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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 |
#3
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Journalist looking to interview parents child support collection
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. == |
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Journalist looking to interview parents child support collection
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 $4.5 billion annually to maintain this system. The federal parent locator program requires all employers to provide personal information (Where they work, compensation, benefits, etc.) on every man and woman who works in the U.S. whether they owe child support or not. This is an invasion of privacy and far worse than any federal program designed to catch terrorists. The question that needs to be answered is - Why is it okay for the federal government to spy on U.S. citizens with the help of U.S. businesses, but people get their underwear tied up in knots over the government trying to spy on foreign terrorists? |
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Journalist looking to interview parents child support collection
"Gini" wrote in message news:vCs3i.5250$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. |
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Journalist looking to interview parents child support collection
"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! |
#7
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Journalist looking to interview parents child support collection
"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! |
#8
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Journalist looking to interview parents child support collection
(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 |
#9
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Journalist looking to interview parents child support collection
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 |
#10
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Journalist looking to interview parents child support collection
"Werebat" wrote .................. Sincerely, - Ron Poirier == What? She's too "special" for the kitty ears? |
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