When it comes to collecting $2.8 billion owed in child support in Illinois, state collectors admit they have a long way to go, but they feel they are moving in the right direction.
When it comes to collecting $2.8 billion owed in child support in Illinois, state collectors admit they have a long way to go, but they feel they are moving in the right direction.
In 2007, $3.3 billion was owed in back child support to 641,025 Illinois children, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the federal agency that oversees child support.
The agency estimates it would provide $3.8 billion to the states for child support enforcement in 2009.
Pam Lowry, administrator of the Division of Child Support Enforcement for the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services, formerly known as the Illinois Department of Public Aid, said that through innovative collection methods, Illinois has improved its collection efforts–especially this fiscal year when it collected a record $1.33 billion in child support. It was more than an 8 percent increase over the $1.22 billion collected last fiscal year.
To recoup payments, Illinois got creative with child support enforcement.
The state could suspend driver’s licenses and any other state license, including professional and hunting licenses; intercept tax refunds or any payments from the state or federal government, including stimulus checks, unemployment benefits and lottery winnings. It could also garnish wages, place liens on property and bank accounts, and also seek imprisonment. The state also posts names and photos of deadbeat parents on its Web site, www.ilchildsupport.com/deadbeat.
And for its part, the federal government will deny requests for U.S. passports from anyone who owes $2,500 or more in back support.
Child advocates said sometimes making payments to the wrong office could contribute to the mounting debt owed to children.
“Even though some payments are still made at the Clerk of the Circuit Court office, that is not where they should go,” said Margie Jones, 56, executive director of Children FIRST, a non-profit organization in Springfield that advocates for children’s rights. “I have heard of some occasions where payments made at the clerk’s office in Chicago were not recorded properly with the state and that created an arrearage that was not even owed.”
Cook County Clerk of the Circuit Court Dorothy Brown acknowledges that her office does still receive payments from parents, mainly self-employed parents, who pay in cash.
“My office has sent out letters to non-custodial parents reminding them where to send their payments,” Brown said.
Child support payments are received, posted and disbursed by the State Disbursement Unit located in northwest suburban Carol Stream.
But some fathers, who are often the non-custodial parent, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said the economy is to blame for missing child support payments.
“Just look at the foreclosure rate,” said Dwayne Mitchell, 47, who pays $300 a month in child support. You have households with two incomes, but yet families are still behind on their mortgage while the government tries to bail them out. But when it comes to child support, no one stops to think about the economy as a reason why so many fathers fall behind in their payments.”
Jeffery Leving, an attorney and Chicago-based fathers’ rights advocate, said fathers always will get the short end of the stick when it comes to child support.
“Judges seem to go easier on mothers than men when ordering child support,” Leving told the Defender. “Most judges did not grow up in extreme poverty areas so they don’t know what’s it like to struggle while supporting your kids. I have represented a lot of men who had custody of their children, but the judge let the mom off easy when it came time to pay child support.”
He added that the state often goes too far to collect child support from fathers.
“The state will continue to charge a father for child support even if he is in prison. Most prisoners do not know how to file a motion to get a court date so they can tell the judge they are unemployed, broke and in prison,” Leving added.
“And until a judge hears from them in court, the state will not only keep charging them support each month but will also add interest to the arrearage, and that’s crazy.”
However, children advocates dispute Leving’s claims about prisoners not knowing how to get a court date to argue their case.
“They know how to file a motion when they want to get their sentence reduced or to get off Death Row. Every prison has a law library for the purpose of legal research,” said Jones.
State statue calls for 20 percent of net income to be paid toward child support for one child, 28 percent for two, 32 percent for three and 40 percent for four.
And despite Leving’s claims that judges go easy on women when ordering them to pay support, there are women who do pay support.
Jennifer Brook, 29, has three kids and pays $190 a month in support. And like Mitchell, when she lost her housekeeper job, she fell behind in her payments.
“I know my kids do not stop growing just because I lost my job. They still have to be fed, clothed and housed,” she said. “But people need to realize that it is hard to find work in Chicago. It’s even harder when you have a felony record or no college education.” Brooks lost custody of her children after spending three years in prison for a drug conviction.
Another obstacle the state faces with collection is establishing paternity for a child, said Lowry. Before a court order for child support can be entered and enforced, paternity must first be established.
The HHS said the number of paternities established or acknowledged nationally last year was 1.7 million.
And with the current backlog of child support cases, particularly in Cook County, it could take a year before paternity is established, Leving added.
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