By The Star Staff
Former lawmaker Jorge Colberg Toro, a member of the Incoming Transition Committee of Governor-elect Jenniffer González Colón, called it problematic that 48% of the child support payments under the Child Support Services Administration (ASUME) are overdue, primarily because of operational problems at the agency.
“The ASUME reported that there are 161,000 people who are obligated to pay child support and 261,000 minors who receive or need that help. The number shows that 48% of those who must pay child support are not up to date,” Colberg Toro said at a government transition hearing on Wednesday. “So, we asked for the full report to see how many arrears and so on, because there are laws that oblige, there are even discounts, when there is an order from the court. How is it being applied? Remember that they are minors. We are talking about money to buy food.”
Colberg Toro said the subject is a priority issue that must be examined because of the effect on minors.
“So the figure, we are talking about, if we were to be proportional a little, we are talking about probably more than 100,000 minors at this time, who are not receiving child support from their person in charge or are receiving it late,” he said. “And that is something worrisome.”
Earlier this year, ASUME launched guidelines to calculate child support to reduce the payments by 20% to 30% while increasing the amount of money a noncustodial parent can keep for his or her own expenses.
The guidelines, which went into effect March 16 and had not been revised since 2014, impacted current revisions of child support in the courts even if they were filed before the guidelines came into effect, ASUME Administrator Nicole Martínez Martínez said at Wednesday’s hearing.
The child support rule in force, like the one adopted in 2014, divides the pension into two parts. The first is the basic pension, which covers the basic expenses of food, transportation, clothing, entertainment and utilities. The second is the supplemental child support, which pays for housing, education or child care, and health expenses.
Instead of considering both parents’ income, the new guidelines consider the noncustodial parent’s income to calculate the basic child support pension.
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