, not what they have.”

”The mother’s argument assumes that only material things matter in the life of a child, and that if Caleigh is denied any imaginable luxury, she will be emotionally damaged,” the judge wrote. ”It does not require a degree in psychiatry to know that this assumption is rubbish. There are far more important things in the life of a young child than private jets, yachts, obsequious staffs and pandering guests. The reality is that Caleigh will never suffer a shortage of material comforts.”

After refusing earlier in the day to comment to a reporter on the decision, Ms. Duff called back, saying: ”This has never been about money. It’s just, you know, that I want what’s best for my child.” And The Associated Press quoted her as saying of the decision: ”I guess you get an exception if you are New York’s richest man. It shows what an enormous amount of money can do. Well, he can have his money. I just want my life back.”

More : query.nytimes.com

President Bush’s nominee for treasury secretary, John Snow, was arrested for drunken driving in 1982 and was involved in a child-support dispute with his ex-wife, according to information released late Tuesday by the Senate committee handling his nomination.

The Bush administration learned about both issues as part of its vetting process of Snow’s nomination and informed the Senate, White House officials said. President Bush stands by his nominee, press secretary Ari Fleischer said.

“It’s not relevant to his duties. We support him,” Fleischer said.

The revelations came as part of a questionnaire the Senate Finance Committee made public late Tuesday. The committee said it would hold a hearing on Snow’s nomination on Jan. 28.

Reached late Tuesday night, Snow spokesman Dan Murphy said Snow would not have any further response.

“This is a personal issue and the White House is the best place for comment,” Murphy said.

In the questionnaire provided to the Senate committee, Snow was asked whether he had ever been charged with a criminal offense.

He replied, “In 1982 I was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol in West Valley City, Utah, Salt Lake City County, Utah. I was never convicted of that charge and the prosecuting attorney voluntarily dismissed the charge before trial.”

More : foxnews.com

Review of the child support scheme is not difficult if you clear away the accumulated fog and debris of the past disastrous 12 years and start from the simple premise: children of broken partnerships or marriages need to be maintained according to the means of their parents (Get out of the Spiderman suits and start paying for your children, November 18). The vast majority of parents accept this. The first major fault of the child support scheme was that it was designed to catch the tiny minority who do not. It therefore created a well of resentment among otherwise willing payers.

If the government accepts that children are to be maintained, how is it to be done? First, assess an amount based on the taxable income of the non-resident parent (broadly as now). Second, if that is not accepted by either parent then create a simple, but fair way of adjusting the amount (not the present cumbersome revisions, supersessions and appeals system involving up to seven different - yes, really - court systems). And finally, set in place an efficient and prompt enforcement system (much of it already there in county courts).
David Burrows
Bristol

As a well-educated woman with her own business who has given up on the Child Support Agency after 10 years, the feeling of powerlessness is palpable. I would actually like someone else to fight this battle. My energies are taken with caring for my daughter, earning a living, homemaking and some voluntary work. My daughter’s father has re-established contact and I don’t want to jeopardise this despite him owing me money. As most mothers would say - this is about my child. She deserves better even if society deems that this single mother does not.
Louise Rogers
Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffs

In Polly Toynbee’s utopian “tax” on fatherhood I calculate that out of my £1,000 per month income £150 has to go to the mother of my child (15%). I get no benefits from the state, have about £20,000 of debt left over from being forcibly removed from my family and no chance of earning higher because work conflicts with school times. There is no creche in evening bar work.

There is only one solution to the thorny subject of the CSA: abolish the whole culture that one parent “maintains” the other and have automatic “shared residency” as outlined in the 1989 Children Act - a “common form of order” which is only used for about 2% of fathers. That way we can change the culture of our society to allow people to take responsibility for making a child.
Garry Clarkson

More : guardian.co.uk

That it will help the children of single-parent families is reason enough for the New York Senate to pass a child support standards bill. Now there’s another reason: a new Federal law that requires all states to have mandatory guidelines in place by October 1989.

That it will help the children of single-parent families is reason enough for the New York Senate to pass a child support standards bill. Now there’s another reason: a new Federal law that requires all states to have mandatory guidelines in place by October 1989.

As it happens, a sensible child support standards bill has been moldering in the Senate Rules Committee since last summer. The Assembly passed it last July. Why hasn’t the Senate? Possibly because the State Bar Association’s flimsy arguments against it - the bill’s potential for ”increased custody litigation,” for instance - appear to weigh more heavily than the plight of kids with cheapskate parents.

The children who will be helped by the bill aren’t, for the most part, the sons and daughters of people with legal representation, who typically make their own financial settlements. Instead, their parents, mostly the mothers, show up in court by the thousands seeking support orders. They are people who never got married, or who couldn’t afford a lawyer, or who got a simple, uncontested divorce that made inadequate provision for the children. They also include welfare mothers, whose children’s fathers could help if ordered to do so.

Under the bill, known as the Child Support Standards Act, a judge would determine the percentage of income that must go to support the children. (For one child, the figure is 17 percent.) The amount would be prorated between the parents, according to their incomes; it would then be transferred to whoever has custody. The guidelines also include formulas for various expenses and give the judges discretion where there are special needs.

In cases involving welfare mothers, the bill would also give welcome relief to county governments burdened with heavy welfare payments. Typically, most of the men forced to make support payments are relatively poor and liable only for modest amounts - say, $150 a month. Of that, up to $50 would go to the mother, and the rest would help defray the cost of county welfare payments, which would continue in full. The benefit to New York’s county governments could amount to $5 million a year.

Sooner or later, the Senate will have to face up to the need for a bill like this. Better it do so now -and make the Child Support Standards Act a Christmas offering to New York’s cheated children.

Source : query.nytimes.com