Cuts Imperil Child-Support Checks

Only three years after California overhauled its beleaguered child-support system, the state’s budget crisis is expected to inflict layoffs, hiring freezes and spending cuts on agencies in some counties that already have among the state’s worst records for collecting child support.

Anticipating a $40-million cut in funding to child-support agencies statewide, San Bernardino County, with a collection rate of 36%, has issued layoff notices to 60 child-support workers. In Los Angeles County, which collects just 32% of court-ordered child support, officials say they may cut as many as 300 child-support worker positions. San Diego County, with the state’s worst collection rate at 31%, plans to put a staff expansion plan on hold.

Child-support workers and advocates decry the cuts under Gov. Gray Davis’ proposed budget, saying they will lower collection rates, force more families to seek public assistance and cost the state more in the long run.

“Anything that reduces payments will harm children and increase child poverty,” said Geraldine Jensen, president of the Assn. for Children for Enforcement of Support, a national advocacy group based in Ohio. “It will only increase costs in every other social services agency in the state.”

The expected cuts in child-support services are one of the many repercussions of the state’s $38.2-billion budget shortfall that has prompted Davis to pass a hefty share of the pain onto the state’s 58 counties. The deepest cuts, county officials say, may be felt by the poor, the handicapped, and those who rely on child-support services.

The governor’s revised 2003-04 budget plan would withhold nearly $100 million from county mental health programs for children in special education. The programs are mandated by the state, so California must eventually pay the bill. But to conserve cash in the short term, the governor would delay reimbursing counties until the economy improves.

Davis’ latest plan also assumes that vehicle license fees would be raised, bringing in an additional $4 billion per year. But even if those fees are increased, there may be a two- or three-month delay before the Department of Motor Vehicles starts collecting the additional revenue, said Pat Leary, a Sacramento lobbyist for the California State Assn. of Counties.

That prospect has cities and counties on edge. Many local governments rely on the license fees to fund public safety programs, and they fear that even a short gap in funding could deprive them of substantial revenue. Los Angeles County, for instance, could lose $63 million to $189 million, depending upon how soon the fee is increased.

For many Southern Californians, the state’s budget crisis has real-life implications.

Michelle Cawley, a homemaker from Big Bear Lake, worries that the layoffs in the Department of Child Support Services of San Bernardino County could weaken her chances of collecting seven years of unpaid child support -- nearly $32,000, court records say -- from her ex-husband.

“That is going to hurt a lot of families that need their support,” she said.

County child-support agencies help determine paternity, seek court orders demanding child support and attempt to collect. The agencies can ask a judge to garnish the wages of a delinquent parent, freeze assets, claim tax refunds and confiscate passports and driver’s licenses.

Cawley, a hairdresser, had three children before her divorce in 1997. Even though her husband worked in the same town, she said she could not get him to make regular child-support payments. Soon after the divorce, Cawley said she moved into a ramshackle mobile home and relied on food pantries to feed her children.

Court records show that a judge issued a bench warrant against Cawley’s ex-husband for failure to pay the money. San Bernardino County sheriff’s officials confirmed that Cawley’s ex-husband was arrested in April and released after two days in jail. He could not be reached for comment.

Cawley has remarried and had two more children with her new husband, who works at a lumberyard in Big Bear Lake. Had it not been for her new husband’s tax refund, she said, they would not be able to enroll her oldest son, Jake, in Little League.

Cawley predicts the county’s low collection rate will only worsen with additional staff layoffs.

“There are going to be nearly no collections,” she said. “It’s already bare bones.”

Before 2000, the district attorney in each of the state’s 58 counties was responsible for helping parents collect delinquent child support. But the individual counties lacked uniform regulations and had such poor records of collecting child support that the state stripped prosecutors of the responsibility.

In its place, the state created a department that supervises child-support services in each county under a new set of guidelines.Since the system was overhauled, state officials have reported steady improvements in collection rates. The new state program is expected to collect a record $2.3 billion statewide this year, a nearly 7% increase over last year. With improved state funding, several county child-support departments began adding staff.

County officials now fear that the progress made over the last three years may suffer a serious setback. For counties such as Los Angeles, San Bernardino and San Diego, cuts will mean fewer resources to collect child support.

“It’s just like the chief of police of Los Angeles saying, ‘If I can’t have more cops, I can’t reduce crime,’ ” said Cory Nelsen, director of San Bernardino County’s Department of Child Support Services.

“Well, if I can’t get child-support workers, I can’t collect child support.”

Nelsen and other child-support officials blame their historically low collection rates on heavy caseloads and funding inequities.

Statewide, child-support agencies have an average of 148 cases per employee, according to officials. But in counties such as San Bernardino and Los Angeles, that figure is about 300.

In San Bernardino County, Nelsen said he planned to increase his staff of 615 to about 1,000 when the state crisis struck. Now, Nelsen said, the county plans to lay off 60 employees, including 20 probationary workers.

For Norma, a single mother in South-Central Los Angeles who cleans houses, the fallout from the budget crisis may directly affect how much money she has for food and clothing.

Norma said she has been trying for 13 years to locate the father of her two boys. As soon as she discovered his address -- through a chance meeting between one of her sons and his father -- she took it to Los Angeles County’s Department of Child Support Services. But the state budget cuts may hamper the agency’s efforts to help Norma, whose last name has been withheld because the agency has not established the paternity of her children and the man she says is the father could not be reached for comment.

“I finally found out where he lives,” she said. “He hasn’t paid anything. No child support at all. And I’ve been struggling all these years with my kids.”

For Los Angeles County, the proposed state budget cuts amount to a $10.6-million reduction -- enough to pay for 300 lawyers, investigators, clerks and other child-support workers. If the governor’s budget is approved, the county would probably lay off those workers, leading to an estimated $46-million drop in collections, said Philip Browning, director of the county’s child-support services.

Meanwhile, California is facing multimillion-dollar federal penalties for its failure to create a statewide automated child-support system. Davis now wants to pass some of that cost on to the counties.

“It all stems from the state’s failure to initiate a child-support system statewide, which they were supposed to do years ago,” Leary said. “Why should counties have to pay a portion of this penalty? It’s just plain not fair.”