Journalist looking to interview parents child support collection

Hello everyone! I'm a journalist writing an article about recent
cutbacks to federal child support enforcement funding.

I want the article to convey the real impact that child support
payments (or the lack of them) can have on family budgets, and so I'm
looking for people willing to speak on the record about your
experience with child support -- and especially any experience with
child support collection and enforcement.

My deadline is May 29, so I'm hoping that I'll be able to do some
short interviews early next week -- Monday or Tuesday. I live in
Brooklyn, but I'm trying to get a national perspective on this -- so
it would most likely be a phone interview (I'd call you), or just
questions over email.

If you're willing to go on the record about your experience, please
send me an email at the following address:

Thanks so much for your help!

Nadia Berenstein

Before I respond, is there any way you could give a link to some of your
prior works. I'm not saying you aren't a journalist, but in usenet
replying to an e-mail is just about as bad as if you had "Please Spam
Me" tattooed onto your forehead.
Also, you'll find this group consists of a great deal of non-custodial
parents the Family law system treats as walking ATM machines. We do
have our own experiences with child support payments impacting our
budgets, though. And if you don't believe me, you try living on less
than half your net income and keeping a roof over your head.
Still, I'd love it if you did include our perspective.


John M
The NCP Revue: (http://www.ncprevue.com/blog)
wrote:
Hello everyone! I'm a journalist writing an article about recent
cutbacks to federal child support enforcement funding.

I want the article to convey the real impact that child support
payments (or the lack of them) can have on family budgets, and so I'm
looking for people willing to speak on the record about your
experience with child support -- and especially any experience with
child support collection and enforcement.

My deadline is May 29, so I'm hoping that I'll be able to do some
short interviews early next week -- Monday or Tuesday. I live in
Brooklyn, but I'm trying to get a national perspective on this -- so
it would most likely be a phone interview (I'd call you), or just
questions over email.

If you're willing to go on the record about your experience, please
send me an email at the following address:

Thanks so much for your help!

Nadia Berenstein

wrote
Hello everyone! I'm a journalist writing an article about recent
cutbacks to federal child support enforcement funding.
==
When did these "cutbacks" occur and what specific areas were cut?
==

I want the article to convey the real impact that child support
payments (or the lack of them) can have on family budgets,
==
Indeed. I would like to know how many families have been awarded a child
support amount
that would raise them above the poverty level if paid.
==

wrote in message
ups.com...
Hello everyone! I'm a journalist writing an article about recent
cutbacks to federal child support enforcement funding.

Here is all you need to know. The federal government does not get involved
in child support enforcement. But they claim to be doing a lot of good work
regarding child support. The feds bribed the states into complying with
their mandates for welfare reform by agreeing to pay a portion of the
states' costs to run a child support money laundering scheme. The feds
calculate the states' "Box Score" and send them money for reaching
performance standards. A couple of years ago the feds woke up and realized
their plan to tie child support to welfare reform was bogus. They were
surprised the demographics of their child support scheme had shifted to
include 85% of the money collected to be private money and totally unrelated
to public money used for welfare. This is just another example of how the
federal government can screw up just about anything they try to fix.

Here is what you should report. The feds paid $4.0 billion to establish a
parent locator program. They spend $4.5 billion annually to maintain this
system. The federal parent locator program requires all employers to
provide personal information (Where they work, compensation, benefits, etc.)
on every man and woman who works in the U.S. whether they owe child support
or not. This is an invasion of privacy and far worse than any federal
program designed to catch terrorists. The question that needs to be
answered is - Why is it okay for the federal government to spy on U.S.
citizens with the help of U.S. businesses, but people get their underwear
tied up in knots over the government trying to spy on foreign terrorists?

"Gini" wrote in message
news:vCs3i.5250$xu.4130@trndny07...

wrote
Hello everyone! I'm a journalist writing an article about recent
cutbacks to federal child support enforcement funding.
==
When did these "cutbacks" occur and what specific areas were cut?

