Deadbeat Parents

The man came to court in leg chains, full of excuses for not paying $30,000 in back child support.It wasn't his fault, he told the judge. He had been in prison for two years on a drunken-driving charge. Now he has a job that pays only $200 a week."I've got a second job for you," said an impatient Baltimore Circuit Judge Lawrence R. Daniels."Have you ever heard of Martin's West? [Martin R. Resnick] will hire you on the spot and pay you $7 an hour, more than you're making now," said the judge.

The Maryland Child Support Enforcement Administration has pulled in nearly $40 million in child-support payments since October 1996 from deadbeat parents who drive cars or look for jobs.But the state still has a $1 billion backlog of unpaid support, in part because, as some Baltimore-area women have found out, there are ways to avoid paying even when state officials track those who owe through driving records and employment applications. Their husbands -- 90 percent of deadbeat parents are fathers -- have moved out of state or have arranged to be paid under the table for their jobs.

The Carroll County Sheriff's Office hopes to turn a loss of about $32,000 in federal money for child support enforcement into a $200,000 gain, and deadbeat parents will be the losers.Maryland sheriff's departments are compensated by the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement for serving child support summonses and court-ordered arrest warrants under which deadbeat parents are apprehended.The federal government had been paying $30 for each child support summons and $245 for each arrest warrant.

The Maryland Child Support Enforcement Administration has pulled in nearly $40 million in child-support payments since October 1996 from deadbeat parents who drive cars or look for jobs.But the state still has a $1 billion backlog of unpaid support, in part because, as some Baltimore-area women have found out, there are ways to avoid paying even when state officials track those who owe through driving records and employment applications. Their husbands -- 90 percent of deadbeat parents are fathers -- have moved out of state or have arranged to be paid under the table for their jobs.

The Carroll County Sheriff's Office hopes to turn a loss of about $32,000 in federal money for child support enforcement into a $200,000 gain, and deadbeat parents will be the losers.Maryland sheriff's departments are compensated by the federal nTC Office of Child Support Enforcement for serving child support summonses and court-ordered arrest warrants under which deadbeat parents are apprehended.The federal government had been paying $30 for each child support summons and $245 for each arrest warrant.

The Maryland Child Support Enforcement Administration has pulled in nearly $40 million in child-support payments since October 1996 from deadbeat parents who drive cars or look for jobs.But the state still has a $1 billion backlog of unpaid support, in part because, as some Baltimore-area women have found out, there are ways to avoid paying even when state officials track those who owe through driving records and employment applications. Their husbands -- 90 percent of deadbeat parents are fathers -- have moved out of state or have arranged to be paid under the table for their jobs.

Parents who are behind in child support payments are under more pressure to pay with the threat of the state's latest stick -- suspension of their driver's licenses.The 3-month-old driver's license suspension program is credited with increasing payments by 9 percent -- an estimated $6.71 million above what was expected in collections from February through last month, according to figures released Friday by the state Child Support Enforcement Administration.The increase in collections includes payments from more than 30,500 so-called "deadbeat parents."

A story about delinquent child support payments in the Nov. 15 issue of The Sun misstated the amount of payments collected by Maryland officials. The state collected $250 million in payments.The Sun regrets the errors.Charles R. Fort Jr. got a 4 a.m. wake-up call yesterday from Baltimore County Deputy Sheriff Donald G. Frederick -- part of an eight-state sweep to collect back child-support payments from "deadbeat" parents.Mr. Fort was among hundreds of parents arrested yesterday and today in Operation Northeast Express, a first-time collaborative effort by law-enforcement officers in Eastern corridor states from Maine to Maryland.

Politics is a lot simpler when it doesn't count. And what works on the stump doesn't always work in real life.That, says Donald E. Murphy, is one of the biggest lessons he has learned since arriving in Annapolis as a delegate 56 days ago.As a member of the largest freshman class of legislators in at least two decades, Mr. Murphy came to the State House from Catonsville with some clear ideas about reforming government and making Maryland safer.Over the past eight weeks, however, the Republican delegate from District 12A has found the issues to be far more complicated than he had thought.

