Assistant CSEA Director Narka Gray said because this is Child Support Awareness Month, officials have also put some other initiatives in place to make it easier for parents to meet their obligations. Here are a few of them:
• Driver's license suspension amnesty: The agency will reinstate license suspensions if they report an employer or pay one month of support.
• Warrant recall: CSEA will ask the court to recall civil warrants if the parents make payment arrangements.
• Pay-by-phone solicitations: CSEA employees are working in the evenings calling parents and asking them to make credit card payments over the phone.
• Forgive and forget: Custodial parents can ask the agency to waive any back payments owed them, however if they are on public assistance, CSEA and or the courts can't waive what is owed the state.
Also as part of child support awareness the agency continued a pilot program started last November to try and right-size support payments.
Letters recently went out to 166 parents the agency suspects might need their monthly payment adjusted. This is the third round of letters in the pilot program that began last year.
Parents who have monthly support payments of $50 or less and pay consistently, were contacted because officials believe they might be able to pay more. Those who have orders of $500 or more per month and haven’t been making payments also got letters because their obligations might be too much, officials said.
“A lot of people look at the agency as enforcement, enforcement, enforcement, so we do want the public to be educated on the span of services that we can offer,” Gray said. “We want people to know we’re here to work with them and not against them.”
CSEA can be reached at 513-887-3362.
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