Here is a good summary.

http://www.cbpp.org/12-20-05bud2.htm

The cutbacks are scheduled to take effect in October 2007.

"Bob Whiteside" wrote

"Gini" wrote

wrote
Hello everyone! I'm a journalist writing an article about recent
cutbacks to federal child support enforcement funding.
==
When did these "cutbacks" occur and what specific areas were cut?

Here is a good summary.

http://www.cbpp.org/12-20-05bud2.htm

The cutbacks are scheduled to take effect in October 2007.
==
Thanks Bob!

"Gini" wrote in message
news:SOt3i.1911$QP.337@trndny03...

"Bob Whiteside" wrote

"Gini" wrote

wrote
Hello everyone! I'm a journalist writing an article about recent
cutbacks to federal child support enforcement funding.
==
When did these "cutbacks" occur and what specific areas were cut?

Here is a good summary.

http://www.cbpp.org/12-20-05bud2.htm

The cutbacks are scheduled to take effect in October 2007.
==
Thanks Bob!

Young, innocent Nadia doesn't realize yet she is the product of our ****
poor J-Schools. She is out to write an article with a pre-conceived premise
about how she should present her assigned topic. Nadia is looking for
sources to quote to back up that agenda. She has a writing assignment and
is looking for ways to complete the agenda driven reporting while calling it
objective reporting. Maybe she has the guts to tell her editor to go to
hell. I doubt it!

(also sent via e-mail, but I suspect your e-mail service didn't recieve)

Regarding experience in the family courts,

I share 50/50 joint physical placement (custody) of my son with his
mother, and we divorced when he was 3 months old. This is in the state
of Rhode Island. We had agreed on a child support amount in mediation
(money that I would pay her even though I had our child in my care half
of the time).

A few months after our divorce was finalized, we each received a summons
to appear in family court. This didn't make sense to either of us,
since the divorce had been finalized. Both of us forgot about the court
date and didn't go, but the day after we remembered and were worried
about missing it. We called the family court and were told that the
hearing was really just a formality to order me to pay the child support
money to the court directly instead of my ex because she had gotten on
welfare and the CS money was supposed to go back to the federal
government instead of to her. I was told that if I just sent payments
to a certain address at the court I would be fine.

So I did, for about a year, until my ex told me that she had gotten off
of welfare and that I should begin paying her directly again. I checked
with the court by calling them and was told that yes, this was correct,
I should begin paying her directly.

So I did, until some time later when she got back on welfare again and
told me to remit payments to the court again. Which I did. Until she
told me that she had gotten off of welfare again, and that I should
start paying her directly again. This time I didn't check, I just
started paying her directly.

A year later I was arrested for non-payment of child support, although I
had never missed a payment. Because I was arrested late on a Saturday
evening I had to spend two days in jail (one in the county jail and the
other at the ACI) before I could get to court. The original order to
appear in court from years previous was waved in my face and I was told
that I was a "deadbeat" who didn't take his child seriously. Now I had
never missed a CS payment, and I had my son half of the time, but no one
in the court listened, no one cared. It was all about the money. I'd
had documents that could prove I had made payments but either my lawyer
or my parents -- I'm leaning toward blaming my lawyer -- "lost" them all
while I was in jail awaiting trial. The lawyer did get the court to
hold off on a decision for a bit while I got my paperwork together --
the court had been ready to assess the standard CS award to my ex, based
on an "estimate" of my earnings that was more than what I actually
earned, and completely ignoring the fact that I had my son in my care
half of the time,

The local Child Support Enforcement agency then engaged in a few shady
things. I received a letter informing me that I was over $500 in
"arrearages" that were due, "coincidentally", the day before I was to
appear again in court. Although no one could explain where these
arrearages had come from, my lawyer advised me to just pay the money.
To this day CSE has not been able to tell me where the arrearage came
from, and one of their clerks remarked over the phone that it looked
like someone had just typed it into their computer one day.

