Child Support

The state contractor that collects child support payments in Baltimore continues to have trouble meeting the terms of its agreement, according to a report released Wednesday by the Office of Legislative Audits calling for better oversight by the Department of Human Resources. In a follow-up review after blasting the agency last year for not doing enough to collect payments, the auditors said the state had completed or begun to address nearly all issues, but noted that the department had made only "minimal progress" addressing contracting issues in Baltimore.

WASHINGTON -- Federal agencies should withhold benefits and new jobs from workers who fail to pay court-ordered child support, a House panel was told yesterday."

When as much as $5 billion dollars of child support goes uncollected in a year, too many children around the country are getting short-changed. So are taxpayers, who often end up paying to support these children. As things now stand, non-custodial parents can all too easily skip out on their financial obligations to their children simply by moving across state lines.Legislation passed by Congress before it adjourned earlier this month makes it a federal crime to move to another state to avoid paying child support.

One reason so many families end up on the poverty rolls is that the household depends on a single provider, usually the mother. Often there is a non-custodial parent who ought to be contributing to the family's income, but payments never arrive. That helps account for the fact that 68 percent of the state's welfare recipients are children, and makes collection of child support payments a natural target for welfare reform efforts.Aided by a series of legislative reforms, Maryland's Child Support Enforcement Agency has increased collections of child support payments by more than 300 percent in recent years, from $86 million in 1989, to almost $229 million in 1993.

The Carroll County delegates have withdrawn a bill they originally filed seeking to collect a service fee from parents who have to be forced to make child support payments.Del. Donald B. Elliott said the bill could have backfired by jeopardizing federal money the county already receives to do the same thing.The delegation withdrew Bill 552 Friday at the request of the county commissioners, who had asked that it be filed in the first place, said Mr. Elliott, a District 4B Republican.The bill sought to allow the county to collect a fee from parents to cover the administrative cost of taking them to court and keeping them on a payment schedule.