Silva Plan: Open Payroll to Hunt for Deadbeat Parents

Supervisor Jim Silva will ask his colleagues next week to support an ordinance that would open payroll records of the county’s 16,469 employees, its retirees and everyone who receives county contracts or assistance to prosecutors looking for parents who owe child-support payments.

If deadbeat parents were found, the county could garnishee wages or take other action to force compliance with court payment orders, Silva said.

“We know that there are thousands of families having to go on general relief because parents aren’t paying for their children,” Silva said Tuesday. “We need to be able to set a good example for everyone as an employer.”

A report released last week by three children’s advocacy groups ranked Orange County 45th among California’s 58 counties for child-support collections and placed the county’s collection rate at 13.8%. The county was fifth overall in efficiency statewide, taking in more than $3 for every $1 spent on collecting child-support payments.

In a letter to his colleagues, Silva suggests the payroll information be made available “to any governmental agency involved in the establishment or enforcement of child or family-support obligations.” He asked county officials to spend 60 days preparing the ordinance.

County prosecutors can now search for nonpaying parents who might be county employees on a person-by-person basis, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Jan Sturla, head of the office’s family support division. The ordinance would authorize a broader match of information on 150,000 active child-support collection cases against the county’s personnel database.

“We need the legal authority and an official directive,” Sturla said. “Then it’s a matter of computer programming.”

Frank Eley, president of the Orange County Employees Assn., said he was unaware of Silva’s proposal. He said he’ll confer with union attorneys to see whether providing the information might violate confidentiality laws.

Existing laws provide some protection against the release of information about government employees, according to Jan Walden, the county’s personnel director. For example, it is illegal to disclose the home addresses of peace officers.

“This is one of the things we’ll be looking at in the next 60 days,” she said.

Silva’s request for action came on the same day supervisors approved creation of a courthouse office to provide assistance to Orange County families attempting to collect child-support payments through the court. The Santa Ana courthouse office will open this year and be operated on a $2-million state grant.

While complaints about nonpayment still must be directed to the district attorney’s office, the courthouse office will help those seeking help through the courts for things such as modified payments.

Supervisor Todd Spitzer, a former deputy district attorney, noted that about three-fourths of the parents seeking help on child-support payments don’t have private counsel to help them negotiate the legal maze.

Supervisors approved hiring two family-law attorneys, two office specialists and two clerical workers.