Deadbeat delinquents
Even though almost 50 percent of child support owed in Butte County each month remains unpaid—it’s the same statewide—the county has improved its collection rate by 5 percent during the five years since California established its Department of Child Support Services (DCSS) in 2000 in all 58 counties.
The 5 percent represents an increase in annual collections from $15,647,844 to $19,344,759, according to Sharon A. Stone, an attorney and Butte County DCSS director since July 2001. Official figures show that over the 10 previous years when collection was a function of the district attorney’s office, totals rose from $6 million to roughly $14 million, a respectable showing under longtime D.A. Mike Ramsey.
Currently the Butte County DCSS office is reviewing each of its 16,697 open cases “to see if the support level is fair and reasonable,” according to Stone. “We are finding many parents with obligations that exceed their income. Thus we are offering both parents the chance to go back to court to make sure support is set at the correct amount and that the non-custodial parent can indeed pay that amount.” The earlier support levels reflect a state formula for arriving at a basic standard of living for the child. The courts say both parents must share financial responsibility for their children.
The statewide breakdown of non-custodial parents in arrears on child support payment shows 33 percent with no earnings, 37 per cent earning from $1,000 to $10,000 per year, and 25 percent earning from $10,000 to $30,000 per year, according to Maria Caudill, spokesperson for DCSS headquarters in Sacramento. Although her office has no such income breakdown, Stone thinks the state figures probably approximate the situation in Butte County for people in her caseload.
Significantly, delinquent parents in Butte County owe a total of $180.2 million in uncollected back payments, and Stone said the county office has not been able to make headway in reducing that amount, primarily because state law tacks 10 percent interest onto all such debt.
“It’s very difficult for the non-custodial parent to get out from under that obligation once he or she gets behind on payments, and the relationship between the parents then gets worse,” Stone said, adding the father is “not infrequently” the custodial parent. She could not quantify the number of non-custodial moms.
In more than half the cases where a custodial parent goes to DCSS to seek child support, there was no marriage, Stone said. Thus the court must undertake a search for the father, if necessary, and establish paternity before issuing a child support order. If the father does not admit paternity, the Butte County DCSS office, like its counterparts statewide, provides genetic testing for proof of fatherhood. The father must pay $112.50 for the test if it shows the child is his.
The Butte County DCSS office has substituted “delinquent parent” for the stigmatizing term “deadbeat dad.” Stone said her office calls parents “customers,” adding that treating the parties equally bestows individual respect and helps to win cooperation in solving support problems.
The Butte County DCSS office brandishes an broad arsenal of weapons to enforce payment, among the most effective being: withholding wages; passport denial; real estate property liens; issuance, renewal, or suspension of professional or driver licenses; income tax refund interceptions; reduced credit rating; and the interceptions of workers’ compensation, disability, and unemployment benefits.
If the tools mentioned don’t do the job, DCSS calls in the district attorney’s office to prosecute. With conviction by the D.A., three possible sentencing scenarios play out. First, three years of probation, hopefully a wake-up call that leads to compliance. Second, if after 30 days, the non-custodial parent comes forth with a full monthly support check, he or she avoids jail for 30 days. This time-lapse process continues until the court rescinds the sentence. Finally, jail time for up to a year, which often proves persuasive.
The main reason for establishing DCSS was to gain statewide procedural uniformity and because the headquarters office in Sacramento could more efficiently manage a new statewide database that tracks delinquent non-custodial parents, Caudill said. California has thus followed the lead of the federal government, which by law required such a database tracking system to be complete this year, and progress has gone according to schedule. Stone said that of 16,500 non-custodial parents who are in arrears, more than 14,000 are currently in Butte County. There are about 2,000 interstate cases.
“The database has made it possible for us to stop tripping over each other trying to collect, and we’re able to get rid of a lot of old cases that open in multiple counties,” Stone explained. Statewide, more than two million kids depend on child support checks that total $2.4 billion per year, Caudill said.
