Bad Things...
There's always some of these, huh?
Got a call last week from the Child Support Division regarding their attempts to reconcile the arrearage balance owed my kids by their father. My ex had been down to their offices to try to straighten out an error with the amount owed. He'd listed out some of the payments he'd made towards the balance, but failed to include all of them (he'd forgotten to note nearly $2000 in payments). Child Support was also wrong in their starting date for when the arrearages was to begin accruing. My ex wasn't able to clear that up either.
After two hours there, spent mostly with the Child Support counselor cautioning me about being overly generous (gee, like I haven't heard THAT a million places before) and me arguing that my ex and I had an agreement and I was a woman of my word, we were able to get our figures pretty close. He really couldn't believe, though, that I was refusing to take the full amount that I was entitled to take. (The main difference being medical amounts received that I'd applied towards support instead of breaking them out, as is standard.)
I'll admit, I was surprised to find that I haven't necessarily been receiving the full support (despite a garnishment order) since the court order was established. The arrearage balance I'd been working with was prior to official support beginning. I hadn't realized, however, that I needed to go back and check the amount of payments received electronically each month. Consequently, while I won't be looking at over $4000 (the amount the Child Support Division had believed owed), I will be looking at a few hundred dollars more than I thought I had coming. And that's certainly a nice surprise. Well, it will be if I can actually get it.
As I understand it, they will be recalculating the arrearages, with the corrected starting date and the payments I'd advised must be applied, and then my ex and I will be receiving an updated total to sign off on. He'll then be instructed to set up a monthly payment schedule and we'll go from there.
My big concern right now is not so much the arrearages he owes (which are still around $2000), but are more related to his portion of the medical reimbursements, which will top $800, due later this month. The last I heard, he wasn't sure he could make the payment, and, well, that's gonna kick off an entirely other mess. Which I'm deeply hoping to avoid.
I will say that I appreciate the Child Support Division being so helpful and diligent in trying to work towards helping the children in this city (and mine in particular). And I'm crossing my fingers that the finances get straightened out soon.
Got a call last week from the Child Support Division regarding their attempts to reconcile the arrearage balance owed my kids by their father. My ex had been down to their offices to try to straighten out an error with the amount owed. He'd listed out some of the payments he'd made towards the balance, but failed to include all of them (he'd forgotten to note nearly $2000 in payments). Child Support was also wrong in their starting date for when the arrearages was to begin accruing. My ex wasn't able to clear that up either.
After two hours there, spent mostly with the Child Support counselor cautioning me about being overly generous (gee, like I haven't heard THAT a million places before) and me arguing that my ex and I had an agreement and I was a woman of my word, we were able to get our figures pretty close. He really couldn't believe, though, that I was refusing to take the full amount that I was entitled to take. (The main difference being medical amounts received that I'd applied towards support instead of breaking them out, as is standard.)
I'll admit, I was surprised to find that I haven't necessarily been receiving the full support (despite a garnishment order) since the court order was established. The arrearage balance I'd been working with was prior to official support beginning. I hadn't realized, however, that I needed to go back and check the amount of payments received electronically each month. Consequently, while I won't be looking at over $4000 (the amount the Child Support Division had believed owed), I will be looking at a few hundred dollars more than I thought I had coming. And that's certainly a nice surprise. Well, it will be if I can actually get it.
As I understand it, they will be recalculating the arrearages, with the corrected starting date and the payments I'd advised must be applied, and then my ex and I will be receiving an updated total to sign off on. He'll then be instructed to set up a monthly payment schedule and we'll go from there.
My big concern right now is not so much the arrearages he owes (which are still around $2000), but are more related to his portion of the medical reimbursements, which will top $800, due later this month. The last I heard, he wasn't sure he could make the payment, and, well, that's gonna kick off an entirely other mess. Which I'm deeply hoping to avoid.
I will say that I appreciate the Child Support Division being so helpful and diligent in trying to work towards helping the children in this city (and mine in particular). And I'm crossing my fingers that the finances get straightened out soon.
posted by SuperWife | 3:43 PM
2 Comments:
[[the Child Support counselor cautioning me about being overly generous (gee, like I haven't heard THAT a million places before) ]]
How about being accurate and fair? Can we all agree on that? Is that a reasonable middle ground?
Tony C.
http://mahtwocents.blogharbor.com
Accurate and fair are certainly reasonable middle ground, Tony. The situation is that I did my best to calculate them accurately and fairly initially and we both agreed to the number.
I didn't realize, at the time, that the $350 in medical expenses that I'd factored into the initial total (as payments towards child support) wasn't supposed to be included. I could, I guess, go back and back out those payments, thus raising the outstanding balance, but I'm not like that. Certainly, he wouldn't have pointed out any error along those lines (especially one in his favor), and the CSD (since we have no court order regarding the arrearages) is urging me to capture all the funds I have coming to me, but the bottom line is that I accepted the number in the first place and I'm not going to backtrack on it. It just doesn't seem fair to me...and at the end of the day, I've got to be able to live with myself.
As there have been a number of shortpayments since then, my number is actually going to come up slightly anyway. I'd taken for granted that I'd been receiving the correct amount monthly (as it's being garnished), but apparently, that's not the case.
It's just aggravating that if he was upset about the amount of arrearages being assessed, he didn't take care of this himself. I find myself, once again, straightening out messes for him. And, of course, the matter of postponing necessary things for our children because he won't take care of it. Also, it's aggravating to hear him tell me that I'm taking advantage of him financially. No matter how many favors I do him, I'm still taking more than he wants to give.
Sorry...the ranting just slipped in there...I swear...;)
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