By Jim Clark / For The Herald
Over the last 30 years, we have seen the disastrous results of a decision the Washington state Legislature made in 1991 to stop providing automatic credits to parents who pay child support when they have more than 25 percent parenting time of their children. The determination of what is significant time is now left up to judicial discretion to be determined on a case-by-case basis.
Approximately 58 percent of all Washington families share residential custody at least 25 percent of the time or longer according to 2016 court statistics. Instead of these families automatically sharing the total child support money from both parents in direct proportion to how much residential time the children spend at each parent’s home, judicial discretion now awards residential credit to only 7 percent of all families. For 51 percent of all families in Washington, one household receives all the child support money while the other household receives nothing.
Leaving the apportionment of child support up to unpredictable judicial discretion enables judicial bias to unequally protect the majority of all Washington families and directly harms the children the state is supposed to protect. Judicial discretion subverts the legislative intent of child support to equitably apportion support between the parents so that comparable circumstances result in comparable orders and the adversarial nature of the proceedings is reduced because support is predictable and more voluntary settlements result.
For many parents, separation/divorce is terrifying because judicial bias awards majority custody to one parent in 80.5 percent of cases and denies residential credit to 93 percent of all families. Parents do not have equally protected rights when one parent wins and one parent loses in the overwhelming majority of all cases. Children suffer the most when alienated from parents they seldom, if ever, see, and society pays the price for the increases in teen suicides, high school dropouts, substance abuse, prison, behavioral disorders, homelessness and runaway children.
Courts deny equal custody and equal financial protection to fit, loving and willing parents in order to increase the dollar amount and number of child support orders the Division of Child Support enforces. The Federal government provides Title IV-D matching funds so that for every dollar of conflict the courts create, the federal government pays the state $2. Additional performance incentives provide another 5 percent of the Child Services budget so that 71 percent of the agency’s $148.2 million annual budget is federally funded. Far too many family courts and legislators chase federal dollars while ignoring the damage to our children and families.
Will any of our state legislators have the courage to stand up for our families this legislative session? No legislation has been proposed similar to last session’s House Bill 1050 (equal custody) or 2017’s original version of House Bill 1603 (residential credit adjustment). The Legislature continues to ignore the federally mandated 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019 Child Support Schedule Workgroup’s most important and repeated recommendation to make residential credit an automatic adjustment to the child support schedule.
After 30 years of destructive family policies, it is long overdue for the Legislature to equally protect parental custody rights and to once again provide equal financial protection to shared parenting homes. What is actually in the best interest of children is to fully support equal shared parenting rather than intentionally create family conflict and alienate parents for the state’s short-term financial gain.
Jim Clark is the Washington state chairman for the National Parents Organization. He lives in Lake Stevens.
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