L.A. Supervisors Push for Reforms in Child Support

Amid mounting criticism of Los Angeles County’s child support collection program, the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday called for dramatic changes to ensure that Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti’s office adequately provides for hundreds of thousands of youngsters and their families.

The supervisors, in interviews, advocated reforms such as turning the program over to another agency and insisting that Garcetti make personnel changes to improve the performance of his Bureau of Family Support Operations.

“My view is that it should not be the district attorney that handles child support,” board Chairwoman Yvonne Brathwaite Burke said in an interview. “I am not ready to say, ‘Send it to the state,’ but I do think that we need a special department here that handles family support, and it is going to take state law to change that.”

Said Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky: “I think there needs to be an overhaul from the top down. . . . I hope he is prepared to do that because he has to make significant changes. He cannot tinker around the edges of this.”

Supervisor Mike Antonovich repeated a call for the program to be shifted to the welfare office or another agency.

And Supervisor Don Knabe, who earlier this year proposed a study of privatizing the agency’s pivotal customer service unit, said the county must continue to look for ways to improve the system.

Although a more complete public debate about Garcetti’s operation is not scheduled until early next month, the comments Tuesday reflected growing unease with the agency’s overall record, its management and some policies that have been roundly attacked.

Recent questions about Garcetti’s bureau appeared to briefly threaten his ability to win long-sought promotions for 40 prosecutors in his office. Supervisor Don Knabe expressed concern that the promotions might be held “hostage” by a board troubled with Garcetti’s pace in improving both that bureau and his criminal division.

Garcetti won approval for the promotions only after pledging to expand a hate crimes unit and to demonstrate how elevating the deputy district attorneys would meet an audit recommendation for more diversity in his office.

Later, criticism of Garcetti’s operation seemed unrelenting.

Burke said she remained troubled by the office’s failure to properly advertise a recent child support forum in her district. The event, which she and other organizers believed would attract a crowd comparable to last year’s 2,000 people, drew only 50.

After earlier assuring Burke that his office had sent out the fliers for the event, Garcetti said he learned that the publicity went out late--a problem he blamed on the treasurer-tax collector.

But Burke said that explanation raised even more questions.

“If his people do not have the ability to do that,” she said, referring to sending out the mailers, “they are not able to handle their jobs.”

Also on Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California released a letter it sent to Garcetti, urging him to reform his office in the wake of The Times’ series on the embattled operation.

The ACLU said it would seek a change in law unless Garcetti immediately eliminated the practice of ordering child support from men who are not in court.

“We urge you to take immediate and effective action,” wrote executive director Ramona Ripston, “to ensure that women and children receive the support to which they are entitled and that no one is . . . forced to pay support for a child who is not his.”

In the meantime, supervisors responded to Monday’s request by a prominent group of attorneys and child support advocates that they take dramatic action to overhaul the family support program.

Burke said she sent the group’s request to the county counsel’s office for a report on the board’s authority to make any changes in the child support program.

Even before receiving that report, Burke noted that the board’s options appear limited because Garcetti is an elected official with broad discretion over his department’s policies and personnel.

Nevertheless, she and others expressed dismay that the child support program had generated such anger, especially from those who are experts in the field.

Said Supervisor Gloria Molina: “I am very disappointed that we got that letter. . . . These are people who are really dedicated to these issues of women and meeting the needs of” families.