Family Law

San Mateo County launches child support pilot program

County launches child support pilot program
By Michelle Durand
The Daily Journal

Unemployed parents ordered to pay child support in San Mateo County can also receive an immediate mandate to get a job or face jail time under a pilot program proposed to help the more than 8,000 children who aren’t receiving any financial help from their mom or dad.

If successful, the county-only program could serve as a model for the entire state of California, said state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco/San Mateo, who proposed Senate Bill 523.

“If just one child is helped, that will be a success for me,” Yee said Friday in a formal kickoff of the program.

Currently, the courts can’t go after a delinquent non-custodial parent until 120 days have passed without payment. Those are precious days in which children are being deprived resources and interest is accumulating on the debt, said Supervisor Adrienne Tissier who pursued the legislation for the county.

Systemwide, 41 percent of cases become delinquent after four months and six to nine months from the initial order are needed to find a parent in contempt.

The lack of financial help on top of a separation “tears a family apart even further and devastates a child,” Yee said.

SB523 gives judges the discretion to order an unemployed parent to seek work at the time a support order is issued. The immediate seek-work order may keep parents from falling behind and holds them accountable to find legitimate work rather than under-the-table employment, Yee said.

Parents who still don’t oblige face contempt charges which could send them to jail. While the threat of incarceration might push some to comply, punishment is not the ultimate goal, said Iliana Rodriguez, the acting director of the county’s Department of Child Support Services.

“Incarceration doesn’t get child support to children,” Rodriguez said.

While Rodriguez would rather not see debtors jailed, she said the jobless cannot be let off from their parental obligations.

“Unemployment alone is not an excuse,” she said.

Last year, the child support department collected approximately $30 million. While the figure places the county in the ranks of the top performers in the Bay Area, it doesn’t include any funds for parents like Anna who are still waiting for a check.

Anna, a single mother of three, received some help after splitting from their father in 1996 but his wages were no longer garnished after he lost his job. Anna had to receive cash aid to avoid becoming homeless and eventually gained a job with the county. She can support her children, she said, but life would be must easier with help from the children’s father. The difference, she explained, are making choices between PG&E and food or “just to have a decent birthday or Christmas.”

Yee’s bill only allows San Mateo County to act as a testing site for the program but he is optimistic about its expansion.

From San Francisco Family Law Blog posted 2007-02-24.