VA Family Law Reform Coalition

Child Support Guideline Review Panel
Joe Crane, Chairman
730 East Broad Street
4th Floor
Richmond, VA 23219 

Dear Mr. Crane: 

I am very concerned that the other members of the panel who voted to recommend Dr. Rogers Table 16, 70% column did so without fully understanding what the numbers represent and without thinking about the fiscal impact of the application of such significant increases.  Yesterday Dr. Rogers graciously spent more than half an hour with me on the phone in order to try to help me understand where the numbers come from and what they represent.  I did no analysis of the tables for two or three children and did not ask Dr. Rogers any questions related to them. The following is a summary of what I discovered. 

1.  The 70% column does not represent a 30% reduction from the Cost of Raising One Child.  It is rather a ratio: the difference between the percentage of the Cost of Raising One Child (CROC) to Combined Gross Monthly Income (CGMI) and the percentage of the 70% number to the Combined Gross Monthly Income, divided by the difference between the percentage of the CROC to CGMI and the percentage of the Current Schedule to CGMI.  I know this is very complex.  Dr. Rogers walked me through the following example: 

  Combined Gross      Current     Cost of Raising
  Monthly Income      Schedule      One Child          70%
           $3350               $481            $ 844           $582
% of CGMI ..............   14%              24%            17% 

CROC          24%                    CROC      24%
70%              17%     Current Schedule     14%
Difference       7%                                     10%             Now the ratio of 7% to 10%  equals 70% 

Now is that clear as mud?  When I tried using this formula, I could not get 70% at any other Combined Gross Monthly Income amounts. 

2.  Dr. Rogers said the Cost of Raising One Child (in an intact family) column was derived from the USDA “Expenditures on Children by Families, 2000 Annual Report.”  As he stated at the meeting, he can not give us any of the components or even state how much fixed and variable costs there are on average.  After our conversation, I reviewed  Table 4 of the ECF, and I could not correspond any of the figures with those found on Table 16 as presented by Dr. Rogers.  I would like further clarification. 

3.  Dr. Rogers verified that the numbers represent zero visitation because all the numbers come from estimates of raising children in an intact family.  The adjustments called Separate Household Discount are arbitrary and capricious, and he gave us five options, stating that if we wanted more he could provide them.  The “Target” amount was an attempt to go “mid way,” as he put it, between the Current Schedule as a percentage of Combined Gross Monthly Income (CGMI) and the Cost of Raising One Child as a percentage of CGMI.  Using the CGMI of $3,350 as an example, he said 19% is “midway” between 14% and 24%.   I tried taking the midway point of various CGMI and did not come up with amounts in the Target column for any of the various CGMI’s.  Perhaps I misunderstood him. 

4.  We discussed the inflation factor.  I told him the "U.S. Consumer Price Indexes for Selected Items and Groups, 1970-98," produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows on average, clothing and gasoline for transportation have gone up much less than inflation; food rose slightly less than inflation, and overall housing cost have remained about the same according to the World Almanac.  I reiterated my belief that the present schedule is therefore self-regulating.  He said he understood what I was saying, did not disagree and made no further comment. 

5.  I verified that his schedule is based upon maintaining the same standard of living.  However, he recognizes that separated parents can not maintain the same standard of living for their child as they had when living together.  He did not, however, give me any indication of what that decrease in expenditures should be.  He stated that the percentage of gross income spent on a child will be less when the parents are maintaining two separate households. 

1.  As I understand, Mr. Diehl said he would compromise and recommend the 70% column because it represented a 30 % adjustment from the Cost of Raising a Child in an intact family.  It does not!  Larry even stated that he could justify a 30% reduction because that represented roughly the dual fixed cost for two households. 

2.  Dr. Rogers made no adjustment for parenting time (visitation) by the noncustodial parent.  Therefore, it would be wrong for the parameters to state they are based upon 60 to 90 days visitation without further adjustments.  It would be unjust and inappropriate for a parent to ask for more child support if court allowed parenting time was not exercised.  Setting wide parameters effectively makes null factor No. 2 of the factors to rebut the presumption. 

Judges will have a hard time knowing how much to adjust without at least knowing the breakdown of fixed and variable costs.  Of course, D.C.S.E. staff would not have a clue about how to adjust for days of parenting time not exercised. 

3.  The schedule Dr. Rogers presented represents average expenditures in an intact family and has no relationship to actual expenses in separate households.  He stressed that the percentage of gross income spent on a child would be less if living in separate homes.  He told the panel on more than one occasion that if we did not like those numbers, we should tell him and he would give us what we asked for. 

4.  Since the cost of food, clothing, and gasoline have actually gone down compared to income in the past thirty years , the present schedule offers a self-adjusting increase in child support for most income levels which exceeds the inflation rate.  Technically, based upon the inflation factor, the child support obligation should be reduced from the present schedule. 

5.  It is reckless and irresponsible for this panel to recommend that the General Assembly adopt another schedule without a clear definition of what child support is: a schedule which is not based upon accurate defendable data of actual cost, given any definition, and a schedule which fails to recognize the inevitable lower standard of living and cost associated with alternating parenting times (visitation) in two different households. 

6.  Finally, if this new schedule becomes law I believe there will be fiscal impact.  No matter whether the new law will be considered a material change of circumstances or not, D.C.S.E. offers reviews every three years.  Currently the number of reviews is small.  Anyone would be stupid not to ask for a review once the new schedule is effective.  More than 300,000 cases could be reviewed. 

