Virginia's collection of child support increases

Federal efforts to help the unemployed and stimulate the economy are boosting Virginia's collection of overdue payments for child support.

Virginia collected more than $639 million in child-support payments in the past 12 months. That's a $10 million increase over the previous year, boosted by increased unemployment benefits, tax refunds and stimulus checks that the state has diverted from parents who owe money for the care of children who don't live with them.

"You get a tax refund, we get it," said Nathaniel L. "Nick" Young, deputy commissioner and director of child-support enforcement at the Virginia Department of Social Services. "You hit the Lottery, we get it. You win a disability-compensation lawsuit, we get it."

Child-support collections are surging in some parts of the state and region while lagging in others, such as Richmond, as parents struggle with lost jobs and diminished wages during the recession.

The office that serves most of the Richmond area led the state in child-support collections for the second consecutive year. The district, covering Henrico, Chesterfield, Hanover, Powhatan and Amelia counties, collected more than $53 million in the past 12 months, a 2.8 percent increase from the previous fiscal year.

"We try to take an aggressive approach," said Steve C. Nelson, director of the district office, based in Henrico. "If people are struggling with child support, we like to see a good-faith effort."

The big exception is the city of Richmond, which has seen child-support payments fall, requests for relief increase, and a shift of custodial parents to temporary public assistance for needy families.

Child-support collections fell 2.2 percent in the city last year, even as they rose statewide and in the surrounding counties.

Poverty is the reason, said Theresa D. Evans, director of the Richmond office for state child-support enforcement. "You've got to have something out there to get," she said.

The unemployment rate had more than doubled in the region in May compared with the previous year, but the problem was worst in inner cities such as Richmond and Petersburg, which had unemployment rates of 10.2 percent and 14.1 percent, respectively.

Almost 35 percent of Richmond's child-support cases represent families on public assistance, for whom money collected in child support is used to offset the state's costs of providing general relief. The number of custodial parents on public assistance increased 3.7 percent in the past year in Richmond, while the number who don't receive state aid fell 4.1 percent.

"Obviously, people are out of work," Evans said.

It's also a trend in the Henrico district, which includes many big employers who have gone bankrupt, closed operations and laid off thousands of workers in the past year. The number of child-support cases involving families receiving public assistance rose 11 percent in the past 12 months and now represents almost 19 percent of the district's caseload.

"I knew it was going up, but I didn't know it was going up that fast," Nelson said. "I was frankly shocked."

. . .

Statewide, child-support payments increased largely because of Virginia's electronic system for intercepting money intended for people who haven't kept up with child-support payments.

In many cases, those intercepted payments came from higher federal benefits as part of President Barack Obama's package for stimulating the economy.

In the past 12 months, for example:

• Interception of unemployment insurance benefits has increased 130 percent, to $15.5 million from $6.6 million.

• Collection of federal tax refunds has risen 36.3 percent, to $50.7 million from $37.2 million.

• Stimulus payments to many military veterans, people receiving Social Security disability and Railroad Retirement compensation are being diverted by the state from people with outstanding child-support obligations.

• The average collection for a child-support case rose to $154.80 from $145.93, or about 6 percent, while the state's caseload held steady at about 360,000 cases.

Altogether, the state intercepted payments exceeding $45 million from March through June, which is when tax refunds traditionally peak. "The only people who get money before we do is the IRS for back taxes or if you owed the state of Virginia taxes," Young said.

At the same time, state officials say they are making more of an effort to work with people who are behind in their child-support payments, especially if their financial condition has worsened through no fault of their own.

"Our first course of action is not to add insult to injury to people who are already losing their jobs," Young said.

Contact Michael Martz at (804) 649-6964@timesdispatch.com.