PARENT'S RIGHTS NOW!

According to South Carolina Department of Social Service Presentation to the Full Ways and Means Committee, the South Carolina Department of Social Services had a budget deficit of $28 Million as of January 13, 2011. Approximately $10 Million of the deficit is apparently a portion of a recurring federal fine imposed against South Carolina related to the State's failure to install a federally-mandated child support tracking and collection system. According to SC agency: retirement was key in $28 Million deficit, "about $17 Million of the agency's deficit disappeared when it changed how it calculated how much money it needed to cover its programs and froze hiring."

Before what amounts to an accounting error was discovered, DSS advised the Full Ways and Means Committee that the federal government was to blame for its deficit woes. However, the federal fines that were imposed for South Carolina's failure to comply with the federal mandate to install a computerized child support tracking and collection system are of DSS's own doing. And the problems with uncollected child support are the fault of CSED Director Larry McKeown. Additionally, Mr. McKeown has failed to institute measures to reduce the child support arrearages that have been successfully implemented in other States. And as a result of the ineffective manner in which Mr. McKeown has run his department, South Carolina has not only been fined over $90 Million, but has missed out on federal performance grants.

On the bright side, frightening as the "misplacement" of $17 Million is, South Carolina's new DSS Director appears to be on the ball. We would say she has already earned a raise and that if "the past is prologue" the 70,000 missing South Carolina Deadbeat parents should come out of hiding now and try to work out a payment plan before it is too late.