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DAY 2
FATHERS FAULT STATE’S SLOPPY RECORD-KEEPINGMillions in child support never make it to families
When fathers say their checks are in the mail, they’re not always fibbing. Checks sent to the state Department of Revenue are often held up for days before their children receive them - and in many cases the kids never see the cash at all. One out of 50 child support checks that the revenue department receives from fathers each week is delayed - often only for a few days, but sometimes for weeks or longer - because the state cannot determine where the money should go. In fact, the state has collected $11 million during the past 15 years that never made it to the families who were waiting for the money because state officials could not figure out where to send the payments. Fathers say the department has mishandled payments, credited them incorrectly, overcharged them and lost money altogether. One attorney says the problem is rampant. “It’s not just one or two cases,” said attorney Sheara Friend, who has represented many clients in disputes with the state about whether they owe child support. “It’s a nightmare.” It’s a pattern of sloppy record-keeping that was revealed in a 2000 audit. State Auditor Joe DeNucci found that 23 of 25 sample cases showed discrepancies in the amount owed, and 18 of those could not be explained by the revenue department. The audit also showed that some fathers were overbilled, in one case by $8,460.
Friend had one client who had been granted a court order to reduce his child support payments. But instead of taking less money from his paychecks, the state started taking nearly twice as much, Friend said. The payment snafu - $1,400 was being deducted from his checks weekly rather than the $650 he was ordered to pay - began in June, and it took countless conversations with state officials and 10 weeks to get the state to correct its mistake. “He feels he is being punished by the system,” Friend said. “And now he is paying legal fees because he ran into a brick wall.” Fathers say the state has them mired in a system that loses track of their money and unfairly labels them as delinquent. Bill Talis of Marshfield says he has always paid his child support on time. So when the state told him he was behind on support in 2002, he walked into a Department of Revenue office with a notebook full of canceled child support checks as proof of payment. The state was not satisfied, told Talis he still owed money and ultimately intercepted $1,500 from his federal tax refund. Talis, an attorney, said he had to take the state to court to straighten out the mistake. “I had all these checks and they wouldn’t even look at them,” Talis, 50, said. “I felt they had an absolute prejudice against noncustodial parents.” Not everyone agrees on who’s at fault when money gets held up. Marilyn Ray Smith, deputy commissioner for the revenue department’s Child Support Enforcement Division, said delayed payments are usually held up for only a few days. But parents and their attorneys say it can take weeks for money to reach the right hands. “Meanwhile, the custodial parent desperately needs the money,” said Newton attorney Jerome Aaron, who has represented custodial and noncustodial parents in child support disputes. Revenue department officials say delayed payments are often not their fault. Checks sent by fathers or submitted as payroll deductions from their employers arrive with insufficient information to determine who is making the payment and where it should go. In some cases, the state sends out checks and they are returned because the custodial parents have moved. Smith said the number of payments delayed - 1,000 of every 50,000 - represents a small percentage in terms of error rates, “but we realize that’s a thousand families that didn’t get their money the next day.” Of the $11 million being held by the state, Smith said, “It is money that we need to do research on and we don’t know how to make payments.” Fathers say even if money is temporarily held up, it shouldn’t take so long or be so difficult for the Department of Revenue to correct errors, especially when parents can provide proof they’ve paid. Friend is now working with four men who have sought her help to clear their names with the state. She said it appears from records that all four are up to date in their payments. By the time they come to Friend, they are exhausted from months of feuding with state officials and getting nowhere. “They have no hope that it will ever be resolved,” Friend said. “These dads are being accused of being deadbeats, and they’re not.”... Friend said she has seen cases in which an audit has revealed that the father paid too much, but the state will not reduce his future child support payments to make up for the error. “They basically said, ‘It’s too bad for the father.’ He has to try to recover the money from the former spouse,” Friend said. “He has to go after an angry ex-spouse who may or may not give back the money.” Aaron, the Newton lawyer, said the revenue department seems unable to handle the enormous number of transactions it is charged with processing. “It is a problem to get accurate numbers and to get a response,” he said. The department “is often not able to keep track of what people owe.” “If you try to call (the state) to correct errors, it is very difficult,” he said. “You can be on the phone from 20 minutes to an hour. Nobody acts with malice. They are dealing with too much information for their staff.” But those errors can be costly not only to families, but to taxpayers. DeNucci’s 2000 audit found that Massachusetts taxpayers lost about $21 million in federal reimbursement for child support enforcement that the state had not claimed - a third of which was recovered after the audit. Talis, the Marshfield father who was eventually able to straighten out his account with the state, feels that fathers are often labeled as deadbeats when they are not. “There are deadbeats. There are fathers who will not pay and deserve to go to jail,” he said. “And then there are people who are literally crushed by the system.” Dina Gerdeman may be reached by clicking here. |
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