Tale of 2 Worlds--Upping Ante in Child Support : Divorce: Rancho Santa Margarita man says new law means financial ruin. Ex-wife says it has brought new hope.

In the matter of Grey vs. Grey, the divisions still run deep three years after divorce. Now the state of California has widened the rift.

Last summer, a new law boosted by 50% the child-support payments Mel Grey makes each month to help his ex-wife, Jane, raise their kids. The result, he says, has been his financial ruin: bankruptcy, emotional distress, foreclosure of his home in Rancho Santa Margarita.

“I think the new law is absurd and out of line,” he says.

She has a different story. A homemaker for years, she started her own medical transcription business after the divorce and earns about $2,000 a month, but still struggles to raise the couple’s four children. Then the support payments were raised. Now life is a bit more comfortable, and she has renewed hope for the future.

“This isn’t a meal ticket,” she said. “The new law is plenty fair to him. I have more debts than he does and I have to support five people.”

The Greys are like thousands of other divorced couples up and down California struggling with new child-support guidelines that kicked into effect last July.

The changes were designed to increase by an average of 25% the payments traditionally borne by fathers, although in some cases the increase has been far greater. The prime beneficiaries were divorced mothers. Such women receive custody of their children in nine of 10 divorces and represent the single largest poverty group in the nation.

A growing group of disgruntled fathers has descended on Sacramento in recent months to complain that the inflated payments are unfair--and in some case have sent them perilously close to poverty.

Under the state’s new child-support formula, non-custodial parents with one child pay about a quarter of their monthly net income as support. The rate increases for every additional child. A non-custodial father with four children, for instance, typically pays upward of 60% of his net monthly income in child support.

Some fathers have seen their child-support payments skyrocket--100%, 200% or more. In many of those cases, the original payment level had been set years before and didn’t reflect current circumstances. Increases have also been influenced by factors such as changes in income, child-care payments, medical insurance and the income of a second spouse.

But behind the esoterica of funding formulas and the legislative wrangling in Sacramento are the all-too-human tales of people like the Greys, who now live a few blocks apart in Rancho Santa Margarita. Forced to legally divide their lives because of irreconcilable differences, they have been pitted again over the matters of money and children and spoiled dreams.

Here are their stories:

HE SAYS: It’s all been like a terrible nightmare. An Immigration and Naturalization Service agent in Laguna Niguel, he has worked his way up the ladder to a point where, at age 44, he now earns an average salary of $65,000. Now it’s not enough. Grey figures he’s a few steps away from being homeless.

The simple reason, Grey says, is the new child-support law. After it kicked in last July, his monthly support payment ballooned from $900 to $1,350 with the blink of an eye. Already stretched thin by a $1,448 monthly mortgage payment, Grey couldn’t handle the additional burden.

It is simply too much, he says. The state has gone too far. It’s become more than just child-support. It’s “backdoor alimony,” Grey says.

And the fallout has been devastating. Just listen to Grey describe it: “I’ve gone through bankruptcy. My house in Rancho Santa Margarita is in foreclosure. My credit is ruined. I have no chance of owning a home.

“I’ve been through deep depression (for which) I had to get medical help and be under medication,” Grey continued. “This is a devastating nightmare. It has wiped me out emotionally and financially. I don’t have a life. I have to worry every day if I’m going to get a note from her attorney saying the payments are going to increase even more.”

Amid the economic turmoil, Grey’s relationship with his four children has deteriorated, particularly with the eldest daughters, ages 16 and 18.

A recent visit with the kids tells the story: “One of my daughters said, ‘But it’s the law, Daddy. The law says you have to do it.’ When I explained to her what it would do to me, she said she doesn’t want to hear that crap. I think she’s hurt and doesn’t understand.”

The law, Grey contends, simply “doesn’t take into account all the factors involved. My ex-wife didn’t work at all last year. I lined her up with a job, a good clerical job that pays $8 to $10 an hour, but she would rather take me to court where (she) would be guaranteed a fixed income.”

Not long after his divorce was finalized, Grey married a woman who works at the INS. They’ve already filed for divorce, but not because of irreconcilable differences. The new child support payment guidelines take into account his new wife’s income, so they’re legally splitting to “protect her,” Grey says.

