Newsletter
A Child Advocacy Company
Bringing Support to Parents
Building Strength to Children
Bringing Support to Parents
Building Strength to Children
Disclaimer: BS Kids LLC legal research and information has been prepared for educational and informational purposes only. This material is not legal
advice or legal opinions on any specific matters. Transmission of the information is not intended to create and receipt does not constitute a
lawyer-client relationship between BS Kids LLC , the author of the information and any other legal publisher. Customers of BS Kids should not act upon
this information without seeking professional counsel. The opinions expressed in the material presented to BS Kids clientele is based on information
found in legal publications. BS Kids LLC, 78 Canterberry Court, Hudson, NH 03051 781-756-1214.
advice or legal opinions on any specific matters. Transmission of the information is not intended to create and receipt does not constitute a
lawyer-client relationship between BS Kids LLC , the author of the information and any other legal publisher. Customers of BS Kids should not act upon
this information without seeking professional counsel. The opinions expressed in the material presented to BS Kids clientele is based on information
found in legal publications. BS Kids LLC, 78 Canterberry Court, Hudson, NH 03051 781-756-1214.
Past Newsletters
Winter 2008
Winter 2008
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BS KIDS BEAT VOLUME 9 WINTER 2010 BS KIDS Welcome to everyone’s least favorite time of year. Thankfully we are on the good side of winter and on March 13th we Spring Ahead! Although we loose an hour, we gain much needed sunlight at the end of the day. Something to look forward to! We hope you all survived the last Winter Storm and those without power didn’t have to suffer for long. Who new that wind could be so destructive? A lot is going on with BS KIDS and Family Law, see below for more details! WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH FAMILY LAW Child Support continues to be the hot topic, more so then shared parenting. It seems that both Massachusetts and New Hampshire are still trying to *educate* those non-believers that something needs to be changed. It’s too bad that more people didn’t feel the *pain* of having to pay child support on the Legislative side, then maybe they would be able to understand the GREAT need for reform. Although there are a lot of people talking about change and a lot of studies which continue to indicate that reform is needed, for some reason, the Legislature doesn’t seem to that they need to fix it! When you have some time, keep writing those letters, making those phone calls to your local representatives and educate on the need for change! LEGISLATIVE UPDATES The New Hampshire House has heard all of the bills for this session. Some important bills have actually passed through the committee and will be heading on to the Senate, once cross over day begins. They are as follows: HB 1193: Relative to the definition of allowable child care expenses for the purposes of child support. HB 1491: Relative to child support and responsibility for additional child related expenses in the cases of shared parenting. HB 1156: Relative to the determination of parental rights and responsibilities. To find out more about these bills, go to: http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/bill_status/quick_search.html and paste in the bill number. Once the public session dates for the above bills are posted, we will list them on our website. HB 1474: Relative to the revision of the child support guidelines has gone to Interim Study. This will include the recommendations that were made by the University of New Hampshire Extension group, in addition to reviewing whether the income shares model or the Melson formula would be more appropriate. Public sessions should start sometime this spring. Even before these sessions begin, if you could send testimony to the Child and Family Law Committee indicating why you believe that the child support guidelines should be revised, it will make a HUGE impact. Their e-mail address is: CFL@leg.state.nh.us. HB 1216: Relative to the Self Support Reserve in Child Support Cases. This bill failed to pass in the Child and Family Law Committee. What this bill will do is to ensure that those who are obligated to pay child support will have a self support reserve, proposed at 115% of the Federal Guidelines will be applied PRIOR to any child support amount being awarded. IF YOU CAN, PLEASE SEND YOUR LOCAL HOUSE REPRESENTATIVES AN E-MAIL ASKING THEM TO PASS THIS BILL, WHEN IT IS HEARD AT THE NEXT HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES MEETING ON MARCH 3RD!!!!! ACTION IS REQUIRED TO ENSURE THAT THIS BILL CAN PASS!!!!! Additionally, there are three house bills for the removal of Judicial Officers, HA1, HA2, and HA3. None of these have been scheduled for public sessions yet. We’ll keep you updated on those sessions. NEWS The biggest news story recently is the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts. While primarily a Democratic State, Republican Scott Brown broke the