My ex later appeared in court with me on the appointed date and was told
that if she got off of welfare the state would back off on me, and we
could "agree" on an amount of child support -- but both my lawyer and
CSE's lawyer then told her exactly what the court would award her if she
just stayed on welfare or dug in her heels -- 90% of the standard. This
was based on some magical mathematics that supposedly took into account
the fact that I had my son in my care exactly half of the time. I
believe the rationalization was that any time NOT spent with me -- time
he was with my mother, or in daycare, for example (which I paid for) --
counted as time with his mother, and that 30% of the total time (ie
3/5ths of the time I had him with me) just "didn't count" because the
assumption was that all NCPs had their children with them 30% of the
time. So I was facing a 10% "discount" on CS because I had my son half
of the time. I asked the lawyers if they thought this was fair and they
both laughed and said, "Nope -- but that's how it is!"

So my ex dropped welfare and she and I got to "negotiate" a CS award
with her knowing that she could get 90% of the standard award if she
just dug in her heels and refused to compromise. I'll leave it to you
to figure out how that went.

Meanwhile CSE had told me to pay them my CS until they notified me that
they had begun garnishing my wages. They never notified and I noticed
after having made my first payment manually that they had also taken the
money out of my check, so they got paid twice. Thankfully one of our
payroll secretaries had a son who had been through something similar and
agreed to alter my check if I could provide proof that I had paid CSE
earlier that month, which I did. In court, CSE's lawyer was told by the
judge that he saw "an overpayment" on the records, which the lawyer
quickly took back from the judge and offered to "zero out" for me (ie
erasing all arrearage, which the judge had just said didn't exist in the
first place). My ex insisted that CSE had been withholding money from
her above and beyond what they should, and because I always made me
payments on time demanded that CSE be taken out of the loop and my wage
garnishment halted. The judge did not like this but claimed that he was
"forced to comply", and CSE's lawyer looked quite crestfallen. Later,
when I recieved the official judgement in the mail, I noticed that it
had somehow been typed by CSE's lawyer, who had added in an order that I
pay CSE over $100 per month in addition to the amount my ex and I had
agreed that I pay her. It took me months of wrangling with the lawyer
to get him to fix the judgement so that it matched what the judge
actually said in court -- he kept altering the amount I was obliged to
pay CSE, not eliminating it. In the end I had to fill out a formal
complaint to the state bar and fax it to him, claiming that I would mail
it in if he didn't fix the order within the next two weeks. Then CSE
had the ordacity to tell me that the arrearages accrued in the months I
was trying to get their lawyer to fix the order were "on the books" and
because of the Bradley amendment could not be expunged -- I had to pay
money because they had "screwed up" (I put the words in quotes because I
don't really believe it was an unintentional screwup).

All of this monkey business was explained away as being due to "clerical
errors". I believe that a government institution with the level of
power that CSE has, where there is really no recourse or way of nailing
them when they supposedly "screw up" on an order, is plainly and simply
engaging in profiteering and extortion when they use tactics like these
to exract money from honest parents who have done nothing wrong. The
money CSE extorted from me, as I ended up paying because I did not want
to go to jail, never went to my son or even my ex-wife. I imagine it
went directly into CSE's coffers, or possibly to the federal government
who returned a percentage for the "service" provided by CSE. In my
opinion these people are as lacking in morals and as out of control as
Tammany Hall.

So -- you want to know how I feel about the federal government cutting
back on their system of rewards for CSE departments for maximizing
collections in CS orders? I think it's a good thing. More accurately,
I think that the federal government offering to pay ANY MONEY AT ALL in
incentives for the maximization of CS collections is a bad idea, in that
it provides an incentive for CSE departments across the land to engage
in shady practices like the ones I was exposed to, all the while knowing
that they are virtually immune to any repercussions for themselves
because in the end no one will listen to a bunch of mistreated men who
everyone considers "dead-beats" anyway. They use a warped public
opinion of what divorced men are in order to protect themselves from the
scrutiny that would reveal their corruption, the raison d'etre of which
is the existence of federal incentive funds.

