Adventures with the OAG Child Support Division

Blog Date: Friday, November 18, 2016

Thursday's visit was my third or fourth visit to one of the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) Child Support Division (CSD) offices in Fort Bend County, Texas, where I live. I have previously been to the location in Missouri City, and this was my first visit to the location in Rosenberg. There are slight differences in how people are seen at each location, so I'll start with Missouri City.

Upon arrival, each person must go to the window, show their appointment letter and ID, verify their appointment time, and then fill out another information sheet. The form requires a Social Security Number, which can be awkward when you're sitting in a crowded room in plastic chairs. I generally wait until I am ready to turn in the form at the window to add this information.

At previous visits to the Missouri City location, I have waited between 30 minutes and an hour to be called back. I have always arrived a few minutes ahead of the appointment time, but have NEVER been seen anywhere close to that time. I generally plan to lose half a day of work for these appointments. Once called back at the Missouri City location, people are directed to another room where there is another 30 minute minimum wait. When you finally are called to an office, the amount of assistance that can be offered is minimal. I am envious of the people who show up prepared to negotiate a change in arrangements and can conduct their business in a civil and efficient manner. I have a contentious ex, so we are never actually able to accomplish anything in exchange for the half-day expenditure of time and effort.

On Thursday, November 17, 2016, I made my first visit to the Rosenberg location at 117 Lane Drive. The reception area and process is nearly identical to that of the Missouri City location. I waited a full hour before being called back. While waiting, a woman came in and sat next to  me with a developmentally delayed teen daughter, who was clearly difficult to manage. I heard her apologize to the ladies behind the window for the disruption her daughter was causing, as she reminded them that they would NOT see her the previous day when she had childcare. I truly felt for her situation, trying to manage her daughter with only some videos on her phone for a full hour. My frustration in these visits is always tempered by the realization that the other people I see there appear to be struggling more than I am. As is always the case, my ex has positioned himself in some distant corner of the room, angry face on, and staring at his phone to avoid any possibility of eye contact.

After pursuing him for nearly 2 years for unreimbursed health care expenses that totaled over $2,000 at the time, I had petitioned the OAG CSD to intervene, which led to this meeting. When we were finally called to one of the offices we met with T.R., who was both efficient and courteous. My ex was combative and abrasive to both of us during the meeting, which she managed in a polite but assertive manner. When she could see that he was unwilling to negotiate on any point, she simply made copies of the information I brought and referred the case to court. She explained the process and the path forward very well and I was pleased with her support and professionalism.

While the staff at this particular OAG CSD office was been better than I anticipated, the wait times are simply too long. As much as people dread having to visit the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), the process there has been drastically improved. I can schedule appointments online. The first available time may be months away, but at least I know I have an appointment that fits my schedule rather than waiting for a letter to arrive in the mail with a time that may not work as well. At the DMV, you can "get in line online" before driving to their location, and then receive text messages to let you know when it is nearly your turn. While waiting at their location, there is a large monitor in each waiting area to indicate how many people are ahead of you in line. It may not actually be any faster, but having more information allows people to make decisions about how and where to wait for their appointment. If I could check in online for my OAG appointment and THEN drive to Rosenberg, I could get more done before I left my office, or I could find a coffee shop and get some work done while I waited.

Blog Date: Friday, April 28, 2017

I finally got a hearing notice on January 30, 2017, advising of a hearing date set for March 1, 2017. I retained my original attorney in February since she planned to move the case out of the IV-D court and back to the judge who had presided over my divorce in the hopes of also being reimbursed for legal fees to bring this case before the court. After speaking with a friend of hers at the Fort Bend County Courthouse, she decided it would be best to leave the case in the 505th court, where it was already on the docket, and only move it if we couldn't reach an agreement. The benefit of this was being able to address the matter more quickly; however, this left me unable to petition for attorney fees, which I have typically been awarded in similar matters in the past.

During negotiations over the $2,000 arrearage, my attorney advised that I forgive $200 of the amount owed in an effort to settle the matter. We agreed to an amount of $1852. The attorney for the OAG then completed a child support review and included modifications in the orders to bring the reimbursement amount for health insurance current and set child support to his current level of income. The $1852 settlement and the health insurance reimbursement were to begin March 1, and the new child support amount was to begin April 1.

At this point the OAG attorney mentioned a credit she believed my ex had for over-garnishment of his pay. She believed he had a credit of $1,100 and was quite adamant that I accept the difference between the two as my portion of the judgment. I produced my records of amounts received from the OAG since the beginning of the case, to show her I had received a total of about $96 that I could not explain, but no more. After another half-hour of attempting to explain this, while she insisted the OAG CSD records had no errors, we finally agreed that the $1852 would indeed be paid to me and that if any credit was found in their system, it would be addressed at the end of the child support obligation in 2021. She offered to connect me with the financial specialist in her office to review the records of payments received, but multiple e-mails from me to the OAG attorney have gone unanswered.

Quick math tells me this is not a good deal. I am owed over $2,000. I pay my attorney a $2,500 retainer. I take half a day of vacation to address the matter in court. When I leave court, I am down $4,500, but hope to collect $1,852 at $100/month over the next 18 months, with 6% interest paid only to the OAG for their involvement in collection and distribution. The OAG attorney forgot to "prove up" the court costs before the judge, so my ex and his attorney refused to sign the new orders until the OAG removed those costs. Now we, the taxpayers, will share in paying that for him. The upshot is that I will now be reimbursed the correct amount for health insurance premiums and my kids have the benefit of an appropriate level of financial support from their dad. At least according to the court orders...

