Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 23, 1994 TAG: 9407250040
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The Virginia Division of Child Support Enforcement is taking a close look at two measures that would hit parents who refuse to catch up on overdue child-support payments right behind the wheel - denying, suspending or revoking their driver's licenses.
A law became effective this month that enables the division to get a court order to recall state-issued business and professional licenses of parents who owe back payments.
But Mike Henry, director of the Virginia Division of Child Support Enforcement, said the division is exploring the possibility of carrying that kind of penalty a little further.
The division is looking at a bill introduced during the last General Assembly by Del. Harry Purkey, R-Virginia Beach. While Purkey's bill included a business and professional license provision, it also denied initial issuance or renewal of driver's licenses of parents delinquent by more than one month in child-support payments.
The bill didn't make it out of committee but was carried over to the 1995 session.
The division also is looking at Maine's Family Financial Responsibility Act, which allows that state to suspend or revoke the driver's licenses of parents who are delinquent in child-support payments, Henry said.
Maine's stringent steps attracted the attention of President Clinton, whose $9.3 billion welfare reform proposal includes a requirement that all states take similar action against parents with mounting child-support debts.
"Traditionally, the only thing we could do was threaten or throw you in jail," Henry said. "This would provide a less drastic and more effective remedy than the threat of incarceration."
The division may propose the driver's license penalties to the Governor's Commission on Citizen Empowerment, which has been working since May on a plan to implement welfare reform measures enacted by the General Assembly.
"If you look at the Clinton welfare reform proposal, you'll see that child support is a major piece," Henry said. "I'm reasonably sure it will be at the state level, too."
Henry could not predict whether the penalty would end up in the commission's recommendations.
But "probably procedurally, this issue will," he said.
Purkey's bill required individuals seeking to apply for or renew their drivers' licenses to sign a statement swearing that they did not owe child support or, if they were court-ordered to pay child support, that they were complying with those orders.
Lying about either would be a criminal offense.
The division has a caseload of 340,000, of which 180,000 are in arrears, Henry said. Cases are growing at a rate of 3,000 per month, he said.
"We have one-fourth of children in this state in our caseload," he said. "Cases are coming to us because people aren't paying their child support."
The division collects on only one-fourth of its cases in any given month, Henry said.
Noncustodial parents who are self-employed or employed outside the mainstream economy are some of the most difficult to collect payment from, Henry said. Suspension or revocation of driver's licenses would be most effective in these cases, he said.
"Virtually everybody exercises the privilege to drive," he said. "Revoking that privilege is a way to get at people who are somehow sustaining themselves, but whose stream of income we simply can't identify.
"It's one way to get at that part of the caseload - to make it difficult for them to remain licensed unless they get their child-support payments caught up."
Only a handful of states - including Maine, Arizona, California and South Dakota - have enacted some type of driver's license penalties to collect back child support, Henry said.
In its first year, the state of Maine collected $11.5 million of its $35 million in back payments.
"We have $200 million [in back payments] in Virginia," Henry said. "If we were to have similar impact, that would be a $70 million collection.
"That would be a lot of money for a lot of children."
sh: o: not found STORY child suppor TOPIC penalties f KEYWORDK AUTHOR:LESLIET07/23/94 4
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