Supporting Georgia's Children: Constitutionally Sound Objectives and Means

Georgia State Bar Journal
Vol. 6, No. 2, October 2000

"Supporting Georgia's Children Constitutionally Sound Objectives And Means"

By Rebecca A. Hoelting

This article will demonstrate that Georgia's child support guidelines are the product of a constitutional process and produce results that are not only constitutional but generally fair to both custodial and noncustodial parents. Many competing interests and approaches must be balanced in devising a system of awarding child support. The choices reflected in the Georgia child support guidelines violate neither the due process clause nor the equal protection clause of the Constitution. Before undertaking a constitutional analysis of Georgia's child support guidelines, it is important to consider the underlying purpose of child support. The focus must be on the children not the parents. Child support has been dissected and reinvented so often that this focus is often obscured. The true meaning of child support should be to try to find a way to best allocate the available resources to nurture, educate and raise children when they are not in a two-parent family. The overwhelming import of child support led the Federal government to become involved in making sure that states set up guidelines to determine the appropriate allocation of parental resources.1 The federal rules were specific about how to establish the guidelines and provided a helping hand to states in the form of economic studies and descriptions of various models of guidelines.2

History Of Georgia's Guidelines

Georgia's guidelines were initially adopted for use by "IV-D" welfare agencies only. Prior to their adoption, a Georgia commission considered the most appropriate method of setting guidelines. Among other things, the commission reviewed the Office of Child Support 0 children are incurred in the custodial parent's home. The Office of Child Support Enforcement report points out that the overall standard of living for all family members declines when a family separates, since two families have more expenditures than one.8 Concerns about the inadequate resources left to the non-custodial parent for supporting the children during her or his visitation are misguided. In reality it is custodial parents who are more likely to suffer economic hardships. The Georgia Supreme Court in the Blanchard9 case held that a court could not award the non-custodial parent the federal income tax dependency deduction. In so holding, the Court wrote: "Each day more custodial parents fall below the poverty level, crowding welfare rolls, and needy children face serious shortages in government programs because of massive cuts in federal, state, and local budgets."10 In that context the Court decided that it could not allow judges to assign an income tax deduction to the detriment of the already financially disadvantaged custodial parent. The Georgia guidelines also take into account the income of the custodial parent. Although the guidelines do not mathematically factor in that income, it was a consideration in the manner that the guidelines were set up. With regard to the model adopted by Georgia, the federal guidelines stated: "[It] does not ignore custodial parent income. Rather based on an alternate interpretation of economic evidence, it counts custodial parents' income implicitly under the presumption that the custodial parent allocates the same percentage to the children as the noncustodial parent."11 Also, the Georgia guidelines list as a special circumstances the situation in which the obligor has gross income in excess of $75,000 per year.12 This is an important aspect of the guidelines and must be considered by parties, attorneys, judges, and juries. It is also important to note that the Georgia Child Support guidelines produce results similar to the guidelines in other states. A recent comprehensive state-by-state Enforcement's recommendations on establishing child support guidelines. The commission eventually decided to follow the Wisconsin model, which assigned child support as a percentage of the obligor's income. Choice of this model was based upon careful consideration of economic data and ease of administration. Before the guidelines were passed into law for use in all cases, a broader commission was convened. That commission included custodial parents, non-custodial parents, lawyers, judges, child support administrators and others. It considered the critiques of the Wisconsin model, such as its failure to expressly take the income of the custodial parent and other circumstances into account. As a result of these critiques, the commission incorporated a list of factors to be considered for deviations from the guidelines. 3 These eighteen factors remain part of the statute.4 Although I can offer no statistical evidence, as a domestic relations attorney, I can attest that these factors often play an important role in negotiating a child support agreement or a child support award decided by a judge or jury.5

Economic Considerations

The Georgia child support guidelines are based upon sound economic principles. Calculation of child support using gross income makes sense because net incomes can be almost impossible to calculate using pay stubs and other readily available documentation. Decisions must be made about which of the deductions from a paycheck are mandatory and which are voluntary deductions. The gross income method should produce more, rather than...