Many still avoiding child support despite license-suspension threat

By Jim Dooley
Advertiser Staff Writer

A driver's license suspension program aimed at increasing child-support payments in Hawai'i hasn't lived up to expectations and legislators want to know why.

The program, begun with great fanfare here in 1998, allows the state to suspend or revoke driver's licenses, professional licenses and even recreational licenses such as fishing permits issued to parents who are avoiding child-support payments.

Although the numbers of license revocation and suspension cases are available, just how well the program has functioned is unknown.

In 2002, 164 license-revocation or -suspension cases were initiated by the state Child Support Enforcement Agency and 65 resulted in payment plans, according to Attorney General Mark Bennett, whose office oversees the agency.

In 2003, just 54 cases were initiated and four resulted in payment plans.

Last year, 190 cases were initiated, with 15 resulting in payment plans, Bennett said last week.

How much money was actually collected under those payment plans was not available.

A resolution now pending at the Legislature would require the state auditor to examine the records of the license-suspension program.

"Much remains unknown about the efficacy of license suspension for the nonpayment of child support," the resolution says.

Bennett said he would welcome an audit of the program and he said state Sen. Suzanne Chun Oakland, D-13th (Kalihi, Nu'uanu), chairwoman of the Senate Human Services Committee, also supports such a study.

"There may be problems with the way the (suspension-revocation) law is written and administered and we want to take a look at those issues," Chun Oakland said yesterday.

She said her office has received complaints from agency workers and from parents that delinquent parents who receive a warning about pending license suspension or revocation "sometimes will send in one payment and then stop paying again." The one payment stops the suspension process, which has to be started all over again.

Hawai'i ranks last among the states in collecting delinquent child support, according to the latest available federal statistics. The state enforcement agency makes collections in 40 percent of delinquent accounts, which now total more than half a billion dollars, according to the U.S. Office of Child Support Enforcement.

That's the lowest rate among all 50 states, although the District of Columbia at 37 percent has the lowest collection rate of all agencies reporting to the federal government.

Among the collection tools now available to child-support agencies are automatic payroll withholding, tax-refund interceptions and license suspensions and revocations.

Arnold Enoki, administrator of the Hawai'i CSEA, said last week that because of limited resources the agency has concentrated on programs other than license suspension and revocation that have been "much more effective" in collecting delinquent money.

"Resources are the key," Enoki said.

When the suspension program officially took effect in 1998, the state mounted an aggressive public relations campaign that included news releases, television and radio public-service ads, and issuance of public notices and brochures about the program.

More than 400 warnings of possible license suspensions or revocations were issued when the program first took effect.

But the agency's Web site section dealing with the license-suspension program hasn't been updated since late 1997.

Several parents who contacted The Advertiser about their problems collecting delinquent child support said state workers refused to discuss the use of license suspension against the parent who owed the money.

"When I asked them about license suspension, they said they couldn't talk about it with me because it would violate my ex-husband's right to privacy," said one mother who claimed she is owed more than $30,000 in delinquent support and didn't want her name used because of possible embarrassment to her children.

Reach Jim Dooley at 535-2447 or jdooley@honoluluadvertiser.com.