Monday, November 24, 1997
Child support enforcement Parents rally around
dissatisfaction with attorney general's office
By BETH HALLMARK Staff Writer
In Christi Robbins' Abilene home, 10 women gather to offer
each other support - something they're having trouble getting
from their children's fathers and the state office designed to
help them.
But it's the latter, the Texas attorney general's office, that
has rallied the group.
Fed up with the quality of child support enforcement services
they've received from the office, the women are ready to organize
their efforts to highlight the problems and improve the system.
The Texas attorney general's office handles about 900,000 child
support cases a year. Its services include establishing paternity
and child support orders, locating deadbeat parents, enforcing
payments and collecting and distributing checks - services the
women gathered at Robbins' house say are touted more than they
are carried out.
"The majority of the investigation is done by us,"
said Lynda Spurlin, who first sought the attorney general's help
when her ex-husband owed her $5,000 in support. She said he now
owes more than $10,000.
"We usually can't get through to a caseworker, and when
we do it's only to find out they changed the caseworker that week,"
she said.
Despite telling caseworkers exactly where to find the deadbeat
parent, the women claim action often continues to languish.
"What do I have to do - pick him up and bring him done
there?" one mother asks.
The women said even when a parent is making payments, delays
at the attorney general's office can hold up checks.
"The attorney general's office causes you as much frustration
as you had without it," Robbins said.
It was Robbins' letter to the editor, published several weeks
ago in the <I>Reporter-News<I>, that sparked the group's
crusade. In the letter, the single mother of two expressed her
dissatisfaction with the way her child support case had been handled,
asking if other parents had experienced the same problems.
Robbins found she wasn't alone. Several similar letters were
published, including one urging parents fed up with the attorney
general's office to join forces and work for change. Soon the
group began meeting and comparing notes.
Robbins said it was the pattern of problems she encountered
that led her to expect others had similar stories - complaints
of incorrect information entered about cases, being shuffled from
one automated phone system to another, lack of child support enforcement
and little action.
"I didn't believe I was the only one," she said.
It took Robbins more than 2 years of struggling with the system
to finally get her payments.
But a spokesman for Attorney General Dan Morales defended the
office's effectiveness by citing its record.
"If you look at statistics compiled by the federal government
and comparisons between states, Texas is in the top 10 for categories
like collections, the number of paternities established and the
number of court orders established," Ron Dusek said.
"As far as the percent increase in child support collections,
Texas leads all other states," he added.
Last year, the office collected about $700 million in child
support - an $81 million increase from the year before. Dusek
estimates that payments are collected on about a quarter of the
900,000 cases handled a year.
"Child support (enforcement) is a very difficult program
to be successful at," Dusek said. "We only get the hard
cases. Even though we're one of the leaders, it's still difficult."
However, he does not dispute some of the problems, such as
phone lines that are often busy.
"We have expanded our phone system, but it would require
a doubling or a tripling of our phone lines to meet the demand,"
he said. "We get millions of calls on a regular basis. Are
we going to put our resources into answering phones or for caseworkers
and lawyers?"
Currently, 797 caseworkers and 190 attorneys work for the child
support division. The department's annual budget runs about $170
million a year.
But for parents waiting for the attorney general to help them
get their payments, answers are valuable. Some of the women at
Robbins' house say they would be willing to volunteer to help
move cases along.
For now, they will use their time to continue organizing their
group, already named FACT - Fast Action for Children of Texas.
"The bottom line is the children," said Spurlin,
the mother of two teen-agers. "There's times that if I had
gotten the child support it would have been a pair of shoes that
the school requires you to buy. Instead, I have to call the school
and apologize.
"You're continually apologizing to everyone, but the main
person you're apologizing to every day is your child."
<I>For more information on FACT, write to P.O. Box 5385,
79608<I>
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Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps Publications
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