Bill to Revamp Child Support System OKd

In a vote celebrated by child support advocates, the state Assembly on Thursday gave final approval to hard-fought legislation stripping district attorneys of control over California’s child support program as part of a top-to-bottom reorganization.

The measure, by Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), was approved without debate by a margin of 45-33, and now moves to Gov. Gray Davis, who told reporters he is nearing a decision to support the bill. The state Senate passed the bill previously.

It creates a statewide Department of Child Support Services with tough new performance standards--and penalties--for counties.

Other significant reforms wait in the wings. They include a new plan, disclosed Thursday, to turn over responsibility for automating California’s huge child support program to the state Franchise Tax Board, which has had more success than district attorneys in collecting support.

“It’s a great day for the children of California,” said Lenny Goldberg of Children Now.

Added Nora O’Brien of the national child support group ACES: “We’re on our way to finally improving the child support system in California.”

In contrast to prior child support actions in the Legislature, Kuehl’s sweeping measure was approved without debate.

Kuehl told her colleagues the state has for years had a dismal record in collecting support.

Faced with losing control of the programs, Kuehl said, district attorneys have insisted that their performance has improved. But a recent study by the Urban Institute, she said, shows that California still lags far behind the rest of the nation in collections.

From 1978 to 1995, the most recent year included in the study, California’s percentage of single mothers receiving support declined from almost 30% to 20% while the nationwide percentage rose from 30% to about 32%.

Moreover, Kuehl said, a recent state audit of California’s program found widespread disarray in a program that is supposed to serve 3 million children.

“It is time to do this,” she said of the reform bill.

One minute later, the measure was approved.

The reforms, debated for years in California, gained momentum after publication of a Times series last year outlining the failure of the child support programs run by the state and Los Angeles County.

After Thursday’s vote, one longtime opponent of the measure, Assemblyman Dick Ackerman (R-Fullerton), said he saw no point in repeating the debate of previous months. “We’d already made our point,” said Ackerman, who along with many other Republican legislators has fiercely defended the performance of district attorneys.

Added Ackerman: “I don’t believe the issue is dead yet.”

But others were not so sure.

Despite what some in the Capitol described as unprecedented lobbying by district attorneys hoping to keep the program, the Democrat-controlled Assembly approved Kuehl’s bill with four more votes than needed for passage.

“I have tried very hard not to say this is about the district attorneys because I frankly don’t care who does this as long as they do a good job,” Kuehl said. “But in any business . . . if somebody is not doing the job, you replace them. And that is exactly what had to be done here.”

Meantime, the Legislature is scheduled next week to consider other reforms endorsed by Senate President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco), who has made child support a top priority of the session.

And though the governor’s position on the child support reforms had for weeks been a mystery to many legislators, that no longer seems the case.

As Kuehl’s bill was awaiting a final vote, Davis said during a meeting with reporters, “We’ve had a lot of discussions and we are getting very close to that legislation.”

Later, Davis also expressed support for legislation that would expand the Franchise Tax Board’s role in collecting child support.

“That has been my single most important desire from the outset,” Davis told reporters. “As a former [state] controller . . . I have confidence in that agency’s capacity.”

Under a plan unveiled Thursday, the tax board would not only have the increased authority to handle delinquent collections but also would be put in charge of developing and running a single statewide computer system for child support collections.

That proposal, by Assemblywoman Dion Aroner (D-Berkeley), represents a watershed effort to bring California’s fractious approach to child support collections under one system--as mandated by the federal government.

Already, California faces $95 million in federal penalties because, unlike virtually every other state, it does not have a single statewide system. The pending proposal would not only bring consistency to the state’s program but would mean Los Angeles County, so large that it has its own federally funded computer, joins a statewide system.

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Also contributing to this story was staff writer Dave Lesher.