VA Family Law Reform Coalition

1999 Child Support Guideline Reports

• Report To The Secretary of Health and Human Resources - Oct 15, 1999
  
  
• Minority Report: Virginia's Quadrenial Child Support Guideline Review Commission, by Barry M. Koplen - July 20, 1999
  
  
• Appendix A Rational Basis is the Key Focus in Emerging "Third Generation" Child Support Technology
  
  
• Appendix B Virginia Child Support Guideline Review with Recommendations For Essential Reform
  
  
• Appendix C Improving State Child Support Guidelines  
  
  The author prepared this paper in response to a written request from Joseph S. Crane, Chairman, 1999 Virginia Child Support Quadrennial Review Panel, for a submission setting forth the author's method and suggestions as to guidelines for determining child support award amounts. The author was an appointed member of the expert panel that provided advice on the general nature of the research and made recommendations that appeared in the Evaluation of Child Support Guidelines, prepared by CSR, Inc, for the Office of Child Support Enforcement ( OCSE ) in 1996. He is also author of a model child support guideline that appeared as Chapter 11 in Child Support Guidelines: the Next Generation, which was published by the OCSE in 1994.
  
  
• Appendix D The Father of Todays Child Support Public Policy, His Personal Exploitation of the System, and the Fallacy of His " Income Shares" Model
  
  
• Memorandum from Richard J. Byrd to the Virginia Quadrennial Guideline Review Panel Regarding Analysis of PSI Study and Recommendation, May 26, 1999
  
  
• Virginia's Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC), 1999

  This commission conducted activities related to the state's federally required four year review of its child support guidelines. Section 20-108.2 of the Code of Virginia also requires the Secretary of Health and Human Resources to convene a panel to review periodically the child support guidelines. According to the review panel's 1999 report, the panel had concerns regarding the reliability and validity of the data and studies upon which the guidelines were based. Because of these concerns, the panel questioned the equity and validity of the current guidelines, but they felt that no preferable alternative approach was currently available. Therefore, the panel recommended that the current guidelines be retained as an interim decision, but that the General Assembly should authorize and fund a Virginia-specific study of the cost of raising children in "non-intact families," to be used as the basis for the next review of the guidelines. Several reports came out of those activities, including reports on the cost of raising children in Virginia and recommendations for the next four year review--including considering raising guidelines for parents with combined earnigs of $30,000 or LESS. The Commission reports, October 2000, were:

  • Final Report: Child Support Enforcement
  • Final Report: Child Support Enforcement Briefing Packet
  • Technical Report: The Cost of Raising Children
  • Technical Report: The Cost of Raising Children Briefing Packet
  • DIT Rate Adjustment Request Memo