Child Support Services Are Dedicated to Collecting Child Support
Video Transcribed: My name is Brian L. Jackson, I’m a Dads’ rights attorney in Tulsa, Oklahoma. So let’s talk about DHS. As a rule of thumb for non-custodial fathers, the Department of Human Services is not your friend. DHS has an entire division, Child Support Services, dedicated to collecting child support. They have buildings filled with caseworkers, attorneys, and judges all paid by your tax dollars to be part of a system designed for the sole purpose of collecting child support money from you.
Check out their mission statement. “Our mission at Child Support Services is to promote healthy families by establishing, monitoring, and enforcing reliable support while encouraging self-sufficiency and strengthening relationships.” Well, I can tell you in my experience, I’ve seen a hell of a lot of establishing, monitoring, and enforcing reliable support, but very little promoting healthy families and strengthening relationships.
In fact, although DHS CSS will enter paternity orders all day long for the purpose of collecting child support, the DHS CSS administrative court and judge do not even have the legal authority to establish a father/child relationship with any custody or visitation rights. For that, you have to file in your county district court, and DHS is not going to help you one bit.
So DHS is not your friend. Or is it? There is an exception to every rule. DHS CSS can be a father’s friend if you know when to use them and when to avoid them. While DHS does a poor job of establishing fair child support, they do provide a great way to document child support payments.
Do you want your child support case heard by an administrative judge who was part of the DHS child support services apparatus working every day alongside child support enforcement lawyers? Probably not.
After all, I did not see anything in the aforementioned mission statement about fair child support or due process. I only saw that establishing, monitoring, and enforcing reliable support was deemed important enough for the mission statement. So avoid them.
You can file first in the district court where the judge has the authority to grant you parental rights, not just responsibilities and obligations. Or if she has already filed in DHS administrative court, have your lawyer quickly file in county court and request that the DHS case be stayed to allow all issues to be decided in the county district court. That way you can request custody and visitation rights and not just child support.
Are you worried about maintaining documentation that you have paid your child support? Don’t like handling child support transactions face to face with the ex? Well, while the Oklahoma centralized support registry can seem like a hassle, it has often been a godsend for many of my clients.
When DHS is an interested party in a case due to DHS providing services or benefits like SoonerCare or TANF, Oklahoma law requires that child support be paid through the centralized registry.
But even if DHS is not an interested party, you can elect to pay child support through the registry, and you should. Although I don’t suggest that you always trust DHS’s numbers, their records are generally far superior to the mother’s record-keeping and can take some of the burdens off of you of maintaining proof of child support payments for 18 years.
Overall, using DHS is a good trust, but verify scenario. Make all child support payments to the Oklahoma centralized support registry, but regularly log in to monitor that you are getting proper credits for your payments and that interest is being handled appropriately.
Still on the fence about using the Oklahoma centralized support registry? Consider this. If your ex files for DHS assistance years from now, and DHS consequently opens a child support enforcement case, it’s going to be really easy to prove what you were supposed to pay that’s in the court order, how you are going to prove what you’ve paid, and when. Unless you have proof of each child support payment or your ex agrees that you paid it, DHS’s position is going to be that you still owe it with interest.
So you need perfectly organized documentation of every child support payment you ever make and maintain it for way longer than the law requires you to maintain tax records, or you can utilize the Oklahoma centralized support registry and regularly log in to verify its accuracy and download the payment history.
One last benefit fathers or potential fathers can receive from DHS is DNA testing. If you are not absolutely certain of paternity, you should get that resolved before any custody or child support orders are entered.
When a father requests DNA testing in county court, the $300 to $500 cost of that test has to be paid upfront by one or both of the parties. Do you want to save the money in case the child is not yours, then file in DHS administrative court? There, DHS fronts the cost of testing, and if you are not the father, you do not have to pay.
It pays to know when you will do best in DHS administrative court and when you would do better in county district court. And to make that determination, you should go and get assistance with your child support or child custody case. Go to dads.law. Again, that’s dads.law, and talk to one of our attorneys who can assist you with these particular facts of your case.
My name is Brian L. Jackson, I am a Tulsa dads’ rights attorney.
