Posted on 07/03/2002 12:44:55 PM PDT by RogerFGay
Child Support Visitation Credit Gets International Attention
PRESS RELEASE July 3, 2002
Project for the Improvement of Child Support Litigation Technology (description below) Contact director Roger F. Gay; roger.f.gay@picslt.org
It might seem obvious that child support awards should be adjusted in recognition of the time children spend with each parent. While children are in the care of a parent receiving child support, the other parent is sending money to help cover costs. When the parent paying child support is taking care of the children the situation is reversed. That parent assumes direct responsibility for costs, relieving the parent that normally receives the child support payment.
When states began using fixed formulae for determining child support awards, known as child support guidelines, the door was nearly slammed shut on reducing orders in recognition of divided parenting time. Reopening the case on visitation and shared custody credits is the subject of an article in the current quarterly issue of the international journal IN SEARCH OF FATHERHOOD(R) Forum.
The article, High Child Support Awards Deny Contact between Fathers and Their Children summarizes results of research by Project for the Improvement of Child Support Litigation Technology (PICSLT) on the mathematics of crediting visitation and shared parenting. The research included derivation of credit equations accounting for two parental households and explored the economic effects of using various crediting formulae.
PICSLT first looked at the question of visitation credits when state-wide formulae for determining child support awards were just about to go into effect. Review of federally funded technical advice on design of child support guidelines indicated that more research was needed. Government consultants either ignored visitation and shared parenting or presented recommendations that minimized the possibility of properly adjusting child support orders. The resulting application of those recommendations has led to ludicrous results.
Arizona State University psychology professor Sanford Braver discusses the problem in his landmark book Divorced Dads: Shattering the Myths. He presents an example of a case in New York in which a father was ordered to pay more than $12,000 per year for support of his two children. (page 72) There was no great disparity in income between the parents and they spent nearly equal time caring for their children. If the shared parenting arrangment changed slightly the legal definition of each parent would have been reversed and the mother would have been ordered to pay about $10,000 per year to the father. The difference of $22,000 per year depended on only one overnight stay per week.
Braver followed the example with commentary that triggered the new research by PICSLT. Reducing the amount of an award would seem an obvious benefit to payers (mostly fathers) and provide support for the time children spend with them. On the other hand, wouldn't this lead mothers to battle against visitation in court if it results in loss of income? Would some fathers fight for more visitation merely to reduce the amount of child support they are ordered to pay?
PICSLT research is not psychology. How parents actually behave in court and what their motives might be are subjects not directly addressed. A mathematical "design study" was carried out to determine where the economic incentives lie and whether they can be eliminated. There is good news and bad for supporters of shared parenting and non-custodial parents who want to spend time with their children.
The good news is that the mathematics has been developed that can eliminate the perverse incentives. Adjusting a properly calculated child support award in consideration of the direct contributions of both parents can make things come out even. This might seem obvious, but it is not as simple as it seems. There are details to be considered. What happens for example when child support provides part of the rent money for a low income custodial parent? Rent is not prorated for the amount of time children are there. The design study adjusts for "fixed expenses."
There are limits to what coming out even can mean. Some parents cannot fully support themselves and their children in two housholds. Arrangements need to be realistic. Unless there is an additional source of support the adjustment might only be for a child's food during visitation. Coming out even might mean that $5 per visit spent on food can be balanced by a $5 reduction in child support. A father who is really strapped however, might find that essential.
Adjusting a properly calculated child support award for the direct contributions of both parents can make things come out even. The bad news is that child support is not calcuated properly. Ever since federal reforms took effect requiring the use of fixed formulae, award levels have been too high in an overwhelming number of cases. Guideline designers overcompensated for fixed expenses and then did so in a variety of ways. If orders are adjusted in proportion to parenting time it is obvious that recipients would be giving up a margin of profit in addition to fair compensation for expenses.
On average, child support awards are two to two and a half times what they should be. This means that in total non-custodial parents in the United States could be overpaying by somewhere between $15-20 billion annually because their court orders tell them to.
Things have really worked backwards. In the 1980s and 1990s laws were passed and procedures put in place without sufficient research and debate beforehand. Parents and children have been living through a vast and unnecessary experiment at their expense. "Deadbeat dad" politics even blocked consideration of the existing wisdom gained through hundreds of years of making child support awards. The federal reforms politisized child support to such an extent that it seems literally to require an Act of Congress or a Supreme Court ruling to get settlement on these issues. A parent can no longer get a proper adjustment by walking into a courtroom and saying "look judge, you know this would be fair."
Perhaps the most important contribution PICSLT research has made is to show that these issues can be objectively analyzed. There is no need to force divorced and never-married parents into the topsy-turvey world of politics in addition to struggling with the often difficult personal financial and emotional issues they face. A lot of basic questions can be settled in a scientific way. It is inappropriate and unethical to subject a quarter of the population to a bizarre social policy experiment and insurmountable political hurtles to fair treatment in the courts. We just need to do the math and set things up so that the courts can do their job properly.
Two detailed papers on the mathematics of visitation and shared parenting credits and the detailed design study are available at the PICSLT website.
