The 2005 Ohio Child Support Guidelines Council has been meeting since early in 2003 to make recommendations to the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services (ODJFS) concerning the child support guidelines. The recommendations of the Council are in the process of being finalized. ODJFS contracted with Policy Studies, Inc. (PSI) to do a study to determine the effect of the recommendations on the Ohio child support guidelines.
Initial Recommendations:
The study of the initial recommendations was completed in November (see below) and it showed that the effects of these recommendations would be to raise the child support tables enormously. Depending on the income of the parents and the number of children, child support could have been increased by between 23% and 1117%. (That's right, more than 10 times, though that increase would never actually be imposed because it applies to parents who fall into the poverty category.) Many nonresidential parents (as well as residential parents who are paying child support would have seen their child support increase by 50% to 100% if these initial recommendations had been proposed to the legislature and enacted into law.
Revised Recommendations:
At its meeting of November 14, the Child Support Council decided that their initial proposal would raise child support levels too much, too fast. In my opinion, some believed that the increases originally proposed would be higher than guideline levels should be. Others believed, I think, that it would be great if they were set at this level but thought the prospects of getting such startling increases through the legislature were poor. In any case, the Council revised its recommendations. This led to a second study by PSI to calculate child support tables.
This study, dated December 20, shows the basic child support tables (those used calculate the combined obligation of the two parents) going up by anywhere from 7.1% for high income parents with only one child, to 346% for low income parents with six children. The effects of these proposed changes are not obvious because for very low income parents, there is a new way of calculating a "self-support reserve" which is designed to ensure that child support obligors will not fall below the poverty level of $9,600 per year.
Remember that these numbers are not measures of inflation. The increases are increases in the amount that parents with the same income are presumed to expend on their children under the old tables and under the new tables. For example, under the existing tables, parents with a combined income of $36,600 having two children are estimated to expend $9,053 on their children. Under the new tabes, parents with exactly this income are estimated to spend $11,798 on their children--an increase of over 30% on the same income.
PSI Study: Ohio Economic Study for 2005 Guidelines (December 20, 2004)
Minority Report:
I wrote a minority report protesting the initial recommendations (but prior to the production of the PSI Study on these recommendations).
Minority Report of the 2005 Ohio Child Support Guidelines Council by Donald C. Hubin, Ph.D.
The Council's Response to the Minority Report:
Publishing minority reports is a common courtesy to, and display of respect for, a member of a committee who cannot, in good conscience, sign on the the committee recommendations. All previous Ohio Child Support Guidelines Councils have followed this common practice and published all minority reports submitted. I was told by the chairs of the current Council to submit my minority report by November 5. I did that with several days to spare. The Council chose, for the first time in its history not to publish a minority report--the first report written by a representative of obligors. Indeed, the Council declined to publish even a one-page executive summary of the minority report.
My Resignation:
As a result of the unwise recommendations of the 2005 Ohio Child Support Guidelines Council as well as the insulting decision not to publish my minority report, I felt I had no choice but to resign from the Council. I have done so. Below is a copy of my letter of resignation.
Don Hubin's Letter of Resignation from Ohio Child Support Guidelines Council (11/23/2004)