001[Music] welcome to meet the court I'm your host Ellen procedure meet the quarters of public service brought to you by the Superior Court of Atlantic and Cape May counties and the Kami County Technical High School this program is designed to better inform you our public of the inner workings of the court and the role the judiciary in our communities today our topic is child support and recent changes made to the child support law in New Jersey our speaker today is Don Daugherty team leader from the Cape May County Child Support Unit welcome Don thank you how are you good so before we start talking about to those changes to the law can you tell us a little bit about yourself sure my name is Don Daugherty I am a court services supervisor over in the
002Child Support Unit at the courthouse I have been involved in the child support program for 16 years I am very passionate about collecting child support my husband and I are raising a family here in the county so we truly do understand the needs of the community thank you so let's start with those changes what are the changes to the law and how are they going to impact the community well the new termination law now establishes a set age for termination of child support the the child support can terminate upon a couple events if a child gets married if a child dies or the child enters military active military service that will automatically terminate a child support order at this point with the new law but it also establishes an age of 19 when child support
003obligations should terminate okay so just ask since we were indicating this as a change what was the age prior to this change actually the state of New Jersey didn't have an age of termination or emancipation we were the last state to not have an age so it was it was definitely overdue and they had been working on the bill for a very long time before you would have to file a motion in order to terminate child support or it could have terminated naturally through a court order it was already in the court order but there there was no set event as long the child was a full-time student the child support continued and we have children on orders that are quite not children anymore we have thirty and forty year olds on child's food orders
004so this law is going to solve a lot of problems that those cases would bring so you talked about having orders where individuals are receiving child's for it later on in life when does this law go no effect it went into effect on February 1st of this year okay and it's automatic as soon as it went into it is it began February 1st there's a lot of requirements on noticing so child support orders have not terminated at this point but the noticing and the all of the awareness campaigns are out there and in 180 days we'll have our first termination starting okay so this guy leads me to my next question actually she talked about noticing for members of our audience that are receiving child support moving forward will they receive notification that's the order
005is terminating well it was it was quite a project to figure out how to implement it because obviously there's gonna be a lot of backlog there were me a lot of cases that had to get noticed right away and nobody wanted anybody's child support determinate day one so what they did is they're sending out any child that was over the age of 19 everybody got their notices on February 1st those notices give six month warning as to when the child's fort will actually terminate so the first time child support will terminate for any of these cases under the new law will be August first okay so and there'll be several noticing there'll be several letters sent out and there'll be several opportunities to ask for continuance of child support okay so again kind of opens
006up another question for me what if the person receiving the child support they believe they've extenuating circumstances that takes them is there are there exceptions to that 19 there there are absolutely exceptions to the rule child support terminates upon the age of 19 unless the child is a full-time student and a request for continuation is May the child could also be disabled at that point a request for continuation could be made but the law does state that no matter what either disability or full-time student status child support will not continue over the age of 23 through the child support system and there are no exemptions to that there are absolutely no exemptions to that okay so you indicated about people will receive notifications what is the process if they're looking to extend that child support
007beyond the age of 19 all right let's start with it's February first all the notices go out they are letting both parties know both parties the custodial parent and the non-custodial parent will get noticed that their child is over the age of 19 and that child support will be terminating in 180 days unless and the unless is full-time school status is provided proof of full-time enrollment is provided or proof of disability is provided now the proof of disability has to be very specific a child has to be labeled disabled by a state or a federal agency which basically is Social Security Income SSI or be deemed incapacitated by a court order so they're the only circumstances to file if the child provide proof of the child is disabled as far as full-time school status we
008absolutely need to receive from the custodial parent a certificate of enrollment and schools will give you a certificate of enrollment it has to say that the child is full-time and then and a man a termination date has to be given by the custodial parent and that termination date is the expected date of graduation cannot exceed the 23rd birthday of the child okay but you did get me to my question I thought or those extenuating it's with that and you talked about children that would be disabled or maybe disabled are there other benefits that go along with child supports like medical coverage or dental coverage and what happens with those benefits the medical support goes hand-in-hand with the child support obligation medical support is supposed to be addressed in every situation in every case and mostly