The Alimony Hidden in Child Support is a related article in Fathering Magazine.
Project for the Improvement of Child Support Litigation Technology (PICSLT) is an R&D project that focuses on the science, engineering, and application of child support guidelines. Project work began in 1989 with investigations at Intelligent Systems Research Corporation (ISR) and has continued as an independent project since 1994. Director of the project is Roger F. Gay; roger.f.gay@picslt.org
The parent with whom the child lives requires a bigger and costlier home to house the child, provides the meals, clothing, utilities on a full time basis. It would be ludicrous to cut back on child support because a child spends a weekend with the non-custodial parent.
In the case cited, dumbass, the child lived with both parents. 51% with one and 49% with the other.
Why? Thats not necessarily true at all. Are you a divorcee that has this as an agenda?
Our child's father paid $100 dollars a month. I picked up the insurance, paid most of all medical costs, and never got to see her except during the school week. He spent every holiday, every spring break, most of every summer and nearly every weekend with her; I even had to transport her back and forth to the place of his choosing. I did this because he kept threating to go to court to get custody, and at the time I couldn't afford a lawyer. I was still scared of him, and as long as he was good to our child, I didn't want to make him mad, because when he got mad things got dangerous.
I met a new love, got married, and we settled into a happy family mode - except that my daughter had no vacations, no extra time with us. It all started to unravel when she asked to be allowed to attend a karate tournament in which she was entered to compete; "Daddy" refused, telling her that was "his" time and she needed to come down to "his" house - and I was supposed to bring her, or we'd all go to court. She dropped out of the tournament because she was afraid I'd go to jail, since "Daddy" said he put me there for contempt of court unless she complied. She never did go to a tournament.
It finally ended two years later when she asked her father to get professional help for his problems. He withdrew her savings account she opened with him (nearly a thousand dollars) and sent it to her through Child Support to "close out" his "payments" when she was thirteen years old.
All told, he spent less on a life time with his only daughter than he did on his truck. Meanwhile, her incredible stepfather (who has been raising her since she was nine) has taken it on himself to put her through college, even though he makes less than her biological father does.
I am saddened that the man who gave my daughter life never saw her as anything more than a possession. But I thank God every day that a good man stepped up to the plate and showed her how a real father treats his children; not as possessions, not as a liabilities, but as precious investments for the future. In more ways than one, both these men got what they paid for - one man got a reciept from the county saying "paid in full", the other man got a daughter...
So your assertion is that the parent who has less time with the child doesn't need the same size home as the parent who was given custody? Should we expect the kids to sleep on the sofa while staying with the other parent? I would think not. That parent has to have a home big enough for the children to have their own bedroom, just like with the first parent. There are added costs to having the children live primarily with one parent, costs in utilities, food, clothing, etc. But the added costs of those do not justify the high awards that the courts make. If one parent has the kids on weekends and half of the summer, that would be somewhere around 20% to 30% of the time in which the children are with that parent. Why should 100% of the support money go to a parent that only has the kids 70% of the time? The rest is little more than hidden alimony.
By the way I am not devoriced nor maying support out side of my marrage.
Sorry. What I meant to say was that the requirement for a bigger and costlier home is nonsense, that the extra utility costs associated with a child are small, and that meal and clothing costs are subsumed in the child support payments. Furthermore, a change in support payments for a weekend visit was never proposed in the article and is a foolish strawman argument.
I have no children and am not married. However, I have watched friends and relatives go through this scenario.
I have watched my own brother refused to spend a dime on his children because he paid child support. If he were still married to their mom, I believe that he would not refuse to buy them something just because he had paid the mortgage for the house they live in. People need to quit using children as pawns and start behaving as if they love them.
You must live in a fastasy world. Children do take up space that would not be required if they weren't there. They have possessions and need a room to sleep in. And yes, the house is most likely occupied for more hours requiring more use of utilities.
Obviously you have never purchased clothing for a child or watched a teen age boy eat everything in sight.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, will not be fixed an our lifetimes. The government agencies that collect that money tack on an extra 2 or 3% onto every payment that is made. That comes to about $450 million that goes back into the system. And that's not counting the $4 billion in direct funding that the feds send the states each and every year to feed the divorce and support machinery. The federal funding that they receive is based on the amount of support that they collect. Any state that did what was fair and right regarding this hidden alimony would be cutting off their own cash supply. Follow the money and you'll see exactly why things are as they are and what forces benefit from things staying this way.
And you obviously have no idea how to manage money. I did buy those things while my kid lived with me and the deadbeat mom didn't pay a cent. I didn't drag her in front of a judge and demand cash from her on a regular basis. She chose not to contribute. Being a deadbeat is her shame and I was willing to let it drop instead of using my child as a pawn to extract money from the mother, using the threat of criminal sanction if she didn't cough up the cash weekly. Unless there is a clear case of abuse, the children should go with the parent who can best afford to care for them, if that parent chooses to take custody. One's who do not do so should contribute to the child's up-keep, but the hidden alimony has to go.
Amen, brother!
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