Child Support Unit in Spotlight

It is inexcusable if the lives of Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti and his family were indeed threatened by a Hollywood man whose life savings were frozen in a child support case and who is now being tried on two felony counts of threatening the D.A. in letters. But it is indicative of the anger and frustration felt by thousands of parents who feel let down by the county’s often criticized child support program.

Roberto Lansing is on trial accused of threatening a public official and making terrorist threats. The case stems from a dispute involving his $10,000 life savings, seized last March by the state Franchise Tax Board. The seizure came four months after Lansing and his former wife repeatedly notified the district attorney’s child support and collection division that their child support dispute had been settled. However the trial comes out, it already has focused attention on an inefficient, backlogged program that needs urgent repair.

Garcetti deserves credit for making a little progress in the county effort to track down deadbeat parents and collect support payments for their children. For instance, the county has a computerized support-payment tracking system. The state does not, a failure that could cost California $3.7 billion in federal welfare block grants unless Washington relaxes excessive penalties and impractical deadlines in child support cases.

But what good does the computer do if a parent cannot communicate with officials? A Price Waterhouse audit, released in August, found that only 1.6% of the calls made to the L.A. County child support office connected with a human being. Another report, released earlier this month by the San Francisco-based Children Now coalition, ranked the Los Angeles County program among the worst in the state.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has forcefully instructed Garcetti to fix the child support program. Thousands of children are waiting.