Monday, December 28, 2009
SOUTH CAROLINA CHILD (NON) SUPPORT--A CONTINUING PROBLEM
In fiscal 2006, the Department of Social Services collected $253,901,823 in child support.
As of April 30, DSS has 152,162 active child support cases statewide. Of those, 125,102 parents are collectively $1,178,157,745 behind in payments.
Lowcountry breakdown:
--In Berkeley County, DSS is handling 4,863 active support orders. Of those, 4,351 are in arrears. Those people owe $48,384,993.
--In Charleston County, DSS has 14,428 active support orders. Of those, 12,053 owe an outstanding $119,664,284.
--In Dorchester County, DSS has 2,880 active cases. Of those, 2,351 owe $22,894,520.
In the last three years, the child support arrearages in the Tri-county area have increased significantly. And we suspect that the number of active cases has increased also. One would think that this state of affairs would be of concern to the local Legislative Delegation, particularly in view of the fact that the South Carolina General Assembly continues to divert funds from State Agencies to private groups such as Heritage Community Services and the State continues to incur penalties associated with this burgeoning child support arrearage.
There are tens of thousands of children going to bed hungry in the State of South Carolina each night while their daddies spend their child support on whatever they want. And yet neither the Governor nor the Republican-controlled General Assembly appear to be either capable of, or interested in, addressing the problem.
Labels: Child Support Collection, Computerized Child Support System, Institutional Mismanagement