I hope that my letter provided you with something you could use in your
article. Thanks for asking for my opinion.

Sincerely,

- Ron Poirier

I should clarify, in the end it was revealed that the REASON why I was
arrested was that my ex had been on Welfare and receiving CS payments
from me for about a year. The state believed that I had just stopped
making payments, as I hadn't been paying THEM and they knew that I was
supposed to have been. In the end it could have been cleared up with a
simple letter, but no, paying for two nights' jail time was in their
eyes a more cost-effective way of handling the problem than paying for a
stamp.

As for my ex, in the end I reported her to Welfare Fraud, provided them
with proof that I had paid her CS for the year she was recieving, and
they promptly did... nothing. At least, my ex says they did nothing.
Never even informed her. They won't tell me because of
"confidentiality", which means they can just do nothing and get away
with it because they claim they are "protecting" my lawbreaking ex who
knowingly double-dipped on CS and welfare (ie welfare fraud).

- Ron ^*^


Werebat wrote:


(also sent via e-mail, but I suspect your e-mail service didn't recieve)

Regarding experience in the family courts,

I share 50/50 joint physical placement (custody) of my son with his
mother, and we divorced when he was 3 months old. This is in the state
of Rhode Island. We had agreed on a child support amount in mediation
(money that I would pay her even though I had our child in my care half
of the time).

A few months after our divorce was finalized, we each received a summons
to appear in family court. This didn't make sense to either of us,
since the divorce had been finalized. Both of us forgot about the court
date and didn't go, but the day after we remembered and were worried
about missing it. We called the family court and were told that the
hearing was really just a formality to order me to pay the child support
money to the court directly instead of my ex because she had gotten on
welfare and the CS money was supposed to go back to the federal
government instead of to her. I was told that if I just sent payments
to a certain address at the court I would be fine.

So I did, for about a year, until my ex told me that she had gotten off
of welfare and that I should begin paying her directly again. I checked
with the court by calling them and was told that yes, this was correct,
I should begin paying her directly.

So I did, until some time later when she got back on welfare again and
told me to remit payments to the court again. Which I did. Until she
told me that she had gotten off of welfare again, and that I should
start paying her directly again. This time I didn't check, I just
started paying her directly.

A year later I was arrested for non-payment of child support, although I
had never missed a payment. Because I was arrested late on a Saturday
evening I had to spend two days in jail (one in the county jail and the
other at the ACI) before I could get to court. The original order to
appear in court from years previous was waved in my face and I was told
that I was a "deadbeat" who didn't take his child seriously. Now I had
never missed a CS payment, and I had my son half of the time, but no one
in the court listened, no one cared. It was all about the money. I'd
had documents that could prove I had made payments but either my lawyer
or my parents -- I'm leaning toward blaming my lawyer -- "lost" them all
while I was in jail awaiting trial. The lawyer did get the court to
hold off on a decision for a bit while I got my paperwork together --
the court had been ready to assess the standard CS award to my ex, based
on an "estimate" of my earnings that was more than what I actually
earned, and completely ignoring the fact that I had my son in my care
half of the time,

The local Child Support Enforcement agency then engaged in a few shady
things. I received a letter informing me that I was over $500 in
"arrearages" that were due, "coincidentally", the day before I was to
appear again in court. Although no one could explain where these
arrearages had come from, my lawyer advised me to just pay the money. To
this day CSE has not been able to tell me where the arrearage came from,
and one of their clerks remarked over the phone that it looked like
someone had just typed it into their computer one day.