barrier. It’s interesting to note that since this coming fall is an election year, what could possibly happen in both states with potential candidates. In New Hampshire, we have already heard that John Stephens will challenge Governor Lynch. There could be some very interesting elections and candidates running in the months ahead! An interesting story was posted in Massachusetts, regarding child support. See the article below: Fathers & Families’ Holstein, 2 F & F Members Appear on Fox Child Support Special March 1st, 2010 by Glenn Sacks, MA, Executive Director Fathers & Families founder Ned Holstein, MD, MS and Fathers & Families members John Gagnon and Brian Ayers appeared on a Fox Boston report on Massachusetts’ new child support guidelines yesterday. In 2001, Fathers & Families won changes in Massachusetts law which lowered child support by 15%. Our victory saved noncustodial parents over $1 billion—$200 a million a year over five years. That’s $1 billion that non-custodial parents were able to spend on their children themselves. The opposition struck back by stacking a special committee with reliable votes for increasing the child support amounts, ignoring the data Holstein presented them showing that the proposed new child support orders were far too high for middle class people to pay. Holstein sat on this committee and prepared a Minority Report detailing the problems with the new Guidelines. Last year Fathers & Families filed a highly-publicized lawsuit against Massachusetts’ new child support guidelines. Fathers & Families’ lawsuit has been covered by the Associated Press, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Newsweek, Psychology Today, and numerous other publications, as well as by CBS radio, NPR, WRKO, and many other radio stations. So far our legal actions against the guidelines have been unsuccessful, but we are still weighing other legal options. From Fox’s report Are child support rules unfair to fathers? (2/28/10): “I went back to live at my parents, I had to, from a cost standpoint, until I could afford to live in a decent place, and then you feel kind of like a second class citizen because your kids are coming to a small place when you’re used to mom’s nice house,” says John Gagnon, who has been paying alimony and writing out child support checks for eleven years. He now says he pays $2,700 a month for his teenaged daughter. He says she stays with him nearly half the time and his 19-year- old son lived with him full time before going off to college this fall. He feels the guidelines don’t take into account how much time he spends with his kids.” It really didn’t matter from a child support guideline standpoint if they had stayed one night a month, or zero nights. I would have paid the same as having them 13 nights,” Gagnon says… “We want kids to be well supported. We want kids to have enough support, but we don’t want to create this huge windfall prize that creates conflict between the parents,” says Dr. Ned Holstein, the founder of the father’s rights group “Fathers & Families”. He sat on the task force and says the system is still unfair. For instance, he says some states pro-rate support according to parenting time spent with the child. He also says judges in Massachusetts may order both child support and college expenses until age 23. “We have a long way to go, but the worst thing is the pervasive gender bias in family court. Men are still looked at as breadwinners, and women are still looked at as nurturers of children,” Dr. Holstein says. 1) Fox misidentifies Fathers & Families as a “fathers’ rights group.” We are, in fact, a family court reform organization. As Holstein is fond of saying, F & F isn’t asking for anything for fathers that we don’t also want to ensure for mothers: protection for the parent-child bond; both parents sharing roughly equal physical time with their children; both parents treated fairly financially; the abused protected from abuse and the innocent protected from false allegations of abuse; and similar principles. When mothers are mistreated by the system, wherever it be military moms like Vanessa Benson, lesbian noncustodial moms like Michele Hobbs and Janet Jenkins, or moms like Joyce Murphy who were legitimately acting to protect their children from the fathers’ abuse, we sympathize and defend them. We are named “Fathers & Families” because it is usually fathers who are pushed to the margins of their children’s lives after a divorce or separation, but we resolutely defend all fit parents’ loving bonds with their children. 2) Ayers’ child support is stiff but not necessarily outrageous–the real problem is that he’s a good, loving father who is being prevented from exercising equal parenting time with the infant son who adores him. I don’t know what the child’s mother earns, but when both parents earn roughly the same income, are fit, and are equally willing to care for the children, parenting time should be split roughly equally and child support is largely unnecessary. [Update: This is the financial breakdown for Ayers and his ex: Ayers' Gross Weekly Income: $1626.73 Ayers' Taxes: $499.76 Ayers' Child Support: $350. Ayers' Total Deductions: $849.76. (52.5% of his income automatically deducted) Ayers' Income Available after deductions: $776.97 Child's mother's weekly income: $1324 Child's mother's taxes: $402.84 Money received by child's mother in child support: $350 Child's mother's Total Available Income for Mother: $1,271.16 Difference between fathers' available income and mother's: mother has additional $494.19 per week/$25,697.88 per year.] 3) Gagnon’s case is really unfair–he pays a stiff amount in child support for children who have spent as much time with him as with their mother. 