THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, December 25, 1995 TAG: 9512250067
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RALEIGH LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
Deadbeat parents could be located easier and lose their right to drive, fish or even work under a set of laws in 1996 designed to toughen child support statutes.
The state will have the power next year to withhold licenses from doctors and lawyers to drivers and hunters who refuse to pay their child support. North Carolina also will extend its ability to go after deadbeat parents in other states.
Absent parents in North Carolina have failed to pay child-support payments totaling $750 million over the past 20 years, according to state statistics.
The first of the new laws approved by the General Assembly go into effect on Jan. 1, with other sections scheduled for July 1 and Dec. 1.
A public awareness campaign begins on Jan. 3.
``The message throughout the whole campaign is that your time has run out and that you've got to pay up,'' said Dan Pickett, manager of client services for the state's Child Support Enforcement Section of the Division of Social Services.
On Jan. 1, North Carolina will join a coalition with 26 other states in which Social Services officials share information and enforcement power.
Employers in any member state will be required to withhold wages from the deadbeat parents' paychecks and send the money to state officials to dole out to children owed support.
The new law also will allow state officials to use records from financial institutions and utility companies to search for absent parents not living up to their obligations.
In July, state officials can revoke occupational licenses for refusing to pay child support. The licenses extend for driving, hunting, fishing and trapping in December. Nineteen other states have similar laws.
License revocation for professionals is the most controversial part of the law, with critics saying deadbeat parents will be unable to earn wages to pay their debt.
Supporters say the law provides a three-month warning, and parents can agree to a payment schedule to reduce the debt and get their licenses back.
``They will have some warning beforehand,'' Pickett said. ``It's not something where we're going to walk in and snatch their license.''
Lisa Blackwell, a 31-year-old mother of three, whose ex-husband stopped paying nearly $1,000 per month in child support this year, applauds the revocation statute.
But Blackwell, a member of national board of trustees for the Association for Children for Enforcement of Support, wonders if it will work.
``The thing that concerns me is that people who don't have enough of a conscience to pay their child support, do you really think they're going to have enough conscience to quit driving even though they don't have a license?'' she said. by CNB