Washington Votes Forum

Introduced in the House on February 20, 2007

Click here to view bill details.

This bill increases the percentage of obligation on fixed dollars. The support for children is increased through inflation now. As parents earn more money, more is required to go to the children. This bill just takes more money out of the fixed funds. For example under the old system, a $1000 income resulted in 22% of the income required for support. Under this bill, a $960 income requires 25.8%. But, if the parents were to have earned more money, the support amount would have gone up anyway. This bill just makes it harder to be responsible.

Please withdraw this bill, due to the extreme hardship it would impose upon noncustodial parents. Thank you.

This change might be relevant to consider if the child support tables were based only on the amount required to cover the basic needs of a child. They are not. The support amount is based on a percentage of the combined income of the parents and is therefore unrelated to the cost of living. As the income of the parents increase, so does the amount of support under the current tables. No change is necessary. If we are going to view child support as cost-of-living based and therefore subject to the changes of inflation and deflation, the entire table would need to be changed to cover only the costs of providing for the basic needs of a child, regardless of the income of the parents. What should be updated is the imputed income table for voluntarily under and unemployed parents, as it still uses 1998 data and is directly related to how child support is currently calculated.

I believe the bill has potential. The court system makes it difficult to request any revisions to the support schedule for the first three years unless a catastrophic event occurs, such as one of the parents losing their job. I am a custodial parent, with a non-custodial parent who had their visitation rights taken away by the courts as their involvement and conduct would have an adverse effect on the children. The non-custodial parent does not contact or see the children in any way as they choose to not proceed with the requirements set forth by the courts which would allow them to have their communication and visitation rights reinstated. The support was calculated with the non-custodial parent having the children every other weekend, every Wednesday night, and various holidays. As the non-custodial parent has chosen to not proceed and regain their visitation rights, they are only required to pay the funds originally calculated. I have contacted DSHS and attorneys who have advised that it is near impossible to have the scheduled revised as it has not been three years since it was entered into court. Being on a limited income, the time the children were with the non-custodial parent lifted some financial burden as they were being fed by them. If the kids mentioned they needed shoes or a storyboard for science at school they would get it for them. Since the non-custodial parent does not see the children, this no longer occurs. It seems it would be beneficial to the custodial parents to also have an amendment to the bill to include a clause which states that custodial parents may request that the schedule be reviewed for revisions when the non-custodial parent is restricted by the courts in regards to limited visitations, supervised visitations, or do not have visitation rights at all. The custodial parent should not have to wait for three years and endure the burden of the financial loss which ultimately results in further hardship on the children themselves.