Pa. lawmaker fighting $25 child support fee
By MARTHA RAFFAELE Associated Press Writer
Article Last Updated: 09/13/2008 12:57:34 PM EDT
HARRISBURG, Pa.Some Pennsylvania families who need the government's help to collect child support received unwelcome news in the mail this summer: They must now help defray the cost of that service.
The Department of Public Welfare has sent out notices informing parents it will deduct a $25 annual fee from child support payments to custodial parents who receive at least $2,000 a year and who have never received cash assistance welfare benefits.
As small as that may seem, Rep. Kate Harper considers it a big deal for single parents who struggle to feed, clothe and shelter their childrenand an outrage for the government to take any money intended to fulfill a child's basic needs.
"These people are taxpayersthis is their own money," said Harper, R-Montgomery. "This is one parent paying to another parent for the benefit of their children."
The fee is collected on a per-case basis, meaning that parents with more than one child-support case in Pennsylvania will pay the fee for each case.
Harper hopes the outcry from affected parents will be loud enough to prompt her colleagues to support legislation she introduced last month to repeal the fee. But persuading Democrats who control the House to revisit the issue in an election-shortened fall session will be a tough sell.
All states are being required to collect the fee under the federal Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which Congress passed to slow the growth of benefit programs such
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as Medicaid and student loan subsidies.
The states have the option of paying the costs, charging the custodial parent, or charging the noncustodial parent. Two-thirds of the fee goes to the federal government; the states keep the rest.
Like most other states, Pennsylvania has chosen to place the burden on the custodial parent under a bill signed by Gov. Ed Rendell in May.
The federal law requires the fee to be paid when states have collected at least $500 on a family's behalf. Pennsylvania is covering the fee for parents whose yearly child support amounts to less than $2,000, but those who get more have to pay the fee out of their pockets.
In a tight budget year, the state could not afford to absorb the full cost, which would have been $2.6 million for the 2007-08 federal fiscal year ending Sept. 30 and $3.2 million for the next year, welfare department spokeswoman Stacey Witalec said.
Officials determined that the state could more reliably collect the fee from parents who have custody of their children, given that about half of the parents who have been ordered to pay child support are in arrears to the tune of $1.4 billion in all, Witalec said.
States get involved in child support cases when the parent who owes has fallen behind on payments or refuses to pay. The state helps find that parent and takes steps to make sure the support is paid, such as withholding money from a paycheck or an income tax refund.
"We just had no option other than to collect the money from the custodial parent," Witalec said.
Harper disagrees, noting that the full cost of the fee to the state is minuscule compared to a multibillion-dollar state budget, 40 percent of which is devoted to public welfare spending.
"On this one, they made a mistake," Harper said.
Louise Marshall, who separated from her husband a year-and-a-half ago, faces her own tough choices even without the $25 fee.
The Doylestown woman makes $20 an hour as a part-time nurse in a pediatrician's office and receives about $1,200 a month in child support for two of her three children. She saw her first $25 deduction last month.
"You can't go to the food market and buy as much as you want," said Marshall, 47. "You don't buy as much fresh vegetables."
Martha Raffaele covers human-services issues for The Associated Press in Harrisburg. She can be reached at mraffaele(at)ap.org.
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