ARCHIVES OF THE MAYOR'S WEEKLY COLUMN Archives of Rudolph W. Giuliani

The City Collects Record Child Support Payments from Deadbeat Parents

Last week, we announced some very good news for New York City's children. As a result of our aggressive approach to collect child support payments from deadbeat parents, we have collected a record $404 million -- an increase of $52 million, or almost 15 percent, over last year's collections of $352 million. The payments help to support approximately 190,000 children.

The failure to pay child support is not just illegal, it is morally reprehensible. However, in the past, the City was too often content to let parents pay their court-ordered support when and if they felt like it. My administration has made collection a priority. We're exerting real pressure, and it's working. We've doubled collections, from $209 million in 1994 to $404 million today.

This terrific news shows that the City is working harder than ever to protect children. Failure to pay child support causes hardship and suffering in the lives of children and families who are entitled to this support. New York City's child support collections have made historic gains in the last several years, and we're sending a message to deadbeat parents that they will be held to their obligations.

My administration is trying to establish a basic legal principle that if you bring a child into the world, you are responsible for that child. In the old days, people who did things that were outrageous to the rest of society were stigmatized. The idea of stigma works. We must reinforce the stigma of failing to take responsibility for children.

We're using government to push that idea forward. Administration for Children's Services (ACS) Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta has established a "Deadbeat Hall of Shame" on the ACS website at www.nyc.gov/kidsnyc, which shows the name, face, and amount owed by deadbeat parents. It's a way of placing accountability exactly where it belongs -- on the parents who aren't living up to their responsibilities.

We've been aggressive in tracking down deadbeat parents through a number of new regulations, such as rules which make parents who owe child support ineligible to receive City contracts. We've also increased the amount of support orders through court hearings and cost-of-living adjustments, taking into account the fact that some of the payments might be too low because they were set several years earlier.

ACS also credits the unprecedented growth in collections to the fact that we're bringing a lot more cases to court for non-payment of child support. And we're referring delinquent parents to mandatory work programs if they tell us they can't support their children because they don't work. Able-bodied parents should be working to take care of their children. We've also increased the number of children covered by court-ordered support obligations; and we expect to move even more aggressively into seizing assets from banks and from brokerage accounts.

Commissioner Scoppetta and his staff at ACS deserve a great deal of thanks from all New Yorkers for their efforts to keep our children safe and cared for. Securing child support payments from deadbeat parents is an essential part of ensuring that all our city's children have an equal opportunity to build successful lives.