"Child support: Efforts to collect pay from deadbeat parents find some success"
Written by Melissa Fletcher Stoeltje
Copyright © 1997 Houston Chronicle.
Austin, TX - Down the street from the state capitol, Casey Hoffman has definite
ideas on how child support could work in Texas and elsewhere.
One is for private collection firms like his to take up the slack created by
overworked, understaffed state agencies. And to do it more efficiently. Child
Support Enforcement* finds close to 90 percent of the deadbeats it goes after,
he says; its collection rate is more than twice the state's, even though his
employees use the same search and enforcement resources.
"The reason we do better is a function of one thing only -- time," he
says, standing in a large office where employees sit hunched over computers,
talking on a (800) 801-KIDS line that receives about 10,000 calls a month from
throughout the nation. A staff of 40 handles caseloads in the hundreds as
opposed to thousands, says Hoffman, an attorney and former director of the
Texas child support office.
In a hallway at Hoffman's offices, Vanessa Diaz carries a sheaf of court
documents. A former client who now works for Hoffman, she says CSE* collected
$13,000 in child support for her sons within six weeks, after years of her
wrangling unsuccessfully with the state. She tells the story of being on hold
with a Bexar County field office for what seemed like forever. Fed up, she got
in her car, drove the short distance to the office, pointed to the telephone
behind the front desk and said to an employee, "See those flashing lights?
That's me."
Leaning back in a swivel chair in a CSE* corner office is top investigator Jim
Harrelston, who's heard it all. "The most frequent excuse I get is, 'I didn't
know I had to pay child support,' when you can look on the divorce decree and
it'll be right there," says Harrelston, who used to work for the state.
Another common excuse... my ex-wife took my kids away. "They'll say, 'If I can't
see my children, I shouldn't have to pay for them.' That's very common."
Another excuse... I need the money for my second family. Another... She just
uses the money on herself.
To find deadbeat parents, Harrelston relies on assorted databases, government
agencies, employer records, creditors, law enforcement officials and a set of
contacts throughout the nation. Sales clerks (especially women) tend to be good
sources of information, he says. So do disgruntled ex-lovers.
"Female deadbeats -- less than 10 percent of all delinquent noncustodials -- are
the hardest to collect on," he says. Another obdurate group includes
"professional non-payers"... usually educated, white-collar types who seek out
every loophole to avoid paying.
* CSE Child Support Enforcement now offers its services to families as
Supportkids.
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