Amnesty Yields 1 Father Who Makes Payment

Parents who owe child support payments were given a second chance--but in Orange County, at least, only one of them accepted the offer.

Prosecutors in Orange County closed the books Friday on their second annual offer of amnesty for parents who have failed to pay child support, and they received only one response: a single father who agreed to pay $900.

More than 19,000 Orange County residents now owe more than $1.7 million in back child-support payments.

Was the program, called KiDS, or Kids Deserve Support, a flop?

“Anything is greater than nothing,” said Deputy Orange County Dist. Atty. Richard E. Fulton, who headed the program this year and is deputy chief of the family support division of the prosecutor’s office.

There was one final detail: Prosecutors sent letters to most parents who are due child support, asking for any new information on where defaulting spouses might be found. Fulton said “good information” came back in many cases.

“Next week we’ll put together several teams of investigators, some who will be traveling to other parts of the state,” Fulton said.

“We’ll be arresting as many of them as we can find,” Fulton said.

$16,000 Raised Last Year

In 1985, the first year of the amnesty program, which ran from Father’s Day through the end of August, a total of about $16,000 was paid off. At the time, 12,000 residents owed $929,000 in back payments, Fulton said.

As of last week, Fulton estimated that 3,000 arrest warrants were outstanding for spouses in arrears.

“Putting somebody in jail is the last thing we want to do,” Fulton said. “If he’s in jail, how is he going to make the payments? But if he’s not going to make them, he might as well be sitting in jail. Then he might make them when he gets out. We’ll go that far if we have to.”

When a parent fails to pay--and the vast majority are fathers--the mother and children often end up on welfare, Fulton said.

“Most of the initial cases in our office are welfare cases. I have to assume they went on welfare because the parent is not paying,” Fulton said.

Among all active child-support cases, about half involve welfare mothers, Fulton said.

“So we think we are making some progress in getting payments that help the parent with custody get off welfare,” Fulton said.

Keeping Up With Growth

As the caseload grows, prosecutors have created new programs such as KiDS in an attempt to keep up, Fulton said.

“We’re doing lots of things. The intercept program, where we intercept tax refunds for the non-paying parent, has been going on for about five years, and nationwide we’ve recovered over $1 billion,” he said.

Prosecutors have also turned to employers to attach the wages of non-paying parents.

And the boom in real estate sales this year has helped, Fulton said, as prosecutors have slapped liens on property owned by parents delinquent in their child-support payments.

“We’ve got liens out all over the place,” Fulton said, and parents are paying the child support they owe in order to qualify for home refinancing.

The KiDS program has grown statewide from six to 11 counties participating, Fulton said.

“I personally don’t know what kind of a response the other counties are getting. In Orange County $900 is not that much, compared to the total we were looking for,” Fulton said.

“But it’s not anything to turn down, either.”