There are many parents in Illinois who are either divorced with children or have children with people they were never married to in the first place. In these situations many times the parent who has the child less will be ordered to pay child support to the other parent. However, just because a parent is ordered to pay child support does not mean that they will actually pay it. There are many parents who are well behind in child support payments and as many find out the hard way, there are consequences for not paying.
Recently a county conducted a sweep to arrest parents who owed child support. They made 150 arrest attempts and 68 arrest warrants were executed. A large number of people also turned themselves in. Around 130 people total were either arrested or turned themselves in during the sweep. The pat due amount on the warrants totaled approximately $1.6 million and there are approximately 3,300 arrest warrants still waiting to be executed.
Child support is designed to ensure that a child’s financial needs are being met by the parents in accordance with the parents’ ability to pay for those needs. When they are not paid, generally it is the child who suffers the most. However, there are many reasons for why a parent does not pay though. Some simply do not think they should be required to make payments to the other parent, but others no longer have the ability to pay the court-ordered amount due to a change in their circumstances.
When this occurs the parent may be able to seek a modification of the child support order. As stated above, the child support payment is partially based on a parent’s ability to pay. If the circumstances change through no control of their own, they may be able to lower the child support payment. However, until they modify it, they will be required to pay the current amount.
There are many parents in Illinois who no longer make the same amount of money they made at the time of a child support order. These parents may want to educate themselves on how to legally modify their current order in order to reflect their new situation.
Source: Detroit Free Press, “Macomb County sweep nets 130 parents for child support arrearages,” Christina Hall, May 20, 2014