ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Saturday, September 21, 1996           TAG: 9609230058
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: C-3  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: Associated Press

STATE TO STEP UP EFFORTS AGAINST 'DEADBEAT DADS'

State welfare officials plan to publicize Virginia's latest list of most wanted ``Deadbeat Dads'' in a broadcast and billboard advertising campaign.

The dads are considered deadbeat because they have avoided paying child support.

``It's troubling that we have to use resources of the commonwealth this way, but most important that we do,'' Clarence Carter, the state's social services commissioner, said Thursday. ``We never want to forget this is about people.''

Gov. George Allen designated September as Child Support Enforcement Month to promote Virginia's welfare reform efforts.

A law that took effect July 1, 1995, requires women who receive Aid to Families with Dependent Children to name the fathers of their children or risk losing benefits. Once they identify the fathers, the state tries to collect child support.

``We are not just serious about making sure individuals work for their benefits,'' Carter said. ``We're equally as serious about making sure children have two parents responsible for their care.''

Another law that took effect in July 1995 allows the state to suspend the driver's license of a parent who habitually refuses to pay child support. It is the companion to a 1994 law that allows an occupational license to be suspended for delinquent child support payments.

An additional $21 million has been collected as a result of those policies, state officials said.

The state collected $250 million in child support in the fiscal year that ended June 30, said Martin Brown, a social services spokesman. That was 14 percent more than in fiscal 1995, when $218 million was collected.

But that is only a dent in the more than $850 million owed by parents, said Health and Human Resources Secretary Robert Metcalf.

``If that goes uncollected, it will be paid by you and me, the taxpayers,'' he said.

The latest list is the 10th since Virginia's child support Most Wanted program began in 1989. Of 87 parents on previous lists, 18 have been located.

In August, the state had 392,000 child support cases, or 500,000 children not receiving child support, Brown said. About 2,500 new cases are added to the rolls each month.

LENGTH: Short :   50 lines