Owe back child support? Expect a call on your cell phone

That cute little cell phone in her purse or snugly fitted to his ear or just clipped to a belt may be the way to call up a chunk of $73 million in back payments for child support in the Lynchburg area.

Calling up for payback is a cell phone initiative that has won recognition for the Child Support Enforcement Division of the Virginia Department of Social Services.

The cell phone billing address and phone number provides the chance to “reach out and touch people,” said Nick Young, director of Child Support Enforcement for the state.

The initiative was several years in the making, and difficult to get started, he said in a telephone interview Tuesday.

Unable to get the information informally, Child Support Enforcement began the painstaking process of signing individual subpoenas for records.

For the first 5,000, “We had wonderful results,” said Young. He worked with the seven cell companies most active in Virginia - Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, AT&T, Alltel, Ntelos and Nextel.

The extensive subpoena paperwork is time-consuming. Several of the cell phone companies have agreed to some automated data matching, he said, though others continue to require the individual subpoena.

Young said the state has 268,000 delinquent non-custodial parents. The data match has brought back “52,000 brand new cell phone addresses and numbers.”

The information can be used in several ways, he said. “If there is an outstanding warrant we give the information to the sheriff’s office, and they use it accordingly.”

“If we’re trying to serve a legal document, notices, summons, we can use the address to do that. In many cases, we call the cell phone number (and ask) ‘Are you ready to start paying your child support?’”

Young said that among the delinquent parents, “We’re finding the average is 2.07 cell phones per person. What that means is that some have one and some have three - people who can afford two and three cell phones and do not take care of their children.”

According to a Department of Social Services news release, delinquent parents statewide owe about $2.4 billion in current and past support payments. Those debts are for 484,000 children.

In the 2006-2007 fiscal year the state was able to collect more than $608 million, up 4 percent from the year before.

The state has a 62 percent collection rate for child support. The Lynchburg localities have a rate of about 50 percent, but are catching up, said Young.

The $73 million in the Lynchburg area includes child support, as well as spousal support - also known as alimony. Some of those debts represent a few months in arrears, others are accumulated from decades of evasive maneuvers.

The cell phone initiative is in addition to other programs to find delinquent parents, involving drivers’ licenses, financial institutions, and employers.

Young said that the program is getting good feedback. For some families, the child support is essential to keep them afloat. Without it, they need benefits, food stamps, day care subsidies and other social services programs.

“Many went on welfare because they didn’t get the child support,” said Young.

The tab for those state and local social services programs is about $150 million. Although he’s using only a handful of cell phone companies now, said Young, 153 more are out there in the nation. Virginia is working with other states wanting to establish cell phone initiatives.

“I’m looking for people all over the U.S.,” said Young, adding that Virginia “will not be a safe haven for parents who do not take care of their children.”

The Department of Child Support Enforcement’s Cell Phone Initiative received the Innovation Award from the Council on State Governments during the Southern Legislative Conference.