Child Support

The Texas Supreme Court is considering the legal briefs in the highly publicized Roman vs. Roman frozen embryo case, in which Augusta Roman seeks to implant the embryos created during her six-year marriage to Randy Roman. Randy Roman is trying to prevent this. Mr. Roman won a unanimous decision in the Texas 1st District Court of Appeals in February. Because this is a new, cutting-edge area of the law, and one that has received little judicial attention in Texas, it appears likely that the Texas Supreme Court will hear the case.

It is the most striking image among several touching pictures: Young Dashawn Williams offers his father, Steve Dycus, ice cream on a stick. Mr. Dycus may not look like a typical, caring dad, but through his involvement in a parenting program in Indianapolis, he learned the importance of patience, communication and, perhaps most important, taking responsibility for his child. These are among the lessons learned by all the fathers who are pictured sharing memorable moments with their children in a photographic exhibit called "Dads," which will be on display at the Eubie Blake Cultural Center until April 28. In more than a dozen black-and-white pictures, New York-based photographer Stephen Shames conveys the affection and joy of low-income fathers - all of whom were involved in responsible-fatherhood programs - as they participated in various activities, from changing diapers to playing the violin, with their children.

A 42-year-old Baltimore woman pleaded guilty yesterday to stealing $6,300 from the state Department of Budget and Management's Central Collection Unit, the attorney general's office announced. Baltimore Circuit Judge Martin P. Welch gave Kathy J. Robinson of East Belvedere Avenue a suspended three-year sentence as well as ordering full restitution and 80 hours of community sentence. According to the attorney general's office, Robinson was one of two clerks responsible for counting cash deposits at the unit, which collects all debts to state agencies, except for child support and taxes.

The zeal to enforce child-support payments in the wake of the 1996 welfare reforms created an unexpected group of victims: men forced to pay 18 years of support for children who are not theirs - children who, in many cases, they've never even met. Writing in the American Bar Association's Family Law Quarterly, Washington attorney Ronald K. Henry details how this problem developed, and proposes some common-sense solutions. The problem is relatively new, and stems in large part from the federal Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996, which restructured the welfare system.

The heated debates during the crafting of the 1996 welfare reform law were memorable for one point of agreement between those on opposite sides of the issue. If welfare mothers were being asked to be more responsible for their children's economic well-being, both sides concurred, then absentee dads were fair game, too. Get the bums to pay child support, the thinking went, and the welfare rolls would shrink. Within the first four years of passage of the law, the rolls did shrink and the number of welfare cases closed because of child support collected increased by 56 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Heath and Human Services Child support collection rates have been rising ever since, from $12 billion to $22 billion since the law was passed.

NOT ALL "deadbeat parents" shirk their responsibility willingly. Some just need a second chance to start or resume regular payments for the care of their children. Proof comes in their response to Maryland's two-weeks-only offer to ease or waive the penalties for nonpayment if parents would come into a social services office with a good-faith payment. In the first seven workdays, 1,293 people have walked in - and paid $250,000. It's a mere slice of the estimated $1.4 billion the state is owed, but it's something.

Martin Hall says there are two reasons he's taking steps to start paying the $16,725 in back child support he owes: his newfound faith and his mother. Hall, who has a 7-year-old son with a former girlfriend, became a Jehovah's Witness in June. The Scripture, he says, instructs a man to "take care of his household." Meanwhile, his mother sent him an e-mail about a two-week statewide amnesty program to help parents pay up. "Some things you take even more seriously as you get older," said Hall, who is 37 and unemployed.

Thousands of Maryland residents who owe back child support are being encouraged to pay up as part of a two-week amnesty program offered by the state Department of Human Resources. The amnesty program, which targets 30,000 state residents, some of whom risk arrest for failure to pay child support, begins today and will end Aug. 13. The program is also being offered in Washington and Arlington, Va., as part of a tri-jurisdictional effort to support families. "You can imagine that Prince George's County shares a number of cases with the District of Columbia and Northern Virginia," said Brian Shea, executive director of Maryland's Child Support Enforcement Administration.

Richard Eidinger Jr. has been in and out of court for two years. He's been locked up. And he's been threatened with more jail time if he doesn't pay more of the $26,000 in child support he owes his ex-wife. Still, the 26-year-old father acknowledges that he hasn't managed to pay more than $70 a week lately. He told a judge at a recent contempt hearing in Baltimore County Circuit Court that it's not because he doesn't want to make his payments but because he can't find a good-paying job. "I think we should find him a better job," Judge John O. Hennegan responded.

Parents who have fallen behind on child support and would like to work out payments without fear of arrest can take advantage of a two-week amnesty program, starting tomorrow, offered by the Anne Arundel County Office of Child Support Enforcement. The amnesty is open to people who have an outstanding warrant connected to a failure to pay support, are about to have a driver's license suspended for nonsupport or have fallen behind in payments, said Pat Feeney, director of the child-support office.