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Committee OKs Child Support Reform Bill

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TIMES STAFF WRITERS

With far more dramatic reforms waiting in the wings, a bill to overhaul California’s beleaguered child support system breezed through its first legislative hearing on Tuesday.

But the 11-0 bipartisan vote belied sharp disagreement over how to rescue a state program that affects more children than any but public schools and is delinquent in distributing as much as $8 billion to single-parent families.

Indeed, even as Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl’s bill, AB 196, moved through the Judiciary Committee she heads, the Santa Monica Democrat portrayed her legislation as a starting point for reform. And she acknowledged that advocates, as well as some committee colleagues, want nothing less than the program to be taken away from California’s 58 district attorneys.

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“I totally understand that they are angry at the district attorneys and want to take the program away,” Kuehl said after the committee’s two-hour meeting. “I am not willing to do that until we have a new department and new standards. [But] that until is important because it means we may move in that direction.”

Throughout Tuesday’s hearing, the lines over Kuehl’s bill were clearly drawn between advocates, who want much tougher legislation, and district attorneys, who have thus far accepted the Kuehl bill, in part, to forestall more sweeping reform.

“More than 3 million California children rely on the state’s child support enforcement program . . . to meet basic needs,” Kuehl said in outlining her bill.

Yet, she added, “By almost any measure, it is failing our children and all of the families relying on it.”

To change that, Kuehl said, her omnibus legislation aims to transform California’s child support program through six specific initiatives, including creation of a state Department of Child Support Enforcement, appointment of an undersecretary who would develop strict new performance standards, and putting district attorneys on notice that they will lose the programs if they do not meet those measurements.

But even as they applauded Kuehl’s efforts, longtime child support advocates said they could not unconditionally endorse her bill unless it strips the program away from district attorneys. Nora O’Brien, representing the nationwide Assn. for Children for Enforcement of Support Inc., said her group would oppose Kuehl’s bill without such language.

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“Families have been waiting too long for reforms,” said O’Brien, the group’s California director.

Against that backdrop, Tuesday’s hearing came down to district attorneys endorsing compromise and a chance to prove themselves while advocates countered that the state has waited two decades, in vain, for prosecutors to show they can run a good child support system.

Joined by representatives of district attorneys in Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and San Mateo counties, Lawrence Brown, executive director of the California District Attorneys Assn., said prosecutors realize they must improve their performance.

“District attorneys aren’t naive. They see child support may become an issue in elections,” Brown said.

In a letter to Kuehl, Los Angeles Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti’s office even raised the possibility that prosecutors be allowed to “opt out” of child support programs.

As Kuehl’s bill moves to the Human Services Committee, its chairwoman, Dion Aroner (D-Berkeley), already has said she will--at minimum--move to take the program out of the hands of prosecutors.

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And with other lawmakers, including Kuehl and several state senators, pledging to consider any and all options in order to reform the child support system, the scope of the bill moved Tuesday was expected by many to grow.

“The momentum is on our side, no doubt about it,” Aroner said. “There is such anger out there . . . that I just think this is the time to make a move. And we can make a much bigger move than what was approved today.”

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