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"DEADBEATS DONT DRIVE"
BILL SENT TO GOVERNOR
By SECRETARY OF STATE GEORGE H. RYAN
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After passing the Illinois Senate on a unanimous vote
in April, my bill to make deadbeat parents pay court-ordered, overdue child support or face the loss of their
drivers licenses was approved 108-1 in the House in
May.
Senate Bill 1204 is currently awaiting action now by
Governor Jim Edgar.
Threatening deadbeats with the loss of their licenses
is a powerful enforcement tool. Once they see a suspension notice, they decide to pay up.
Under the bill, the Secretary of State's office would
suspend the driving privileges of deadbeat parents
found in contempt of court for falling behind 90 days or
more in child support payments.
Parents have 60 days to contest the suspensions or
avoid them entirely by paying the overdue child support. The bill also allows them to secure limited driving
privileges for employment or medical reasons.
We don't want to take away anyone's livelihood.
We're just insisting that these parents take care of their
own children — just as the vast majority of people in
this state do, day after day.
In Illinois, an estimated 700,000 parents owe more
than $1.3 billion in past-due child support to their children and the custodial mother or father. Nationally,
about $34 billion in past-due child support is owed to
children.
Uncollected child support forces thousands of single parents in Illinois onto the welfare rolls, further
straining the resources of an already strapped child
welfare system. Lack of child support is the number
one reason single parents have to seek public aid.
With the signing of this bill, I expect a sharp increase
in collections with very few license suspensions, based
on the experiences of other states.
In Maine, for instance, notices were sent to more
than 21,000 parents whose drivers and occupational
licenses were in jeopardy of being suspended in 1993.
But only 41 licenses actually have been suspended,
while officials have collected $24.9 million in back-due
child support.
Maine is among 10 states that enforce child support
collections by threatening deadbeat parents with loss of
driving privileges, vehicle registrations or occupational
licenses.
In California, which suspends occupational licenses
by matching them to files of deadbeat parents, officials
estimate that the average collection has been $1,000 to
$1,200 per match. In one county, 79 percent of those
delinquent parents identified by the system were still
making regular payments after one year.
According to the Children's Defense Fund, only 3
percent of people default on their used car loans while
49 percent of people ordered to pay child support default on their payments.
Most of these deadbeat parents can afford to pay.
They just don't. It's sad that these parents obviously
value their cars and drivers licenses more than they do
the welfare of their children, but we hope to rearrange
those priorities.
SB 1204 was sponsored in the House by state Representatives Al Salvi, R-Wauconda, and Judy Biggert,
R-Westmont. Senate sponsors were state Senators
Karen Hasara, R-Springfield, and Todd Sieben, R-Geneseo.
When this bill becomes law, we not only can put
heat on parents who don't pay, but we can cut welfare
rolls and make life better for hundreds of thousands of
Illinois children. •
June 1995 / Illinois Municipal Review / Page 7
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