You will find yourself asking the questions too. Why is the federal government so involved in child support enforcement when the collections associated with Current Assistance Cases total less than one half of what the States are collectively spending on their own contribution to the program? It is definitely time to reign in free for all welfare spending by our federal government.

Over participation continues to be a major problem in the nation’s child support enforcement program. I have highlighted important sections regarding participation numbers, collections, and undistributed child support. Net Undistributed Collections appears to make up the equivalent of about 50% of the total collections of means tested needy families. These are nationwide numbers. You will see that between former and never assistance, actual needy families are a super minority of this social welfare program.

Adding eligibility requirements into the nation’s Title IV-D/Child Support Enforcement Program will benefit needy families and will also constitute a significant savings to the taxpayers at both the federal and state levels. Removing affluent feuding families from the program will also benefit children of those divorce and child custody cases, by emphasizing on the parent-child relationship rather than encouraging bickering and fighting over who is going to receive a check and for how much.

Actual Federal Expenditures Nationwide: $5,593,864,242.00 (Billions)

Estimated State Expenditures Nationwide: $1,845,975,199.86 (Billions)

Taxpayer Expense, not including other social programs and costs of incarcerations is over $7 BILLION!

ACTUAL COLLECTIONS FOR MEANS TESTED NEEDY FAMILIES: $946,283,222.00 (Millions)

(please note there is no verification to determine if the money was distributed after collection.)

This program would be better off distributing money out of the budget directly to needy families and just get rid of the employees behind the Child Support Enforcement Agency. With Net Undistributed Collections totaling nearly 50% of the amount collected for needy families, one has to wonder how many needy families are indeed being helped by the program. There appears to be no need for federal government involvement, since the amount distributed to needy families is about HALF of what the states are spending to keep their portion of the program going.

You might remember the article that I wrote titled "When Stealing From Children Isn't Enough" and if you don't you should probably take the time to read it. Because now we are back to the same issue again, and as you can tell its not the first and certainly won't be the last. Child support programs lack accountability nationwide.

Another occurrence of government officials stealing both from the taxpayers nationwide and children was documented by the LufkinDailyNews.Com website on April 3, 2008. In fact District Clerk Donna Phillips has all but been convicted of "allegedly" taking $15,758.16 from child support accounts.

NACOGDOCHES — Nacogdoches
District Clerk Donna Phillips has been arrested and charged with theft
by a public servant, a third-degree felony. She was arraigned Thursday
morning by Precinct 2 Justice of the Peace Dorothy Tigner-Thompson, who
set her bond at $8,500. She was immediately released after bonding out
of jail.

She also resigned Thursday, sending a letter to County Judge Joe English, in which she apologized for her "wrongdoings."

According to the arrest affidavit filed in Thompson's court,
Phillips is accused of taking $15,758.16 during 2007 from the child
support account she oversees.

Not too mention, on April 1, 2008 it wasn't a laughing matter for Cynthia Woodard who had to plead guilty to multiple charges resulting from her and her fiance' stealing $10,660.00 or more dollars from taxpayers and children. The Statesman Journal in Salem, Oregon reports:

A former Oregon Department of Justice
employee accused of stealing unclaimed child-support payments from the
state pleaded guilty to all charges in Marion County court Monday.

Keizer
resident Cynthia Diane Woodard, 50, pleaded guilty to two counts of
first-degree theft, two counts of identity theft and one count of
misdemeanor official misconduct.

Woodard received a 120-day jail sentence and five years of probation from Circuit Judge Jamese Rhoades.

Between
April and June of last year, Woodard and her then-fiancé, Glenn Edward
Huiett, stole about $10,660 in child-support payments intended for two
recipients, a Eugene woman and a Salem woman, Marion County Deputy
District Attorney Don Abar said.

Phillips isn't the first of the clerks to be caught or suspected of embezzling money from children and taxpayers. In fact, just last year I reported in Child Support Clerk Charged With Embezzlement: More Government Corruption

Another County employee, this one in Lauderdale County, has been
indicted by a grand jury on felony embezzlement charges for allegedly
stealing more than $216,000.00 of program money, paid for by taxpayers,
by writing unauthorized checks to herself from January 2002 through
April of 2007. This employee was released on a $10,000.00 bond, which
no doubt was probably a drop in the bucket considering she has already
been sitting on the $216,000.00 plus her lush salary.

Another critical story which cost taxpayers and children that was reported on this blog is Title IV-D Employee Embezzles Quarter of Million in Child Support Enforcement Money:

That's right folks. A California Department of Child Support Services
employee bilked the State Department of Child Support Services of more
than $250,000.00!!! This is just another example of how the current
Title IV-D program is abused by the various States that are voluntarily
participating in the program. The state police have indicated that
there are more than $300,000.00 worth of goods that the employee has in
her possession that were purchased with at least one government credit
card.

We also have bribery and extortion schemes going on which is lining greedy child support enforcement workers' pockets as well, demonstrating further that the child support program just continues to grow and lacks any real accountability as can be seen in the article Child Support Worker Arrested in Bribery Scheme:

According to Local6.Com another Child Support Worker was arrested, this
time in Florida for bribing individuals that were involved with child
support cases.

In the many States, Child Support Workers are funded directly through Title IV
Part D of the Social Security Act if the State programs voluntarily
comply with federal mandates on how to operate. In the beginning a
program to help needy families, it has now turned into a free for all
welfare spending program where the States focus on revenue generation
instead of helping actual needy families. For every dollar spent by the local agency, two more dollars come into the state as a result of the expenditure. This leads to very poor management of the progam and a significant forced over-participation which is costing taxpayers nationwide.

