• 01
  • January
    2012

For many two-parent households, trying to raise a family with a dual income can be a struggle in today's economic times. However, single parents who aren't receiving monthly child support are faced with trying to make ends meet each day. Recently, a 2011 state audit found Maryland's Child Support Enforcement Administration has failed to collect more than $1.7 billion in owed child support.

The agency's new executive director aims to change those statistics and help single parents who are not getting the child support a judge says they deserve. The new executive director says he plans to use all available means to turn Maryland into one of the nation's top 10 states for child support collections in the next 18 months.

He plans to use research data to make the department more efficient than it has been recently. He wants to determine how to increase pressure on parents who chronically fail to pay child support. At the same time, he hopes to avoid unduly punishing parents who have paid regularly in the past, but are suddenly unable to do so because of a temporary situation like a job loss.

Changing the department's expectations is also vital, the new director says. Currently the courts do not expect parents to begin paying child support until about a month after a judge orders payment. If parents are expected to make their first payment the same day, it would "change a culture of noncompliance," he says.

He plans to use the department's collection tools, which include garnishing wages, laying claim to bank accounts and suspending occupational licenses, more effectively. The 2011 audit found the Child Support Enforcement Administration rarely used those methods.

The new director also plans to create a panel of parents, nonprofit organizations and members of the private sector to provide additional feedback on how effective the department's policies are.

The secretary of the Maryland Department of Human Resources says it is vital for the state to improve its child support collection. He says families who are not getting the child support they deserve often end up needing food stamps and other assistance from the department.

Source: The Capital, "Child support gets revamp," Tina Reed, Dec. 19, 2011.