Athens Jobs and Family services have a contract in the amount of $173,258.91 with the sheriff's office to help obtain individuals who aren't paying their child support.
About 12 years ago, Athens County Job and Family Services had about 100 outstanding warrants for individuals who were not paying their child support. With the help of the Athens County Sheriff’s Office in the following years, they now have about 20.
In 2012, Athens County had 4,016 child support cases, according to a report from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. Of those cases, 88.9 percent had support orders — a document that states when or how often a parent pays — issued, though the collection rate for those orders was 62 percent.
Job and Family Services spokeswoman Arian Smedley said Title IV D of the Social Security Act allows Child Support Enforcement Agencies to contract with agencies to help prosecute parents who neglect to pay child support.
“In this case, it’s with the sheriff’s office,” Smedley said in an email, adding the department currently hold contracts with the Athens City Prosecutor’s Office, the Athens County Domestic Relations Court and the Athens County Juvenile Court.
Smedley said her agency enlists the help from the sheriff’s office for a variety of situations.
If it is unable to locate a parent using its own resources or if it has a warrant for someone’s arrest, employees with Job and Family Services will call the sheriff’s office.
Athens County Sheriff Rodney Smith said his department steps in to assist in finding someone who isn’t paying his or her child support.
“We do locations … we use our information as police officers to find an address,” Smith said.
Aside from using computer systems to search addresses, sheriff deputies will knock on doors to talk to neighbors and friends in order track down a subject who owes child support.
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Smith will also contact other agencies to gather information the sheriff’s office may not have.
Smith said if the person his office is locating has an outstanding warrant, they would take him or her into custody.
“Once they issue this warrant, it’s the very last straw,” Smith said.
For the 2015 fiscal year, Job and Family Services had a $173,258.91 contract with the sheriff’s office.
Those funds pay the deputies for their services, paying each deputy an extra half of his or her original wage for their services.
Randall Galbraith, director of the Child Support Enforcement Agency, said the contract amount is an estimate of how much the sheriff’s department will use tracking down parents in 2015.
“They may or may not use all of (it), it depends on how many hours they work on the contract,” Galbraith said.
Galbraith said the federal government has a “pool of money” that it uses for these types of contracts. The sheriff’s office bills the Child Support Enforcement Agency, which in turn receives money from federal government.
“The federal government will cover 66 percent of the costs … the remaining 34 percent is covered by the county,” Smedley said.
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