It's time to reign in free for all welfare spending where over 45% of
the participants in the Title IV-D welfare program are middle to
upper-class families that should be paying for their own disputes not
feuding on tax payer money. Shrink back the program for its intended
beneficiaries and shave off nearly 30,000 government employees
nationwide to help control taxpayer waste, fraud, and government
sponsored criminal activity.

For more information about the Title IV-D Program and It's Lack of Accountability:

Overview of Title IV-D Services: Click Here

How Federal Funding Drives Judicial Discretion... Click Here

Requesting Change: It's a Matter of Administration and Legislation: Click Here

The Weekly Standard Indicts CSE Title IV-D Welfare Program: Click Here

Will Democrats Actually Reduce Our Deficit? Click Here

Following the Title IV-D Money Machine. Click Here.

Taxpayers again should be asking for the resignation of more government employees in an effort to save the State of Montana and Federal Taxpayers millions. Why? Because of the simple fact that around a dozen blogs and media outlet services that I reviewed over the past few days are discussing the fact that Montana DHS employees within the Child Support Enforcement Office are complaining that their brand new computers didn't have the same games on them as other departments. First the government creates entitlement programs that people should not receive in the first place, like the child support enforcement program that has severe overparticipation in it, but then the government employees themselves would rather sit around and play games and bilk the federal, state, and local taxpayers out of millions believing they too are entitled to something for free from the taxpayers. Even if these 3000 employees played one of the games for just one hour per week that is 3000 HOURS times their hourly wage that is lost on the taxpayer dime each week!

For those of you not aware, for every dollar that the State of Montana puts out in guise of "Child Support Enforcement and Paternity Establishment" they receive two more federal dollars. Naturally that means the state of Montana likely has 66% more money than it knows what to do with and likely has 66% too many employees if they think they can sit around and play solitaire and minesweep all day long. Their actions also may violate federal law and should be investigated for misappropriation of Title IV-D monies under both the Grants and Incentive payment programs. (Title IV-D of the Social Security Act)

Just a Sample of the Titles of Articles Talking About Montana's Oversized Government Bureaucracy:

Games on state computers stirs flap
By CHARLES S. JOHNSON of the Missoulian State Bureau

Montana's Government Employees Complain Over Lack of Games

Computer policies — Game over State official's decision on computer games should serve as an example for all The Capital-Journal Editorial Board

Montana Public Health Department Loses Games

Andy Chalk posted on 31 Mar 2008 1:31 pm

No time for solitaire in Montana By
Times Wires Published Monday, March 31, 2008 10:10 PM

_1. http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cse/pubs/2007/preliminary_report/table_7.html

Does the Open Meetings Act Apply to the Child Support Leadership Council (CSLC) and the Friend of the Court Bureau Advisory Committee?

The Child Support Leadership Council (CSLC) and the Friend of the Court Bureau Advisory Committee (FOCBAC) do not follow the provisions of the Open Meetings Act (OMA). Unlike the Open Records from which the judiciary is excluded, the Open Meetings Act contemplates the inclusion of the judicial branch as a public body. We know for a fact from the minutes of the FOCBAC that the CASPER meetings were held in private before the quarterly FOCBAC meetings; that proposed minutes and approved minutes of FOCBAC meetings are not made available in compliance with the OMA; that some of our members have been excluded from CSLC deliberations that should have been public; and that there is a hostile and uncooperative attitude towards input from members of the public.

Lets put it to the task...

I and others made requests for the CASPER report which would have been included under the Open Records and Freedom of Information Act request before it was finally published on the SCAO website. The report was first indicated in the June 22, 2006 "Approved Minutes" of FOCBAC.

Child Support Program Review Committee (CASPER)

Mr. Capps informed the Advisory Committee about CASPER, which is an ad hoc
committee that examines the system to determine if there are ways of finding
increases in revenues or streamlining the system to the whole child support
program to make recommendations to the Program Leadership Group (PLG). The
Committee has nine people, (two from SCAO, two from OCS, one from DIT, and
two from PAAM) and meets every two weeks at the Hall of Justice.

As many people can see the Child Support Program attempts to operate in the dark with little public input because they know there are significant numbers of people that are now against the operation of the program as a free for all welfare program that is plagued with overparticipation (over half of which are middle and upper class feuding families) in an effort to drive up collection numbers and participation numbers to drown out the failures it has with the needy population. Successful collections mostly come from income witholding orders as opposed to shifting income to means tested welfare recipients.

At some point we will have to ask the question, why lift up one population at taxpayer expense when it just creates the same problem in the contributing class? The only difference is that there is now a bunch of bureacratic parasites that benefit, not society.

More headlines continue pouring in on the negatives associated with the nation's child support enforcement program.

Innocent Man Sent To Jail For Missed Child Support

BOSTON -- Systemic problems allowed an innocent Massachusetts man to be labeled a deadbeat dad and sent to jail.

Team 5 Investigates' Rhondella Richardson reported that it happened to John Caliri.

"I wake up in the morning and I go to bed at night, knowing that I've been in jail because of something I did not do, and I don't deserve it," said Caliri.

Original Source: http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/14763949/detail.html

The BostonChannel.Com, WCVB Channel 5, news site carried the story of another man that was affected by the child support enforcement program. This story brings up an interesting final point about the system essentially not listening to the evidence and just rushing to a judgment in an effort to compete for federal incentive money. "Anytime that you have government setting standards on negative outcomes you have a a serious risk of abuse, naturally you are going to see more broken homes and people jailed, because that is what the system is rewarded for," states Lary Holland.