On behalf of The Marks Law Firm, L.L.C. posted in Child Support on Friday, May 13, 2011
In Missouri alone, millions of dollars in outstanding child support payments are recorded every year. A family law judge may order a parent to pay a certain amount of child support to their ex-spouse, but enforcing this ruling is an entirely different and often more complicated matter. It falls upon the Missouri Department of Social Services to ensure that divorced parents regularly receive the amount of child support they are due.
Officials at the Missouri Department of Social Services have created an innovative new plan to increase the state’s ability to enforce child support mandates. The plan involves a new website which will help employers and the Department of Social Services work together more efficiently to identify individuals with outstanding child support payments.
Missouri state laws already require all employers to submit certain information to the government when they take on an employee with child support payments. The Department of Social Services’ new website makes this process less burdensome for employers by streamlining the paperwork involved and making the whole procedure easier to understand.
Policy Studies Inc., a local Missouri company, was hired to create and maintain the system. The company is a leader in its industry and already handles almost half of all new hire reports submitted by companies across the US. Policy Studies vice president explains that this work provides a vital service to parents nationwide, since approximately 70 percent of child support payments reach their final destination after being removed from an individual’s paycheck.
Supporters of Missouri’s new system optimistically predict that the website will bring in an extra $7.8 million dollars in child support by 2012.
Source: Daily Dunklin Democrat, “New Web site will improve child support collections.” 8 May 2011