County Extends Child-Support Collection Program

Orange County supervisors agreed Tuesday to spend $50,000 over two years on a pioneering program that recovers past-due child support, even though pending state legislation would remove enforcement from local control.

The board’s 4-0 vote allows the district attorney’s office to continue a program that rewards anonymous tipsters with $50 to $250 for reporting those who evade child-support obligations.

Local prosecutors are worried, though, that the nation’s first such rewards program would be unraveled under the pending legislation. Sue Delarue, chief of the district attorney’s family support division, has doubts about taking a unified statewide approach.

“There are 58 counties in California; each one has its own unique issues and needs,” Delarue said. “Each county has different degrees of autonomy. Each county serves different populations. Each county is presented with different issues.”

Last year, the program handled 363 calls that resulted in 39 deadbeat parents being forced to pay overdue child support totaling about $171,000, she said. Rewards were given to 21 callers, Delarue said. About half of the callers did not want a reward, she said.

The county will spend $25,000 a year on the program. Orange County is ranked near the bottom of the state’s counties in collections, though its collection rate has been improving in recent years.

In February, of 57,186 cases in which payments were overdue, the county collected money in 17,786 of them, or about 31%. Collections increased 19.2% from the year before.

California’s effort to collect past-due child support payments is widely viewed as one of the nation’s worst, with $8 million in unpaid support.

“It’s clearly not working,” said Dave Sebeck, a spokesman for Senate President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco). “Now, you’ve got 58 different district attorneys and 17 different state agencies who all have a piece of it. There’s way too much fragmentation and not enough accountability.”

The proposed legislation, sponsored by Burton, transfers payment enforcement to a new state agency, the Department of Child Support Enforcement.

Sebeck said the legislation doesn’t necessarily mean the death of successful local programs, such as Orange County’s. One of the new agency’s goals would be to expand effective regional programs to a statewide level, he said.

The Senate Judiciary Committee passed Burton’s bill last month. A similar Assembly bill recently was passed by the Human Services Committee.

On a separate issue, the board tentatively approved a dramatic increase in fines levied against those who grade property without permits. Grading violations now bring fines of $100 a day, but the proposal would allow county officials to levy flat fines of $250 to $25,000.

Residents in unincorporated areas, mainly the South County foothills area, have been moving large amounts of dirt to flatten land, create access roads or construct other buildings, such as barns.

But grading requirements are “very tough,” said Thomas Mathews, a county planning manager, and improper grading can result in landslides or mudslides. The county wants to step up enforcement because it suspects that many residents are grading without permits. Daily inspection is difficult, so the county also plans to hire seven new code inspectors.