BY B.G. GREGG
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Ohio collected in only 23 percent of its child support cases last year, and Ohio children are owed $2.5 billion in back child support, says a report issued Wednesday by an advocacy group.
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LOCAL RATES VARY
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Hamilton County's collection rate was listed at 22 percent, Butler County's at 25 percent, Clermont County's at 45 percent and Warren County's at 41 percent. |
The study, compiled by the Association for Children for Enforcement of Support (ACES) and based on federal statistics, found that collection rates in Ohio counties varied from 11 percent in Shelby County to 86 percent in Hancock County.
Counties have tried a variety of new approaches, including privatization, to improve collections. But advocates say more emphasis needs to be placed on criminally charging those who try to evade payments.
"When we listen to the families that call our hot line, it's the same old thing," said Geraldine Jensen, head of ACES, which is based in Toledo. "We have to jump on these people right away, just like a company does if you don't pay a light bill."
Ohio collected $1.4 billion in child support last year, said Barbara Saunders, acting deputy director of the Ohio Department of Human Services Office for Child Support Enforcement.
She said enforcement efforts are not as bad as the ACES report suggests because ACES calculates percentages by including cases that have no court orders for child support -- for example, where paternity has not been established. The ACES statistics also include cases that are decades old, she said.
"This makes it sound more alarming that it has to be," she said. "If you look at our collections in cases with orders, we collect in about 45.68 percent of the cases."
She said the state collects in 60 percent of current cases, not counting cases where a child is over 18.
Also, she said, Ohio has elected not to wipe out arrearages, while other states do so after as little as five years of not receiving a payment.
Kevin O'Brien, director of Parents and Children for Equality, a local support group for parents involved in custody and visitation problems, said his research shows that, when counting only recent cases, Hamilton County has collected great percentages of child support. He said ACES may be penalizing the state for older cases, some of which involve dead parents or children.
The state has about 1.1 million child support cases. In about 140,000 of those, the noncustodial parent pays faithfully.
In many of the other 960,000 cases, the custodial parent has asked the state for help in collecting; it is those cases on which the state is judged when it comes to collection rates.
Ms. Saunders' department adopted new guidelines July 1 to judge how it is doing with collections. It will now track and rate itself based on paternity establishment, collections of cases with orders, collections of current cases and collections of old arrearages (children past the age of 18).
On Oct. 1, the federal government will begin rating states on the same criteria, Ms. Saunders said.
