Family
Court Reform
House
Judiciary Committee on Family Court Reform
March
6th 2000
Honorable members of this committee:
I am giving my testimony on my own behalf and in support
of a large number of mostly men, probably in the millions, that are subject to
unfair treatment by the family court system as it pertains to child support in
Pennsylvania. There are many other
issues in which there is unfair treatment, such as custody and visitation, but
due to time limits my concentration will be mostly on the support issue.
I was divorced in August of 1998 from a woman with whom I
had one child. When the separation
started my ex knew the system and how to use it. She immediately filed for a protection from abuse order and
even had it written in there that she was to have exclusive use of a vehicle
that was in my name. This PFA was
granted without anything other then her word which I believe is wrong. At the hearing, my lawyer advised me to accept the PFA and not try to
fight it just in case my ex wife was a good actor, which she is. This was all unneeded because there was no abuse, there was no proof of
abuse, and it went on my record just because my ex used it as a tool like many
women do. On top of all this, I
later received a bill in the mail from the Schuylkill county court ordering me
to pay for the costs of this PFA that my ex filed for. When I called to raise the question as to why I had to pay for this when
I wasn’t the one who filed for it, I was told that she claimed she didn’t
have any money and that the courts were ordering me to pay for the costs. This is totally ridiculous.
Immediately after my ex wife left our home and took my son
with her, the very next day she went and filed for child support. At first my order was $90 per week, which I thought, was very high.
Since then, and as soon as the “guidelines” changed in PA, my ex took
me back to court for even more money. Domestic
relations raised my support amount up to $131 per week as of the last order.
I am only making $12.85 per hour at my present job. There is absolutely no way that I would be able to live on my own and pay
that amount. I could not afford a
home and the basic costs that go with it. This
at times amounts to $786 in months that I have three pay periods in. There is no way that it costs that much, for one parent’s
half of the financial support of one child. After paying my court ordered support, I am left with approximately $250
per week to live on and this is not enough and leaves me at a level of poverty.
The worse thing about being ordered to pay outrageous amounts of so
called “child support” that I believe in reality is ex wife support, is that
there is absolutely NO accountability to me on where my money is spent. I believe that there should be a system in place to ensure that any money
that is not spent on the child is returned to the payer. Some type of voucher, or debit card system would accomplish
this nicely, there would be a record, and it would be as easy as an ATM network
to do.
I am re-married and my wife has two children that live
with us. We do not spend anywhere near the amount that I am forced to pay for
one child to my ex for the expenses of the two children that live with us (ages
6 and 8, my son is 4). The two children that live with us are well taken care of
and have everything that they need. My
wife could take her ex back to court and probably if she lets the courts decide
her ex will also be left with nothing. She chooses not to do this because she knows it would
eventually ruin the relationship that he does have with his children. We receive $50 per week for 2 children that live with us and it is plenty
for his half of their support.
When I was married, the government did not come in to my
house and tell me how much money I was going to spend on my son. When I was married to his mother, the amount we spent on him was no were
near what these current guidelines say it should be. Since I am divorced, I have had my constitutional rights taken away and
have been subjected to what I believe is a form of slavery. Domestic relations just “takes” what THEY feel is the proper amount
of money from me without any regard to what my wife and me are left with and
what it realistically costs for my half of support of one child. All I am ever told as an explanation for this is that “the guidelines
are law and we have to follow them”. To
my understanding, when laws are made they have to be drafted, pass the house,
then the senate, and be signed into law by the governor. These guidelines did not go through this process yet they are
considered law? It is my
understanding that these guidelines were adopted behind closed doors by a judge
and a panel of lawyers without any accountability to the people that they
affect. Since these guidelines were
set by lawyers it is also my belief that they are being used to create revenue
for lawyers as most people that are forced to pay these ridiculous amounts are
going to disagree and try to take legal action thus creating more “business”
for lawyers.
At the beginning of these guidelines it is stated that
failure to deviate from these guidelines represents misuse of these guidelines.
There is a substantial difference between the standard of living between
my ex wife and me. She is living,
as I am going to call it, high on the hog, and I am barely scraping by. She and her live in boyfriend have new vehicles and expensive house on a
large amount of land and my family and me have just the opposite, which we can
barely afford. The courts refuse to
look at all factors and are allowing inflated support amounts to her while we
live in poverty. The courts are
very inaccessible to a man in my case that cannot afford to pay an attorney.
I filed exceptions to the last support order and was told I was required
to submit a “memorandum of law”. This
is nearly impossible to do if you have no legal training and my case is still
pending on weather or not a real judge wants to hear it without this
“memorandum” being filed. My
gross income is too large to get any type of assistance. If government assistance went by my net income and what I am actually
left with, I would qualify for all types of programs
An interesting fact is that my case has NEVER been in
front of a real elected judge. It
started out as what I will call a “clerk” who set the initial amount and
then went on to an appointed “master” which is nothing more than a lawyer.
These people are accountable to no one because they are not elected, yet
are given the authority to make drastic changes to someone’s life and take
mass amounts of money from them with out even considering all of the facts.
I believe that these people should not have this type of power. If what they do is not fair, which in most cases it is not fair because
they adhere strictly to the guidelines, we the people cannot even vote them out,
which enables them to do whatever they want and get away with it. At the very least an elected official should hear each case so that both
sides of the story can be heard along with the financial data presented. I hear all the time the need for bulletproof glass and steel
doors at the domestic relation’s office. If it were fair, there would be no need for fortification.
The guidelines that are in use by the state of
Pennsylvania are unfair to the non-custodial parent. These guidelines are
supposed to be guidelines and if each case is not examined in it’s entirety,
important factors are left out that are crucial to setting a fair support
amount. The amount of money that non-custodial parents are being ordered to pay
is forcing many, like myself, into a level of poverty that makes it impossible
for them to live on their own. For example, if I were living on my own and not
married, I would not be able to afford the basic needs of an adult such as a
reasonable mortgage payment/rent and transportation along with all the other
required expenditures. Since I am
remarried, my family and me are barely getting by. My wife has assumed a large portion, much more than her
share, of the normal household bills and even some of my personal bills. She would not have to pay for my share of the household bills, and my
personal bills, if the amount of support I am ordered to pay to my ex was set at
a fair and reasonable amount and went towards the actual cost of the child.
Also, there is absolutely no consideration given to my expense when I
have the my son for visitation and I still have to pay the full ordered amount
even though it is ordered that I have the child 1/3 of the time. As a result of this I do not take my son for visitation because I can not
afford to do anything with him or take him anywhere as it stands now.
There are many issues that need to be addressed. These problems need to be corrected now.
The non-custodial parents of Pennsylvania do not have the time or money
to keep fighting in court, and getting nowhere for things such as a FAIR amount
ordered in child support that should be rightfully theirs without interference
and unfair treatment of one parent by the government. I am enclosing for your review a resolution.
This resolution if enacted would make the system fair and it would stop
the REWARD and financial gain for women who file for divorce and retain primary
physical custody of the children of a marriage, which it doesn’t seem that
they have to fight hard to do. I am
also submitting a copy of an article called “the child support guideline
problem” that clearly demonstrates how the guidelines that Pennsylvania now
uses are solely for the profit of lawyers and special interest groups.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before this
committee and please consider the people that these problems affect and the ones
who are getting hurt worse of all as a result of them, the children. I will answer any questions you may have at this time.
