County Is 1 of 6 in Test of Child Support Collection Plan : Crime: Parents’ failure to pay may result in seizure of bank accounts and other assets by state Franchise Tax Board.

Ventura County is one of six California counties picked for a statewide test program designed to seize bank funds and other assets from parents who neglect to pay child support, prosecutors announced Monday.

And on Monday authorities sent out the first batch of notices, warning thousands of deadbeat parents to make payments or face seizure of their bank accounts or garnishment of their wages.

Chief Assistant Deputy Dist. Atty. Colleen Toy White said participation in the new state program is crucial for Ventura County because prosecutors have identified nearly 11,000 cases here of seriously delinquent child support payments.

The average past-due debt in those cases is $10,904, with a combined total owed of more than $118 million, prosecutors said.

“I know we have cases where people owe $80,000, $90,000,” White said.

The revelations came Monday during a news conference in which authorities said the new program will help bring more deadbeat parents into compliance with their obligations.

“Many children in Ventura County and throughout the state who are owed child support will have a much brighter new year,” White said.

In the program, local officials provide the state Franchise Tax Board with the Social Security number and other information on parents who have fallen behind in child support payments.

The Franchise Tax Board will check those parents’ financial records--from bank accounts to wage information--and target the ones who are at least 30 days behind in child support payments.

Tax officials can seize funds from bank accounts and withhold earnings from wages. Before this program was launched, officials could garnish wages, but often did not have up-to-date information on parents.

But the tax board will work closely with the state Employment Development Department and other agencies to keep more accurate records, officials said.

The program to target deadbeat parents was created last year by the state Legislature. It called for test programs to be set up in six counties--two large ones, two medium and two small.

Ventura is one of the two medium-sized counties selected. Others in the test program are Los Angeles, Fresno, Santa Clara, Solano and Nevada counties.

Deputy Dist. Atty. C. Stanley Trom, who heads the child-support division, said Ventura County volunteered to take part in the program because officials believe the system will help increase compliance.

He also said the county’s child-support records are automated, so information from them can easily be relayed to state tax collectors. “We were anxious to try this,” Trom said.

Authorities acknowledged that some parents don’t pay child support because they are unemployed or underemployed and can’t afford the payments.

But they said many others can pay, but simply refuse to do so. White said she knows of cases in which parents--usually fathers--try to hide their assets in banks and other places to avoid paying child support.

White and Trom said it is not uncommon for some deadbeat parents to spend more money on monthly car payments than on child support.

In Ventura County alone, the prosecutors’ office has about 25,000 active child-support cases of non-payment. Many of the cases cannot be enforced because the parents’ locations are unknown.

The county submitted 10,835 cases of delinquent child support to the Franchise Tax Board for the new program last week. The tax board on Monday began sending notices for demand of the back-due payments, authorities said.

Tax officials will determine if any of those parents have assets and freeze them if the parents don’t meet their child-support obligations within 10 days, Trom said.

One Ventura County woman, who said her ex-husband is $30,000 behind in support payments for their three children, applauded the new program.

“I think it will help the kids,” said Henrietta Diaz, 40, of Santa Paula. Diaz said her children, ages 16, 15 and 12, have received only scattered payments since a court ordered their father to pay $830 a month.

Diaz also said she thought uncooperative parents who wanted to avoid paying their debts could still do so by placing their assets in someone else’s name.

“They could have a girlfriend or a sister or a brother do their banking for them,” said Diaz, an office assistant for the county.

Diaz’s former husband could not be reached for comment.

Ventura County officials said one of the biggest problems they face in collecting overdue child support is that more than half of the parents live outside the county. About one-quarter of them live out of state.

The new state law allows the Franchise Tax Board to make such seizures in the same way it seizes assets for overdue income taxes, Trom said.

Trom said the state help is important right now because only one in five deadbeat parents pays their child support even after the case is referred to the prosecutors’ office.

Prosecutors said even jailing such suspects rarely leads to compliance.

“We would rather get the money than put someone in jail,” said White. The prosecutor said a conviction for not paying child support is a misdemeanor and punishable, at most, by a six-month term.

Prosecutors said Ventura County collects about $25 million in overdue child-support payments for children each year, but that is only 20% of the total owed.

Under the new program, they hope to increase that figure by up to $5 million a year, Trom said, adding: “This really changes the rules for collection of child support.”