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| Changes
coming to child support |
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| Georgia's guidelines for child support after a divorce may soon be overhauled for the first time in almost 15 years. |
| Two
state Superior Court judges have ruled that the current guidelines are
unconstitutional because they are not based on the actual costs of
raising children and they unfairly penalize non-custodial parents. The
first of those cases is already under review by the state Supreme Court.
If it upholds the verdict, it would scrap the current guidelines. Some lawmakers agree with the lower courts' opinions and have introduced bills in the Legislature to overhaul child support guidelines. They say they will press to have those bills passed regardless of how the Supreme Court rules. The current guidelines were adopted in 1989 after the federal government threatened to cut off welfare money to states without uniform guidelines for child support payments after divorce. "They were very hurriedly adopted," said Sen. Seth Harp, R-Midland. Harp, a family law attorney, is one of the Legislature's critics of the current guidelines. "They were basically copied from Wisconsin guidelines for welfare cases," he said. The rules assumed that one parent had sole custody. Further, the rules were based on cases where the non-custodial parent had a low income, and the custodial parent had no income. "They were never intended to be used in non-welfare cases," he said. The rules call for the non-custodial parent to pay a certain percentage of his or her pre-tax income in child support. Ninety-five percent of non-custodial parents paying child support in Georgia are men, according to the Office of Child Support Enforcement. For one child, the guidelines call for a range of 17 percent to 23 percent of the father's income. The share of income to be paid rises as the number of children does. For five or more children, the father has to pay 31 percent to 37 percent of his pre-tax income. The law assumes the non-custodial parent is the sole supporter of the children. But the tax code gives all of the benefits of the children to the custodial parent. "My husband pays taxes on all of the money he gives to his ex-wife. But he doesn't get to write off his daughter on his taxes," said Julie Batson, president of Georgians for Child Support Reform, which opposes the current guidelines. Batson also notes that her husband's ex-wife isn't required to prove that the money he sends to her is actually spent on their child. In February 2002, Atkinson County Superior Court Judge C. Dane Perkins ruled that Georgia's child support guidelines violate both the federal and state constitutions. And on Feb. 10 of this year, in a separate case, Rockdale County Superior Court Judge Sydney Nathan also declared those guidelines unconstitutional. "Both judges ruled that there is no economic foundation to those guidelines. They are not based on any studies of the actual costs of raising children," said Daryl LeCroy, the attorney who successfully argued both cases. The state Supreme Court is currently reviewing the Atkinson County case. Currently, neither the Atkinson County court nor the Rockdale County court uses the state guidelines when making child support orders. If the Supreme Court upholds the Atkinson County decision, no court will be able to use those guidelines. LeCroy says that the state got along well before it adopted those guidelines. But some family law attorneys say that if the guidelines are overturned, divorce cases could become even more heated. "It will overload the courts. With the guidelines, there's less reason to fight. Attorneys for both sides have a general idea of what the courts will rule and can advise their clients of those facts. But if there are no guidelines, these cases become more uncertain and more likely to be contested," said Dalton attorney Matthew D. Thames. But Harp and Rep. Earl Ehrhart, R-Powder Springs, have prepared new guidelines to replace the old ones. They say these guidelines will stand up to court scrutiny. House Bill 149 and Senate Bill 16 would mandate that courts use government statistics on what it actually costs to raise a child to determine what child support payments will be. Those payments will be divided between both parents based upon their combined after-tax incomes. "Georgia is now one of just four states to consider only the non-custodial parent's income in making child support awards," Ehrhart said. In fact, the federal law that forced states to adopt uniform guidelines for child support awards said those guideline should take account of both parents' incomes. Basically, if one parent makes 60 percent of the couple's combined income he must provide 60 percent of the child support under these proposed guidelines. Payments from one parent to another are based upon the amount of time each parent has with the child and the expenses each incures directly. If the parent responsible for 60 percent of the child support also has custody of the child 60 percent of the time, he likely would pay nothing to the other parent because his share of the child's support would probably be paid directly during the time he has the child. If he has no custody, then all of his support payments would go to the other parent. The Ehhart-Harp guidelines are based upon the work of Griffin economist Mark Rogers. "I'm the custodial parent of one child and the non-custodial parent of another, so I've seen both sides of the issue," he said. But Rogers said his real interest in this issue began when then-Gov. Zell Miller tapped him for a panel on child support in the late 1980s. He says that his guidelines will improve the child support system by grounding it in economic facts. But he admits that in many cases his guidelines will result in lower child support payments than the current guidelines. "Each case will be different. But in many cases child support awards are higher than what it typically costs a single parent to actually support a child, sometimes two to four times higher," he said. |
