State budget impasse could force Kane County to cut child support enforcement
The languishing budget impasse in Springfield could spell some tough decisions for Kane County leaders, such continuing funding of enforcement efforts to collect delinquent child support payments.
For decades, the Kane County state's attorney's office's has helped determine, set and collect child support payments on behalf of residents who ask for help from the state's Department of Healthcare and Family Services.
State's Attorney Joe McMahon said his office collected $25.8 million in 2015 for single parents in the county.
Last year, the county paid for the entire $655,000 contract for McMahon's office to work with the Department of Healthcare and Family Services to collect delinquent payments.
Normally, the state pays one-third of the contract and the federal government picks up the rest. But with no budget yet and the state's new fiscal year beginning July 1, county leaders must again ask whether the county should pay the contract upfront and hope the state will repay it after a budget deal is struck or abandon child support collection completely.
McMahon will state his case to the county board's Executive Committee Wednesday.
"It's critically important that this office do what we can to support single parents who live in the county," McMahon said. "We have continued to provide all the services under the contract. We want this program to continue. We should provide those services."
If the county board doesn't want to pay for the coming year's contract, collection responsibility will fall to the attorney general's office under state statutes.
McMahon doubts the attorney general's office has the resources to keep up with the 7,270 pending cases in Kane County alone.
McMahon's office has collected more than $140 million in child support payments since 2010 and received 1,327 case referrals from the Department of Healthcare and Family Services in 2015. He said he has four full-time attorneys and six paralegals in his office's Child Support Division.
"The inactivity and failure to pass a budget in Springfield hits people hard in the community," McMahon said. "It's not just the higher education system. It's social services who have shut their doors. It's people struggling to put food on the table and pay rent."
Kane County Board Chairman Chris Lauzen said in March it was "not practical" for the county to fund enforcement costs on a permanent basis. Lauzen declined to comment further when contacted for this story.
County board member Christina Castro, who serves on the executive committee and is chairman of the judicial committee, said she supports using county funds to pay the state's share of the contract for the coming year.
"It's a very important issue. We obviously don't want to hurt families who rely on child support," Castro said. "This is the unfortunate state of our state. If we don't fund this, it will cause chaos in the court system. Lots of delays. We have to explore the 'what ifs.' What if this (budget) stalemate continues?"