SD4 - The Impact of Child Support Guidelines on the Level of Child Support Awards in Virginia
Executive Summary: Senate Bill 454, enacted by the 1988 Session of the General Assembly, established statutory child support guidelines in Virginia. The legislation also directed the Department of Social Services and the Executive Secretary of the Supreme Court to cooperate in the design and implementation of a system to report and track all child support orders entered in Virginia to determine the effect of the use of the guidelines on the level of child support awards. Accordingly, forms were developed for use by the courts and the Division of Child Support Enforcement to calculate child support awards and to report essential case information for analysis. The Division of Child Support Enforcement was designated as the central location to receive completed reporting forms and to perform the data analyses required for this report. The results of the data analyses show that court-ordered child support awards are higher when the child support guidelines are used. In addition, the amount of the award increases in relation to the extent the guidelines are used. Under certain conditions initial administrative child support awards are based on amounts of public assistance paid to families. The data show that support awards are higher when based on public assistance amounts than when based on the child support guidelines. This is due to the income levels of the parties involved in public assistance cases. A more detailed explanation of the situations in which this occurs and the reason for the higher awards is included in the report. Analyses of the data also indicate that the average court support award is higher than the average administrative award due to higher parental income levels and more allowances for extraordinary medical and dental expenses and work-related child care expenses in cases decided by the courts. New federal welfare reform legislation enacted as the Family Support Act of 1988 prompted the 1989 General Assembly to amend the child support guidelines statutes. Effective July 1, 1989, there is a rebuttable presumption in all judicial and administrative proceedings for child support that the amount of the award that results from applying the guidelines is the correct amount of child support to be awarded. Two recommendations are made as a result of the enactment of the Family Support Act and Virginia's subsequent statutory changes and the fact that the results of this study show that the use of child support guidelines have a positive effect on the level of child support awards in the Commonwealth. The first recommendation, therefore, is an obvious one suggesting that the use of statutory child support guidelines be continued. The second recommendation proposes the elimination of the reporting and tracking system. |
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