Child-support bill falls short

The Ohio Senate is considering a bill that would create significant changes to Ohio’s child-support laws, and they are certainly in need of revisions.

Senate Bill 125 would ensure that lowincome child support obligors are not driven into abject poverty by the child-support obligations imposed on them — a result that winds up hurting those that the laws are supposed to benefit.

Despite some welcome changes proposed by S.B. 125, National Parents Organization opposes the bill in its present form. This is because NPO’s primary focus is on the promotion of true shared parenting, where both parents are fully engaged in the day-to-day raising of the children. Because research has shown that this is usually the best arrangement for children, it should be the default outcome when parents separate. But S.B. 125 does nothing to encourage equal co-parenting; instead, it creates contrary incentives and treats unfairly parents who share in the raising of their children.

S.B. 125’s provision of a “standard parenting time adjustment” to provide for the children when they are with the child support obligor, which is often 25 percent to 35 percent of the time, is based on a flawed methodology and a mathematical error. These errors result in the children being routinely under-supported in one of their homes.

And, for what it considers “extended parenting time” — more than 40 percent with the childsupport obligor — the bill requires only that a court consider a substantial adjustment in the child support.

Both parents have an obligation to support their children. The combined child-support obligations are for the benefit of the children. Those funds should “follow the child.” They should be apportioned between the children’s two homes based on expected childrelated expenses.

S.B. 125 violates these basic principles of child support.