Saturday, January 08, 2000
Employers accused of profiting at kids' expense
Garnisheed support checks held too long?
BY DAN KLEPAL
The Cincinnati Enquirer
At least three corporations responsible for withholding child support from their employees' paychecks are accused of sitting on those payments, potentially earning interest, as needy families awaited their checks.
The three companies will be referred next week to the Hamilton County prosecutor's office, where they face contempt of court charges, said Lora Jollis, director of client services for the Department of Human Services. She declined to name the companies.
DHS officials say they have found dozens of cases where companies have been mailing child-support payments late, in some cases more than two weeks after the checks were issued.
“Some of these companies, we feel, are withholding the checks intentionally,” Ms. Jollis said. “They will go to the prosecutor's office.”
One nursing home will be referred to prosecutors for holding on to six checks, valued at $591 apiece. The checks were dated Oct. 29, Nov. 12, Nov. 26 and Dec. 10, but the postmark on the envelope was Dec. 22.
“That money stays in the companies' possession until we cash the check and it clears,” Ms. Jollis said.
The county started comparing check dates with postmarks on the envelopes they come in during the second week of December. So far, more than 1,500 checks have been examined.
Courts routinely order employers to garnish wages of their employees for child support. It is common for employers to collect scores of individual child-support payments at one time.
The City of Cincinnati — which has not been late in remitting checks — is one of the largest entities to submit child support to DHS, withholding more than $200,000 from 600 employee checks each payroll.
Mary Ann White, of Wyoming, said she could count on getting her child-support checks faster when her ex-husband hand-delivered them to her house.
The checks have been late for the past three months, since his employer started taking the payments out of his paycheck.
“There are a lot of dads out there not doing what they're supposed to do,” Ms. White said. “Why can't the good parents get their money to their kids? That money pays for basic things for us — food, electricity and rent.”
State statutes allow companies seven business days to remit the child support collected from employees' checks.
Betsey Boyd, of Reading, said she can't blame companies for taking advantage of what the law allows. But she thinks any company holding child support longer than that should be punished.
“The system works to the companies' benefit because it allows them to hold on to money that doesn't belong to them,” Ms. Boyd said. “But if those employees are paid on time, there's no reason my children can't be paid on time.
“There are a lot of things we can't do until that check comes.”
The controversy started just after Thanksgiving, when county officials fell behind in processing incoming child-support checks.
State law allows the county 48 hours to deposit the employer checks and dole the money out to the proper recipients.
After investigating why they were behind, the county found that many checks sent from employers had dates much older than the postmarks on the respective envelopes.
Ms. Jollis said the county will mail letters to other companies that have been late remitting payments and will keep tabs on their checks as they come in.
The county also will look into any complaints of late checks, and will make sure the employer has remitted the payment on time.
But with 19,000 checks coming in every week, Ms. Jollis said, it will be impossible to look at postmarks on every envelope.
“We'll be watching very closely from here on out,” she said. “But my concern is that it will be very hard to catch every company that is late, because there just aren't enough hours in the day.”
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