4) Fox reports on the case of Crystal Arnhold, a “single mom who relies on her child support checks.” According to Fox: She says she receives just under $250 a week to raise her 2-year-old son, and 5-year-old daughter with Down’s syndrome.” I work what I can and still just barely make it. Like this month, I have $29 to get food for the next two weeks,” Arnhold says. She works part-time at night while her mom watches the kids, but money is tight. She says under the new guidelines, she stands to lose more because she’s trying to work.” I’m not greedy by any means, I just want to try to get for my kids what they need,” Arnhold says. Fox portrays her sympathetically, and as a whole she probably deserves that sympathy. Still, we certainly don’t know that she’s being treated unfairly. She receives about $1,000 a month, which isn’t a lot for two small children, particularly when one has Down’s syndrome. But we don’t know what her ex makes–he may well only make $2,000 or $3,000 a month before taxes, in which case the child support he’s paying is quite a strain on him financially. Also, we’re not told whether, as is often the case, the father wants to care for the children himself half the time, and the mom won’t allow it. But if Crystal Arnhold’s ex makes a good income and isn’t willing to share parenting time with the kids equally, I agree that she’s not being treated fairly. 5) Family law attorney Marilynne Ryan, who sat on the child support task force with Holstein and others, disputed Holstein’ s assertion of anti-father family court gender bias. She said: Nothing could be further from the truth. We have 24 female judges on the probate court and 24 male judges on the probate court. To suggest that everyone has grouped together and is biased against the fathers, it simply doesn’t happen. This is hardly a reasonable response–Holstein never asserted that anti-father gender bias was caused specifically by female judges–if anything, we sometimes find that female judges treat men more fairly than traditional, chivalrous male judges do. GET INVOLVED We need your help. To get involved NOW, we need for you to get active with the Legislature. We need help with HB 1216: Relative to the self support reserve. We need help with HB 1474: Relative to the child support guidelines in New Hampshire. We need for you to take some time to research your local representatives and see if they support your values and beliefs. Do you know their voting records? Did they support the bills that are important to you? Do they show up for meetings? Are they informed on today’s issues? You need to make an informed choice, come November, before all the lawns/awnings/malls, etc., are littered with their signs and campaign promises. Many people will vote to re-elect members, simply because their names are familiar or they don’t really know about the candidates, but heard about them through a friend. If you want things to change, you must be pro-active and get to know who your representatives are and make sure they support the areas of interest to you. Since November is many months away, why not take some time now to check out who your representatives are, what they have voted for and against and how informed they are. A little preparation could make the difference in who gets to sit on the House and Senate Panels come next year, in addition to what bills will pass! E-MAIL ALERTS If you are interested in getting alerts from BS KIDS regarding news, legislative activity or getting involved opportunities, please sign up on our website at www.bskids.net COMMENTS/SUGGESTIONS BS KIDS is looking to include areas of interest to our readers. If there is a topic or area of concern that you would like to learn more about, please let us know. You can e-mail us at info@bskids.net or call 781-756-1214. If you wish to unsubscribe to these newsletter, please just hit reply. Your name will automatically be removed from future mailings. Disclaimer: BS Kids LLC legal research and information has been prepared for educational and informational purposes only. This material is not legal advice or legal opinions on any specific matters. Transmission of the information is not intended to create and receipt does not constitute a lawyer-client relationship between BS Kids LLC, the author of the information and any other legal publisher. Customers of BS Kids should not act upon this information without seeking professional counsel. The opinions expressed in the material presented to BS Kids clientele are based on information found in legal publications. BS Kids LLC, 78 Canterberry Court, Hudson, NH 03051 781-756-1214. . |