009it is so medical support would go hand-in-hand meaning that it would also continue or termini now that kind of complex a little bit with the state of New Jersey and what they allow for for medical children are allowed up to age 26 to be covered under their parents health insurance in some situations the letters that we send out when we are terminating child support do say that the employer is no longer court order to cover the children but and it's very strongly worded that they are to have a conversation with their employee before taking a child off of medical because it is still an optional it could be in the employer in the business an optional program for the child to remain enrolled in medical coverage so it's not just the importance of sharing information
010here yes we're gonna take a short break and we wrap up or when we come back we will follow up on this conversation regarding the changes thank you thank you this is Alan proceeded from ether court we'll be back after this short break did you know that the Superior Court in Atlantic and Cape May County who provide interpreters for you to assist you with your day in court you can request an interpreter when you file your case or when you call interpreter services at six oh nine five nine four three four ninety six we have Spanish interpreters on staff and we also support all the languages by providing you with a court certified interpreter for your court proceedings sabri hasta que la corte superior de los condado de Atlantic Cape May Provera interpreters para usted
011para ayudarle consider en la corte coos tape Weda solicit AR un interpret a cuando presenter su caso puede llamar servicio de interpreters al say cero nueva cinco nova cuatro tres cuatro nueva say para solicitado tenemos interpreter's de español en nuestro person our item being a PMO's a otros idiomas que le proporciona UN interpreter certificate or el tribunal para su proceso OD CL welcome back to meet the court I'm your host Alan proceeded today we were talking about changes in the New Jersey child support law and we're joined by Don Daugherty team leader from the Cape May County Child Support Unit welcome back Don thank you when we left for a break we were talking about the absolute requirement that the child support terminate at the age of 23 and we were discussing disabled children and
012I imagine for our audience or maybe concerns that what do they do in the event they have a disabled children to continue to assist and support to that person after 23 all right they're the age of 23 I I I'm I can't tell you why that was picked but I can tell you that what it means is that we are no longer able to collect the support through the child support system through the computer system New Jersey kids and that is because we are a federally funded program designed for children so the the federal funding is not going to allow us anymore to cover what would be deemed as an adult now disabled children are obviously a fragile part of our society and we don't want there to be absolutely no further support for them
013there is something called financial maintenance that a person can file for and a child can be deemed disabled by a state or federal agency or they can be deemed incapacitated by a court order so in either situation that child is a disabled child the custodial parent or noncustodial parent has the right to come back to court and ask for a continuance it just would not be through the system and there's a number of arrangements that can be made it could be a private just between the parties type of arrangement if that's the relationship there can be further orders through the Civil Division as far as wage garnishments and getting support forcefully but what we are encouraging people that are in that situation is to go to our family divisions and to begin asking these questions
014and filing motions and seeing what their rights are but certainly didn't cite the quarter would preclude the parties the parents from speaking to each other and continue an arrangement that works for them I don't bless there is a domestic violence restraining order I know there's no there's nothing precluding the parties from continuing to support their child outside of the courts on their own in any capacity okay what if someone has multiple children and one of the children is reaching that age whether that age be 19 or the tween of the absolute age of 23 but they still have children within the age to get child support what happens with those orders okay this is going to be a confusing part right out of the gate because we haven't been doing this so suddenly we start
015sending these letters out and each letter is for each child so if you have five children let's say three are over the age of 19 and 2 or not you're getting three separate letters and all of them are indicating you know this child's being terminated from child's for this child's being terminate but obviously there's still children under the age of 18 what will happen is if three children are indeed taken off the order that order is not going to change financially if it is an unallocated order and what that means is most child support orders in fact I think about 98% of the KPA child support orders are unallocated meaning that they're not per child so if you had two children on the order and that the order was for $100 one might think that