My ex later appeared in court with me on the appointed date and was told
that if she got off of welfare the state would back off on me, and we
could "agree" on an amount of child support -- but both my lawyer and
CSE's lawyer then told her exactly what the court would award her if she
just stayed on welfare or dug in her heels -- 90% of the standard. This
was based on some magical mathematics that supposedly took into account
the fact that I had my son in my care exactly half of the time. I
believe the rationalization was that any time NOT spent with me -- time
he was with my mother, or in daycare, for example (which I paid for) --
counted as time with his mother, and that 30% of the total time (ie
3/5ths of the time I had him with me) just "didn't count" because the
assumption was that all NCPs had their children with them 30% of the
time. So I was facing a 10% "discount" on CS because I had my son half
of the time. I asked the lawyers if they thought this was fair and they
both laughed and said, "Nope -- but that's how it is!"

So my ex dropped welfare and she and I got to "negotiate" a CS award
with her knowing that she could get 90% of the standard award if she
just dug in her heels and refused to compromise. I'll leave it to you
to figure out how that went.

Meanwhile CSE had told me to pay them my CS until they notified me that
they had begun garnishing my wages. They never notified and I noticed
after having made my first payment manually that they had also taken the
money out of my check, so they got paid twice. Thankfully one of our
payroll secretaries had a son who had been through something similar and
agreed to alter my check if I could provide proof that I had paid CSE
earlier that month, which I did. In court, CSE's lawyer was told by the
judge that he saw "an overpayment" on the records, which the lawyer
quickly took back from the judge and offered to "zero out" for me (ie
erasing all arrearage, which the judge had just said didn't exist in the
first place). My ex insisted that CSE had been withholding money from
her above and beyond what they should, and because I always made me
payments on time demanded that CSE be taken out of the loop and my wage
garnishment halted. The judge did not like this but claimed that he was
"forced to comply", and CSE's lawyer looked quite crestfallen. Later,
when I recieved the official judgement in the mail, I noticed that it
had somehow been typed by CSE's lawyer, who had added in an order that I
pay CSE over $100 per month in addition to the amount my ex and I had
agreed that I pay her. It took me months of wrangling with the lawyer
to get him to fix the judgement so that it matched what the judge
actually said in court -- he kept altering the amount I was obliged to
pay CSE, not eliminating it. In the end I had to fill out a formal
complaint to the state bar and fax it to him, claiming that I would mail
it in if he didn't fix the order within the next two weeks. Then CSE
had the ordacity to tell me that the arrearages accrued in the months I
was trying to get their lawyer to fix the order were "on the books" and
because of the Bradley amendment could not be expunged -- I had to pay
money because they had "screwed up" (I put the words in quotes because I
don't really believe it was an unintentional screwup).

All of this monkey business was explained away as being due to "clerical
errors". I believe that a government institution with the level of
power that CSE has, where there is really no recourse or way of nailing
them when they supposedly "screw up" on an order, is plainly and simply
engaging in profiteering and extortion when they use tactics like these
to exract money from honest parents who have done nothing wrong. The
money CSE extorted from me, as I ended up paying because I did not want
to go to jail, never went to my son or even my ex-wife. I imagine it
went directly into CSE's coffers, or possibly to the federal government
who returned a percentage for the "service" provided by CSE. In my
opinion these people are as lacking in morals and as out of control as
Tammany Hall.

So -- you want to know how I feel about the federal government cutting
back on their system of rewards for CSE departments for maximizing
collections in CS orders? I think it's a good thing. More accurately,
I think that the federal government offering to pay ANY MONEY AT ALL in
incentives for the maximization of CS collections is a bad idea, in that
it provides an incentive for CSE departments across the land to engage
in shady practices like the ones I was exposed to, all the while knowing
that they are virtually immune to any repercussions for themselves
because in the end no one will listen to a bunch of mistreated men who
everyone considers "dead-beats" anyway. They use a warped public
opinion of what divorced men are in order to protect themselves from the
scrutiny that would reveal their corruption, the raison d'etre of which
is the existence of federal incentive funds.

I hope that my letter provided you with something you could use in your
article. Thanks for asking for my opinion.

Sincerely,

- Ron Poirier

"Werebat" wrote
..................

Sincerely,

- Ron Poirier
==
What? She's too "special" for the kitty ears?