THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, February 20, 1996 TAG: 9602200011
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 41 lines
Virginia's child-support enforcers are about to go high tech in their search for deadbeat parents.
The state's Division of Child Support Enforcement announced this week that plans are under way to open a site on the World Wide Web to tell the world about Virginia's worst parents.
Their numbers are legion. Recent figures out of Hampton Roads shows that at least 84,000 local families are owed child-support payments amounting to millions of dollars. Nationally, about $34 billion a year goes uncollected from parents who have deserted their families.
Not surprisingly, 90 percent of children in families on welfare are not receiving child support to which they are entitled.
In other words, this checkbook child neglect costs all taxpayers money.
A complicating factor in ferreting out these irresponsible people is that about one-third of them walk out on their families and then leave the state. Virginia's child-support workers maintain caseloads of about 1,000 each - making it impossible for them to follow parents outside the Old Dominion. But putting their faces, Social Security numbers, aliases and other pertinent data on the Internet should help locate some of these parents.
Using the Internet is a good idea for several reasons: First, it doesn't cost a lot of money, so even if only a few parents are located this way it may be cost effective. Second, the Internet has spun a web that encircles much of the globe. And ``fugitive'' web sites are gaining popularity on the web. If that is true, deadbeat parents may find that thanks to computer technology they can run but they cannot hide.
We encourage the Division of Child Support Enforcement to get its web site up and running. Any legal tool that can help Virginia's neglected children is worth a try. by CNB