7.  If there is a clause which states that the new schedule in itself shall not be considered a material change in circumstances, then I wonder how courts will handle requests for modifications.  Judges will first need to calculate the presumption based upon the old schedule to determine if there is a material change other than the new schedule.  Will this be a violation of equal protection of law?  There will be increase in litigation and appeals for sure!  Consequently, there will be fiscal impact! 

My hope is that one of you on the prevailing side, which is all of you who voted yea, will see the necessity to move for further discussion and reconsideration of the vote regarding the proposed schedule. 

Please distribute this letter to the panel members for their consideration. 

Respectively submitted, 

Murray Steinberg

Footnote: A hard copy will follow for your records.

Child Support Guideline Review Panel
Joe Crane, Chairman
730 East Broad Street
4th Floor
Richmond, VA 23219

Dear Mr. Crane:

Because the panel had not asked Dr. Rodgers be sent a copy of my letter, nor had asked for him to respond, I was surprised to get a response from him.  However, I appreciate the time and energy Dr. Rodgers put into the job we gave him.  He is trying to provide what he thinks we want, but let me see if I understand his logic.

He started by saying, “Concern has been raised that this reduction only gets you half way to the 70 percent.”  This is the first time I’ve heard of that concern.  Did someone raise that issue?

In talking about the inflation factor Dr. Rodgers focused on the cost of “food and beverages, housing, and transportation which comprise approximately 67 percent of expenditures....”  He stated,  “The fact that they increased over either period provides rationale for updating the schedule.”  I’m no economist, but don’t we need to look at how income has changed in the same time period before deciding if a change in the schedule is warranted?  Don’t we also need to look at the components of the existing schedule and define child support before recommending to increase or decrease the schedule?

I wonder what report Dr. Rodgers was quoting when he said,  “... from the late-1970's to the late 1990's the income of most American families failed to keep pace with inflation....”.  Hans Bader with the Center for Individual Rights in Washington, D.C. sent me the following:

The Bureau of Labor Statistics chronicles a steady rise in the inflation-adjusted wages of the average American worker  in its recent report on the subject. [See Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Employment Cost Index, Constant Dollar, June 1989=100" (July 25, 2002).]  On Page 3 of that report is a table showing that after inflation, workers' wages have risen slowly but steadily from 1981 through 2002. [Table 2a, Employment Cost Index (Compensation), Civilian Workers]
That includes the period spanned by the current child support guidelines, beginning in 1989, since wages are 9.9 percent higher after inflation than they were in 1989.  (The table calculates all wages as a percentage of their 1989 level; the index was 109.9 in March 2002 and 110.3 in June 2002, according to Table 2a.  So there was a 9.9 percent rise by March 2002 and 10.3 percent rise by June 2002).
Ref:  http://www.bls.gov/web/ecconst.pdf.
(Note: You may need to type the URL ("http:/www.bls.gov/web/ecconst.pdf") yourself rather than just clicking on it if you have trouble.)

Although I intentionally did not mention the fundamental question of defining “child support” in my letter dated October 10th, Dr. Rodgers stated under the caption DEFINITION OF BASIC CHILD SUPPORT,  “The expenditure components that constitute basic child support in the Commonwealth of Virginia are provided in Table 2 of the draft manuscript.”  If Dr. Rogers believes Table 2 provides a definition, this would indicate Dr. Rodgers does not understand what child support is.

The components of expenditures used in his analysis in Table 2, include the following: “Food, alcohol and tobacco, housing, transportation, health care, clothing and apparel, education, and miscellaneous costs less pets, toys, and playground equipment.”  Table 2 does not even spell out parameters for the proposed schedule.

Furthermore, Dr. Rodgers really confused me with the conclusions he reached after making the following statements:

 “The combined expenditures on children of both single-parent households may exceed those of one corresponding husband-wife household, or of one of the single-parent households.”

“Studies have begun to show that at the current growth in incarcerations has contributed to growth in arrearages”

“Finally, the majority of obligors are fathers, and both married and unmarried fathers are more involved in child-rearing than they were 20 years ago... In addition to the children for whom they are paying or receiving child support, many obligors spend money on their children in addition to the child support they pay.”

“... the deterioration in labor market opportunities of less-skilled and less educated Americans and the negative impacts that incarceration have on an individual’s ability to meet child support obligations provide a sound rationale for updating the schedule.”

If I understand him correctly, he concludes the following: because fathers are spending more time with their children, and spend money than the child support orders require, and because the labor market has dried up, and because many men can not pay the amount ordered resulting in incarceration... he concluded that there should be “larger basic child support payments.”

When Dr. Rogers said that these factors  “provide a sound rationale for updating the schedule,” maybe he meant the schedule should be decreased?  Now that sounds more logical!

Once again I ask ... is this clear as mud?

We need more data and further clarification.  For now, I believe, we just don’t have enough accurate, relevant information to recommend changes.  These new schedules are not defendable.  I’m still hoping someone on the prevailing side will bring this issue back to the table?

Dr. Rodgers made it clear many times that if we don’t like these numbers, he would create another set.  We just need to tell him what we want.  These latest figures simply look like another attempt to provide us with what he thinks we want.  Maybe we should ask him to take another wack at it!

Please share with other members of the panel.

Respectfully submitted,

 Murray Steinberg

Note: A hard copy will follow