According to a recent report, Santa Barbara’s child support office was recently named as the seventh best such office in all of California. The office does many jobs that relate to child support and child custody, including helping people determine official paternity and assisting in collecting support payments that are overdue.
So, how did the office get the high ranking? A lot of it has to do with their excellent statistics. For example, in paternity cases, they were able to make the proper assessment a full 100 percent of the time.
Additionally, 93.5 percent of the cases resulted in support orders, and they were over the national average in getting those payments, which can help to put a roof over a child’s head or to buy food and other necessities for that child. Nationally, this only happens in 64.9 percent of the cases. In Santa Barbara, though, it happened in 67.4 percent of the cases.
Not only is that over the national average, but it shows a rising tend in this specific office that has been going on for years. When one looks all the way back to 2009, just over half of the parents — 54 percent — were actually making their payments. In the years since, that number has risen year in and year out, and it is now 13.4 percent higher than the 2009 mark. It’s encouraging to see this continuing even as the office reaches and passes the national mark.
If you’re not getting the child support payments that you deserve in California, make sure that you know what legal options you may have.
Source: Santa Barbara Independent, “County Child Support Collects Seventh Best,” March. 22, 2015