Lary Holland: Official Blog, Links, and Resources

A Trout Creek woman who allegedly stole $52,623 from the Delaware
County Department of Social Services Child Support Unit was fired from
her position in January, DSS Commissioner William Moon said Friday.

The story doesn't end with this Trout Creek woman stealing the money. Who is going to pay back the children and the taxpayers? Inadequate supervision is what we have been saying all the long. Again, what is Congress doing to tie up the State's lack of professionalism in operating programs where they claim to be helping needy families, while stealing the money out from underneath them. This particular investigation took over 4 years to detect the outright theft.

State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli released an audit Friday
indicating that the Delaware County Child Support Collection Unit lost
$52,623 from 2003 to 2007.

The audit, requested by Northrup, also found that there was
inadequate supervision of personnel responsible for collecting and
depositing child support funds.

Taxpayers are currently footing the bill, largely for their
government to collect and process child support payments for middle and
upper class families. Actual needy families appear to be the minority
of collections through the Federal Title IV-D program.

Again, we need Congress to install more accountability into the Title IV-D program or add eligibility requirements to shrink down the size of these programs so that State Directors can better control their own employees. Don't be fooled by the best interest joke, that involves high paid government officials lining their own pockets at the expense of family and parent/child relationships.

No less than one hundred news reports, not including blogger redistribution, report that Anne Heche has run out of money and can't pay her $14798.00 monthly payments. After a review of the legal documents it would appear that her former husband under Case No. BD 459 638 filed an Ex Parte Petition and Order to Show Cause against Anne Heche. A copy of the order after the ex parte hearing is found here.(31 pages)

A judge ruled she would not have to pay the July payment to ex-husband
Coley Laffoon, but Superior Court Judge Gail Ruderman Feuer ordered her
to provide updated income and expense information as soon as she had it.

Most individuals faced with such circumstances would be accused of not prioritizing their income correctly. However she has received a lucky break when it comes to the draconian family court system.

She adds in the court papers: “I do receive some residuals from previous acting work. However, the amounts are nominal and are offset by recurring business expenses that must be paid whether or not I am working.”

Amazingly, most average people wish they could get a temporary break from spousal or child support as a result of their unemployment. Often times regular folks are running into obstacles from judges and child support enforcement angencies, anxious to keep enforcement actions pending against individuals in an effort to continue revenue for the local and state government flooding in from the federal government. For every enforcement action taken against a debtor that costs a dollar, two more federal dollars stream in from the federal government.

A judge on Wednesday gave her a temporary break, saying she didn't have to pay her next support payment to her ex-husband Coley Laffoon, 34, covering the month of July. But Superior Court Judge Gail Ruderman Feuer ordered the actress to provide updated income and expense information, People reported.

The entire docket in the case is available online through the County of Los Angeles Online Civil Docket application.

Case Number: BD459638
COLEMAN LAFFOON VS ANNE HECHE

Filing Date: 02/01/2007
Case Type: Dissolution of Marriage (General Jurisdiction)
Status: Pending

05/21/2008 at 08:30 AM in department CE67 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
OSC-Modification

07/02/2008 at 08:30 AM in department CE67 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
OSC-Modification

Parties

HECHE ANNE - Respondent

JAFFE DANIEL JAY - Attorney for Respondent

LAFFOON COLEMAN - Petitioner

SUMMERS JON SAMUEL - Attorney for Petitioner

This case will prove to be interesting and a great example of what type of conflicts continue to congest our legal system. These family court cases flood our courtrooms by allowing parties to continue fighting over money, children, and property. Our current adversarial system makes little sense because the fights are typically over the same thing that led to the initial dissolution.

The Jackson Citizen Patriot, April 19, 2008 published a story called "Hunt for deadbeats is on in Jackson" but it raised some interesting points. First off, I added commentary to the online edition:

The Counties have a good thing going with wasting local, state, and federal taxpayer monies on these programs.

In 2006, the 1.399 BILLION that was collected in child support only around 36 MILLION of that went to actual means tested needy families. Did I forget to mention that around 56 MILLION was undistributed and got to be escheated back into the budget?

It is important to note that 88% of the collections for this program are people that are not means tested and only around 3% of the total collections brought in are for individual families on TANF, meaning signed up and qualified for welfare. The program is bloated and focuses on collection from middle and upper class families who should not be in the program at all. It is taxpayer waste.

For every dollar spent on creating broken homes under the guise of the best interest of children, two more federal dollars come into the state. It is like a giant slot machine that ALWAYS pays out for the state. This is done without actual accounting of the program funds, the actual expenditures by the families, and otherwise just designed to fund a growing bureaucracy based upon a largely emotional argument with adverse results to the public good.

Let's start with taking people out of the program and only providing services to means tested needy families. Let's start by mandating equal custody when there are two fit, willing, and caring parents that just don't want to be together anymore. Just by doing these things, our courts will be freed up to focus on important matters that need their attention, like actual abuse cases, neglect cases, and criminal cases.

Taxpayers should be smarter than this. Be Bold, Be Concerned, Be a Citizen.