“They say the idea (behind the increase) was to get some people out of welfare. Well, those guys who were not paying then are certainly not paying now. If I had the kids, I wouldn’t ask anything from her.

“If the consideration is the kids, give the kids back to the parents that can support them. Why can’t she give me the kids? Don’t get me wrong. I love my kids. I would do anything for them. Some people say they’re your kids, why can’t you take care of them? Well, what happened to ours ? Ours goes through the window. I’ve done my share, but if you take (all my money away), how can you ask for more?

“Those of us who are honest enough to be fair to our families are the ones to get hit. I’ve never missed a payment. But now I have nothing to offer and I’m close to being homeless.”

*

SHE SAYS: To hear Jane Grey tell it, her ex-husband protests too much.

Grey said disgruntled fathers are being depicted in the media as a bunch of “poor depressed males” who are victims of greedy ex-wives and their lazy children.

But the mothers are the victims who are finally getting a little break, she said.

She has money worries of her own. But she doesn’t go out and join support groups to petition Sacramento. As a matter of fact, Grey said, she has more debts than her ex-husband and has to care for five people with less money.

The new law, she said, only seeks to address the inequities suffered by divorced homemakers who have given up careers to care for their family.

Grey said she was content to play the role of homemaker back in 1972 when the couple were married in their hometown of Moab, Utah. Two years later, she dutifully moved to El Centro near the Mexican border after Mel Grey got his first job as a Border Patrol agent. There, the couple started to raise their four children, whose ages now range from 11 to 18.

But after the Greys resettled in Rancho Santa Margarita--Mel was transferred to the INS western regional headquarters in Laguna Niguel in 1987--Jane Grey knew that she would have to become a breadwinner because the couple’s marital problems were becoming increasingly irreconcilable.

Grey started her own little business transcribing physicians’ audiotapes soon after the divorce was finalized in 1990. The business brings in $2,000 a month after taxes, but it offers Grey the flexibility to work in her home and look after her children at the same time.

Without the increase in child support payments, she and her kids would be the ones who would become homeless.

Consider her financial situation: Mel Grey’s $1,350 monthly child support is used solely to pay the mortgage on the Rancho Santa Margarita townhouse she received in the divorce settlement. She uses her monthly income to pay the bills and costs of four children.

Only recently she tried to take advantage of the low mortgage rates and refinance her home, but she couldn’t persuade the banks that she had a steady enough income.

“Without an education, your options are limited,” she said.

She was successful though in securing a $6,000 education loan for their 18-year-old daughter, a freshman at Brigham Young University.

“What these dads don’t realize is that (mothers) are still supporting (the children) after they turn 18,” Jane said, noting that child support stops when a child becomes an adult. “I’m still going to be supporting four kids for quite a few years, until they graduate from college.”

Grey said drafters of the new law realized that divorced mothers would join the ranks of the destitute if their child-support payments did not increase to compensate for the cost of living and other factors.

“I was looking at financial doomsday in my future,” she said. “Now I feel a little more comfortable. I don’t have to worry about when my next oldest child turns 18. I’ll have enough money to support my other children.”

Grey disputed her husband’s argument that the new law has destroyed his relationship with his children.

“His relationship with the kids is his doing,” she said. “He has quit calling them, and (he has) stopped having them over for dinner. The kids have lost all respect for him. Just because he pays more a month doesn’t mean he has to cut all ties to his children.”

“Financially, I’m unable to care for them because I sacrificed my career for his,” Jane said. “I feel he should have the majority of the financial responsibility. I have no problem caring for them full time.”

Support Complaints Spur Bills

Responding to complaints that a new state law increasing child-support payments has created unreasonable hardship, state lawmakers have authored a slate of new bills to mitigate the effects. Among them:

* Assemblyman Trice Harvey (R-Bakersfield) is sponsoring a bill, yet to be heard in committee, that would phase in child-support increases gradually so non-custodial parents aren’t pushed into the poor house.

* State Sen. Charles M. Calderon (D-Whittier) has authored legislation that would rescind a longstanding rule that the salary of a new spouse be factored in when child-support payments are calculated. The bill was unanimously approved by the Senate earlier this month and awaits action in the Assembly.