Controversial Child Support Recovery Method Proves To Be Highly Effective

By Christina Rentz

Published on October 18, 2005

Always searching for new ways to locate parents who owe the state child support, the Jefferson County attorney's office ran a $25,000 add in a local newspaper. The add listed the names of 1,000 parents who owed substantial amounts of delinquent child support and have failed to make a payment in more than a year. The office also set up a hotline for people to phone in information on missing parents.

The success of the newspaper add has far exceeded County Attorney Irv Maze's expectations. Since the add ran two months ago, the county attorney's office has located 371 missing parents and recovered more than $125,000 in delinquent child support. Maze predicts this figure will increase, as most parents who were located will continue to pay.

However, not everyone is pleased with the add. Many people have accused Maze of discrimination against fathers, despite the fact that eight percent of the listees were mothers. Maze denies these allegations.

Even though the add has been largely successful, Maze warns there is a long way to go. The 1,000 delinquent parents named in the add are just a small fraction of the 67,000 parents who owe back child support payments to the state.

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