The House of Delegates voted yesterday to speed up death penalty appeals.House Bill 403, sought by Gov. Parris N. Glendening, would reduce the number of post-conviction appeals available to a death row inmate from two to one, among other changes.Del. Joseph F. Vallario Jr., a Prince George's Democrat and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said the measure could reduce the appeals process by as much as three years. The average appeal in Maryland now takes about 11 years, he said.Opponents argued that under these rules Kirk N. Bloodsworth, who sat on death row for 9 years, would have been executed before new evidence proved his innocence.

A state legislative audit has found that the Child Support Enforcement Administration is owed $1.5 billion in unpaid child support payments. That sounds like a lot of money - and a lot of deadbeat dads - until you realize the figure includes the cumulative unpaid child support since the agency began keeping records in the 1974. Much of the debt still on the books was incurred by absent parents who have long since died or disappeared; the state's chief auditor estimates that only about half of it would be considered collectible today.

The state Department of Human Resources has been underusing tools available to collect $1.57 billion in unpaid child support from deadbeat parents in nearly 200,000 cases, according to a legislative audit released yesterday. For example, the department's Child Support Enforcement Administration did not use its ability to have the occupational licenses of delinquent parents suspended, did not always collect and record their Social Security numbers and did not fully use automated techniques to identify and seize their bank accounts, the audit said.

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.

The man came to court in leg chains, full of excuses for not paying $30,000 in back child support.It wasn't his fault, he told the judge. He had been in prison for two years on a drunken-driving charge. Now he has a job that pays only $200 a week."I've got a second job for you," said an impatient Baltimore Circuit Judge Lawrence R. Daniels."Have you ever heard of Martin's West? [Martin R. Resnick] will hire you on the spot and pay you $7 an hour, more than you're making now," said the judge.

The Maryland Child Support Enforcement Administration has pulled in nearly $40 million in child-support payments since October 1996 from deadbeat parents who drive cars or look for jobs.But the state still has a $1 billion backlog of unpaid support, in part because, as some Baltimore-area women have found out, there are ways to avoid paying even when state officials track those who owe through driving records and employment applications. Their husbands -- 90 percent of deadbeat parents are fathers -- have moved out of state or have arranged to be paid under the table for their jobs.

The Maryland Child Support Enforcement Administration has pulled in nearly $40 million in child-support payments since October 1996 from deadbeat parents who drive cars or look for jobs.But the state still has a $1 billion backlog of unpaid support, in part because, as some Baltimore-area women have found out, there are ways to avoid paying even when state officials track those who owe through driving records and employment applications. Their husbands -- 90 percent of deadbeat parents are fathers -- have moved out of state or have arranged to be paid under the table for their jobs.

The Maryland Child Support Enforcement Administration has pulled in nearly $40 million in child-support payments since October 1996 from deadbeat parents who drive cars or look for jobs.But the state still has a $1 billion backlog of unpaid support, in part because, as some Baltimore-area women have found out, there are ways to avoid paying even when state officials track those who owe through driving records and employment applications. Their husbands -- 90 percent of deadbeat parents are fathers -- have moved out of state or have arranged to be paid under the table for their jobs.

The Carroll County Sheriff's Office hopes to turn a loss of about $32,000 in federal money for child support enforcement into a $200,000 gain, and deadbeat parents will be the losers.Maryland sheriff's departments are compensated by the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement for serving child support summonses and court-ordered arrest warrants under which deadbeat parents are apprehended.The federal government had been paying $30 for each child support summons and $245 for each arrest warrant.

The Carroll County Sheriff's Office hopes to turn a loss of about $32,000 in federal money for child support enforcement into a $200,000 gain, and deadbeat parents will be the losers.Maryland sheriff's departments are compensated by the federal nTC Office of Child Support Enforcement for serving child support summonses and court-ordered arrest warrants under which deadbeat parents are apprehended.The federal government had been paying $30 for each child support summons and $245 for each arrest warrant.

Parents who are behind in child support payments are under more pressure to pay with the threat of the state's latest stick -- suspension of their driver's licenses.The 3-month-old driver's license suspension program is credited with increasing payments by 9 percent -- an estimated $6.71 million above what was expected in collections from February through last month, according to figures released Friday by the state Child Support Enforcement Administration.The increase in collections includes payments from more than 30,500 so-called "deadbeat parents."