But here is where the proof is in the pudding:

More than half the money involved in 2007 that was "owed" to parents was forgiven by them, again demonstrating that many individuals involved in the program don't want to be, or otherwise shouldn't be in the program at taxpayer expense.

Last year, they arrested 244 people and resolved about $259,952 of child-support debt. About $120,000 of that was paid to custodial parents. Mothers or fathers forgave the remaining $139,815.

This year about 2/3 of the money that was owed was also forgiven this year as a result of the local county crackdown.

Since January, Finco and deputies have arrested at least 80 people on random weekend nights, times when parents don't expect they'll be caught. In doing so, they collected $38,731 for parents and their children and resolved another $77,786 when custodial parents forgave debt owed by arrested parents.

Adding more ammunition to the arsenal of reasons that eligibility requirements should be added to the child support enforcement program instead of allowing the State and Counties to artificially increase the participation levels with "all" divorces, child custody, and paternity cases at taxpayer expense.

The Nationwide Blueprint for Title IV-D Reform

• Social Security, Welfare, and Child Support Enforcement
• Necessary Program Changes: Protecting Taxpayers, Parents, and Children
• Supporting Budget Cuts

The Commonwealth State of Virginia has been reported from multiple sources to be suing the Texas-based private child-support collection agency known as SupportKids, Inc. In a political atmosphere where budgets are tight, some states are struggling to maintain their monopolies where they can instead of sharing markets with private firms, saving taxpayers billions nationwide.

The state is suing Supportkids Inc., a private child support collection
company based in Texas, to prevent the company from interfering with
the enforcement of child support in the Commonwealth.

Governor Tim Kaine and State Attorney General Bob McDonnell
announced the lawsuit today (Friday). “Any actions that impede the
Commonwealth’s efforts to lawfully and fairly collect child support
must be addressed,” Governor Kaine said in a news release.₁

The various state child support agencies are funded through a federal grant and incentive program under Title IV-D of the Social Security Act₂. For every three dollars spent by a local state agency for actions like paternity establishment, child support enforcement, and creation of child support orders, the local agency only has to contribute $1.00 while the Federal government pays the State and Local agencies $2.00. This program has been referred to as a "Free For All Welfare Program" where the overwhelming majority of the program are middle and upper-class families fighting over money and the more actions that the local agency takes the more money they receive from the Federal Government.

When private firms refuse to work with the State and Local agencies, despite an individual parent contracting with a private collection firm, there actually exists the potential to cost the State and Local agencies federal funds. With a loss of federal funds, State and Local agencies look for additional ways to bolster membership by requiring nearly every case involving children and spousal support to go through their local Title IV-D offices despite not being means tested for need like other government welfare programs. Essentially the programs reward for a negative result instead of positive results of actually solving a root societal problem.

Families typically
turn to a private, for-profit child-support collection agency when the state
has not been successful in collecting payments.

According to the
Supportkids' Web site, the company has collected more than $360 million since
1991 on behalf of clients, making it the largest private child-support
collection company in the country.

In the news release
about the lawsuit, Kaine said Virginia's Child Support Enforcement agency
collected more than $608 million last year for 484,000 children who are owed
money. ₃

SupportKids, Inc. has claimed to be successful at collections where many State and Local agencies have failed and if a parent contracts with such a collection service they should be allowed to do so instead of requiring a parent to use government and tax payer subsidized programs against their will. Right now the tax payers are paying for the entire expense of child support enforcement and other services at the federal, state, and local level and if participants would rather do business on their own dime instead of the taxpayers dime we should certainly encourage it.

Necessary changes to the national child support program should be implemented to remove the multitude of cases nationwide that do not qualify for current state aid programs and allow parents to conduct business with whatever firm in their judgment will get the desired result. Society cannot force business owners to chose between one or more collection agents, so government shouldn't be able to force parents to work with a government monopoly where there are clear alternatives that do not cost the taxpayer. Child Support orders are regular civil judgments and should be treated accordingly not as a business for our federal, state, and local governments to subsidize bloated bureaucracies.

_{1. WSLS News, February 8, 2008, http://www.wsls.com/sls/news/state_regional/article/virginia_sues_texas_company_over_child_support_enforcement/5283/}

_{2. Social Security, Welfare, and Child Support Enforcement, February 2006, Lary Holland & Jason Bottomley, http://www.laryholland.com/ssacse}

_{3. The Virginian-Pilot, February 9, 2008, http://hamptonroads.com/2008/02/va-sues-texas-collection-agency-over-child-support-payments}

Let fathers be

Regarding Monday's Page One article "New school year brings new class: parenting": The problem is children having children — girls who have babies and boys who do not provide child support. The treatment for the problem is education. The prevention for the problem is to keep dads in the lives of their children.

How many studies does it take to get the word out? Adolescents reared in homes without fathers are significantly more likely to engage in premarital sex. Children need both parents.

It is time for courts to quit removing dads from the lives of their children in custody cases. We can throw money at parenting classes. We can throw money at child support enforcement. But until we allow dads to father their children, it is money wasted.

DON MATHIS

Sherman

Published by Houston Chronicle January 16, 2008, 10:13PM

Original location: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/5461621.html