016it's 50 dollars for child alien fifty dollars for child P that would make sense but that would be an allocated order like I said ninety-eight percent of our orders are on allocated meaning it's family support it's for both children and removing one does not change that amount it doesn't mean it can't change the amount it just means that it doesn't automatically change the amount so when we if we terminate one of those two children the child support is going to continue to charge at a hundred dollars a week and not go down the $50 a week unless there's a filing if there is a filing by either party to look at the child support guidelines and run the numbers and put both parents income into the system again and come out with a number for
017one child as opposed to then that would change but just this process just this administrative process is not going to change child support as long as there is an active child and it is an unallocated order and I think that that would calm any concerns that you know custodial parents may have regarding that thank you you talked about the extension of child support or continuing when an individual is a full-time student so they're just talking about a few of those one what is defined as a full-time student well that's that's always controversial we used to say it was twelve credits it was just like a known thing twelve credits equals full-time well that's not the case anymore especially with all the different type of learning we have we have internet learning we have you know
018off-site learning in school learning all kinds of stuff going on so we are now defining full-time status as whatever the school is defining us full-time status so when the custodial parents are trying to obtain these letters they have to be sure that somewhere on that letter it says full-time we've been getting stuff in the mail that is wonderful transcripts official nice raised seals they're very pretty but they're not they don't say that the full-time enrollment status of the child and they are being denied one thing that is also interesting is that a parents cannot obtain these letters because the children are adults now so it is quite a process and you have to work with your child and you have to make sure that these letters are coming to you there is also a warehouse
019a clearing warehouse that will certify full-time enrollment for the lending companies that parents can apparently utilize there's a small fee I believe it's just a few dollars we can accept letters from from that too but each school every school has to subscribe to that service and at some schools don't so I would begin by talking to your child and having them find out what if they can obtain an enrollment certification they have six months well they have a little less than six months about four and a half months to get from the time where their notice to get these letters so we're hoping that provides them with plenty of time and if they do provide information that isn't adequate we reach out by phone there's there's a signature at the bottom of these certifications and
020we really stress how important it is to keep your phone number updated so that if indeed something is submitted an error that we can reach out to you right away and tell you what you need to provide to us so that a child isn't terminated you know in error and also so important this and what we're finding out is very important to keep your address updated if we have a bad address that does not stop this process so service is not an issue if the letters go out and they come back and we know we try to reach out through emails and and phone numbers and we're not successful the child support is going to terminate unfortunately so again the importance of communication between the parties and your unit at site to ensure everyone's on
021the same page excellent thank you very much we're gonna take a short break and we come back just talk about against some of the other nuances to the law so the Thar audience fully understands thank you this is Ellen proceeded for me at the core we're going to take a short break we'll be back with you shortly did you know the Superior Court in Atlantic and Cape May counties as a website that has a lot of very helpful information you can access the site at NJ courts calm click on the tab across the top that says courts then click county local then click Atlantic Cape May this brings you to the home page from there you can click on any of the links to find the information you're seeking welcome back to meet the court
022I'm your host Island procedure our topic today are the changes to the child support law in New Jersey and our guest is John Daugherty the team leader from the Cape May County Child Support Unit welcome back Don thanks Alan so in through this conversation I think we discovers that there are probably a lot of what-ifs for our audience members some questions so let's talk about those nuances we were talking about children in in school what if a child is full-time the necessary documentation is submitted and then the child leaves school what happens to the child's fourth then anything that happens after our office makes the determination it's finalized if any changes occur the next day the next week the next month the next year and motion has to be filed by one of the parties
023if they want the termination date to now possibly move forward we cannot change anything administrative lee either party is welcome to come in and file for a change in that case ok so a child in this situation leave school and then soon after within that 23h timeframe decides to return to school does the child support just automatically start back how does that work now what would happen is if okay we terminate in the child support and the child decides to resume full-time status with before the age of 23 the custodial parent is welcome to come back in and file a motion and ask for further support from the non-custodial parent okay so essentially really comes down to the parties have to take responsibility yes they want to reinitiate yes after we make after that final
