DADS PAY CHILD SUPPORT AND STATE SITS ON IT $1.5 MILLION UNCLAIMED IN FUND FOR MOMS, KIDS; FATHERS WANT REFUNDS, BUT THAT RARELY HAPPENS

DADS PAY CHILD SUPPORT AND STATE SITS ON IT $1.5 MILLION UNCLAIMED IN FUND FOR MOMS, KIDS; FATHERS WANT REFUNDS, BUT THAT RARELY HAPPENS

More than 3,000 Colorado fathers must pay child support into a state account even though the mothers and the children can't be found.
The men are outraged, saying the government is sitting on the money instead of getting it to their kids.

``The children aren't benefiting. They're not getting this money, '' said Ken Ward, head of Fathers for Equal Rights. ``The state is accruing it, and who knows what they're doing with it?''
That's a good question.
The fund - for moms and kids who moved away and left no forwarding addresses - has ballooned 40 percent in less than two years. Now, $1.5 million is sitting in the account waiting to be claimed.
Meanwhile, the money is not earning interest - for the state, the kids or the dads.
Supposedly, the dads eventually get the undisbursed funds back if the moms and kids don't resurface.
But Darius Sams, program administrator for the child-support enforcement division of the Department of Human Services, could provide no information on how many dads got child-support refunds from the government. She said it typically takes about nine months from the time they made the payments.
Ward said he's never known anyone who got a refund.
What really irks the fathers-rights groups is that dads are expected to pay child support even when the custodial parent - 98 percent of them are women - ``abscond in the middle of the night'' with their children.
But is that a true picture?
Child advocates say the undisbursed $1.5 million came mostly from fathers who ignored court orders to pay child support and have never been interested in contact with their children. The mothers move and don't bother giving the state their new addresses, because they don' t expect their exes to ever pony up.
But eventually the state and the counties force the fathers to pay, using remedies that include wage garnishments and the threatened loss of driver's licenses.
``When we do locate the custodial parent to tell them we have child- support payments for them, they often burst into tears,'' Sams said. ``They're so surprised.''
If the mother and the children are never located, the father still must forward his regular payment to the state and wait for the money to be returned to him.
``If a parent is not collecting money, then there ought to be a real easy way for fathers to not have to pay into the circular system, '' said Barbara O'Brien, president of the Colorado Children's Campaign.
Don't count on it.
The court order to pay child support ``doesn't go away'' just because the mom and the children can't be found, Sams said, although the fathers may ask a judge to waive payment.
But Ward said going back to court isn't practical - or cheap.
``You've got to hire a lawyer at $1,000,'' he said. ``Meanwhile, the checks are being garnished, and it takes you months to even get a court date.''
Sams pointed out that the $1.5 million in undisbursed funds is a small fraction of the more than $118 million the state collected in child-support payments through September.
``But it's a problem,'' she said of the funds. ``I'm not trying to minimize it.''
It's a small problem, however, compared with money the state can' t get its hands on.
Non-custodial parents in Colorado owe more than $1 billion in outstanding child support.
Last year, the state collected $137 million from deadbeat parents, a 270 percent increase over the $37 million paid 10 years ago.
And that's the child-support division's primary mission.
``Our resources are to look for non-custodial parents to get additional resources for children,'' Sams said. ``We don't have the resources to look for custodial parents, to be honest with you.''

Copyright © 1997, Denver Publishing Co.

Ann Carnahan, DADS PAY CHILD SUPPORT AND STATE SITS ON IT $1.5 MILLION UNCLAIMED IN FUND FOR MOMS, KIDS; FATHERS WANT REFUNDS, BUT THAT RARELY HAPPENS., Rocky Mountain News, 11-23-1997, pp 5A.

Copyright © 1998 Infonautics Corporation. All rights reserved. - Terms and Conditions