Since my level of trust with the OAG CSD is already a bit shaky, I checked bank statements for March and April. Deposits from the OAG from March 1 to present remain the same as before, with no additional $126.12 for the health insurance premiums, no additional $100 for the obligation previously owed, and no change to the child support previously assessed.

At this point, I'm very thankful to be an educated woman with a job that pays me well enough to pursue matters like this in court. How differently would this situation have gone if I were uneducated and working at an hourly-wage job? Would I be fired for taking time off to be in court? Could I survive being $2,000 behind in my bills? Could I afford to pay an attorney to represent me in the court system? The CSD is supposed to be helping families by ensuring parents are meeting their court-ordered obligations while providing financial oversight and a buffer between parties who may not get along very well. The track record with my ex leaves me no other option than to work through the legal system. To date, the entire process has left me regarding the CSD as having an even lower level of service and competence than the DMV. The people are generally nice and I can see they mean well, but the system is inefficient. Now I not only have an ex who is constantly out of compliance with court orders, but a division of the State of Texas is currently out of compliance, as well. How can I even address that?

Blog Date: Monday, May 8, 2017

On May 3, I finally received an e-mail on May 3 to begin a NEW round of fun.

May 3 e-mail from OAG Financial Specialist:

"Because we have no idea what was actually received we assume the records provided are true and correct and do not alter the entry into our credit calculator in any way other than to omit any payments which are dated prior to the effective date of the orders.  Based on the affidavits you completed there is a total of $12,188.78 in direct payments which you received. This does not account for the interest accruals which will re-calculate once each payment is updated.

"With the original credits removed there is a balance owed of $9443.22 for both child and medical support as well as this month’s current support obligation.  PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THAT THE NEW 2017 ORDER HAS NOT BEEN LINKED AS OF YET AS WE CAN NOT DO SO UNTIL THE CREDITS ARE UPDATED.

"The issue that now exists is that once I update these individual credits as opposed to the lump sum credits updated previously, [he] will have a greater future pay amount than he did previously. 

"9443.22(arrears owed) – 12188.78(direct pmts) = -2745.56 (future pay) + any interest that has accrued.

"Please review the attached ADP’s to confirm that they are correct. If they are in fact correct I will update the individual credits per Attorney Truong the resulting future pay amount will be calculated by the system and correct. In regard to your concerns regarding the new order, it has not yet been linked in our system due to the contested future pay amount. Until the future pay is resolved we cannot link the new order."

May 3 response from me:

Affidavit 1 is for out-of-pocket medical expenses from [him]. Those amounts were NOT part of the child support or health insurance reimbursement amount.

Affidavit 2 and 3 are for the same thing. Affidavit 2 was sent first, but apparently not entered properly into the system, generating another inquiry from the OAG. Affidavit 3 was delivered in person to the CSD office in Missouri City to clear up the issue with the way #2 was mis-handled. The last page of #3 is the documentation from my bank, showing amounts received.

The amounts are not cumulative. The TOTAL he paid in child support prior to getting into the OAG's system is $6,921.30.

You show direct payments of $12,188.78.

Actual direct payments received = $6,921.30

Difference = $5267.48 - I can't account for how your system may have arrived at this figure.

The medical support judgment agreed upon on March 1 was $1,852.37, to be paid at $100/month plus interest.

I have attached a copy of the payment record from your website with my notes in red, along with the deposit pages of my bank statements, with amounts received highlighted. I have checked and the deposits match the OAG's payments to the penny.

All of this started over my ex being $2,000 behind in out of pocket medical and the difference in insurance premiums as they increased and when I changed jobs. I paid my attorney a $2,500 retainer, all of which was used because the defendant's attorney dragged out the negotiations in court. Ms. Truong was not able to support the claim of a large credit that I had supposedly received in error, so we had to table that part until I could go over the details with you. 

The current health insurance premiums and medical support judgment were to begin March 1 and new child support April 1. Here we are in May because it has taken me two months of inquiries to get in touch with you. I won't pretend to understand all the inner workings of your software. All I am concerned with is that the amounts received by me are correct according to the orders and that I don't wind up short, either now or in the future due to a clerical error that causes the system to show a credit.

My ex did not begin with any arrears, which I documented in an affidavit. Unfortunately, a person in Austin failed to enter that affidavit correctly and it has been a mess since then. The initial $6,921.30 that he paid directly should not have been assessed by the OAG, nor should there be any related interest charges. I can't believe I'm spending time defending him on this, but I am a fair and honest person. He owes what he owes, but not what he has already paid. 

I hope you are able to dig back into your records far enough back to rectify all of this from the beginning. If you're feeling extra ambitious, you could fix the additional $94.82 noted on the Payment Record. I can't explain why I received those extra funds and don't mind a correction of the error. Perhaps then the figures will be correct to present date and the new amounts can then be entered.

May 8 phone call to the OAG:

Since I never received a response from the financial specialist, I called to inquire. The specialist only include an 800 number in her e-mail, so I enjoyed a 15 minute hold time, followed by a 10 minute conversation with a nice lady who told me I'd have to send ANOTHER affidavit to confirm everything I've ALREADY confirmed in two previous affidavits, plus an e-mail. She directed me to their website to download the form since I did NOT receive the e-mail her system notes indicate was sent to me the previous week. 

Anyone want to take bets on the outcome of this exercise?