024decision is made and the court orders are sent out there's there's nothing bylaw that my office can do to change that okay with the the law being new what if someone has a judgment of divorce or a court order that indicates a date or an age I should say different than 19 or 23 it can actually indicate dates they do that they also indicate events such as upon graduation from a post-secondary school in that situation there is when the first letters go out there is a request if there is a court order existing to send it in and the custodial parent or the non-custodial parent can send that documentation in and my office would review the documentation and if indeed there is an event already in the court order before the age of 23 so
025even if the court order says 25 we have to make it the 23rd birthday but that would be reviewed and then the new court order would be automatically issued based on the judgment of divorce or whatever it said in that court order in this form that requests for continuation of support that's that was sent to them with these at the initial notification it is sent to the custodial that it is it sent to both okay so do parent and the non-custodial parent gets a chance to submit a court order but the the custodial parent gets a chance to submit the documentation on education and disability he or she is the only one that can present that information and what if you know the possibility people lose things so as a recipient what if I lose
026my form where can I get another one or you didn't ever get it because your address wasn't correct yes the best thing is to log on to the website which is NJ child support org and you can log on and you can access your account if you have your pins if not and you can reprint it right from the website it's wonderful if not you can call the eight seven seven number which is eight seven seven and J kids one or eight seven seven six five five four three seven one and you can obtain your PIN and log on or you can request the documentation be sent out to you right from the 877 number or you can always come into the office and we can always reprint it and give you all the documentation
027you need it sounds like you're offering individuals as much resource and information as you can to help them you know navigate the process we are trying our goal is not to terminate child support our goal is to collect an enforced child support okay you spoke so we talked about the effective date which is February first and there's this window right that you're getting the information out and there's somewhat of a delay what are some of the things you just want to emphasize our audience knows about to this window their flexibility if they have it right well the courts are giving six months to allow people to file if you know there's something that they need to come in and actually file for the courts after three months goes by we're sending out another notice that's
028more strongly worded that you know this is terminating if you do nothing it's going to terminate six weeks later my office is unable to do anything this that the system gets locked down so 45 days out from the proposed termination date in this situation is gonna be about mid-june after that if you run into the office with the certification of enrollment it's not gonna make a difference the system is gonna shut me down I'm not going to be able to continue any support and you're gonna have to go and file a motion and there are fees associated with motion so we emphasize that when you get these letters you know act upon them you do have that window of opportunity but once we're 45 days out we're not going to have a chance so they
029can do this without actually going through that formal process as long as between then that timeframe absolutely excellent I want to ensure that our audience is clear so we talked a lot about that age of 23 are there there are no exceptions to that age there are no exceptions if the child support began in New Jersey and New Jersey controls the order it's called controlling exclusive jurisdiction if we have that it's not a problem this law will absolutely affect your order and it will go into effect it did go into effect February 1st for all children over the age of 19 if your order started in another state and New Jersey is involved somehow enforcement monitoring but it's through the New Jersey system but another state has that controlling exclusive jurisdiction then we have to
030go with whatever the other state's laws are most are before the age of 23 they're usually more strict not less strict but in that situation you will not be receiving these letters you will be receiving whatever documentation the other state provides so where should they expect to get the documentation from so will they've received both the termination from here and from the other state other state they would only be receiving it from the other state conversely if you live in another state and you have a New Jersey order we will be sending out the documentation to your other state agencies so if you're watching this and you you know now live in Florida but New Jersey still controls your order we will be sending that documentation to the Child Support Agency in Florida should the
031case be registered in both states so that's another thing you kind of have to keep your eye on because you don't want to leave it up to a state agency to get that information to you I would probably be proactive and log on and try to get that information myself so the individuals want to be proactive and part of that being coming into your office as you've offered right as assistants where is your office located we are at nine North Main Street in Cape May courthouse in the Superior courthouse building my specific office is on on the basement level in the back of the courthouse thank you John I think as a result of this show certainly be clear about those changes but if they have additional questions they know where to go absolutely we're
032just about wrapping up today thank you for joining us our audience this is ellen procedure your host for meet the court we'll be back with you for the next [Music] you