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June 18, 2001
Dear Mr. Shuey:
Thank you for your most recent email expressing your concerns regarding your child support case. We are always glad to provide information and assist in any way possible. As requested, I reviewed your letters posted on your website and researched records associated with your case that is maintained by the New Hanover County Child Support Office.
The most effective method of determining your arrears balance would be to calculate the total amount owed since the inception of your child support order and subtract the total amount paid.
In your letter you spoke to the issue of your arrears balance changing without you missing a payment. This is quite possible since your child support order is a monthly order and you are paid weekly. Your weekly payments are $75.46 per week and your monthly child support obligation is $327.00. During some months you will have four pay periods and other months you will have five pay periods. This effects the amount of money received on your behalf that can be applied towards your monthly obligation. For the months that have only four pay periods we receive a total of $301.84 towards your $327.00 obligation. This leaves a deficit of $25.16 for that particular month which will effect your arrears balance. When you are paid five times a month the additional payment balances out the deficit from the four week month. Your payments are annualized over a year period meaning that $317.00 per month for twelve months is $3,924.00 and $75.46 per week for 52 weeks equals $3,923.92.
I have requested that your case manager send you a complete copy of your financial records which will date back to the beginning of your order. Please take the time to review these documents carefully and if any discrepancy is found please report it immediately. The fluctuations in the balance of your arrears from month to month is not considered a discrepancy since your payments are being made weekly. In addition to this factor, please keep in mind that the date your payments are posted can also effect the balance of your arrears. For example, all arrears balances are calculated on the first of the month. If your employer mails out the last payment due for a month close to the end of the month, that payment may not be received until after the 1st of the next month. Therefore you can have a May 29, 2001 payment be received by Centralized Collections on June 1, 2001 and post to your case June 2, 2001. This will create a temporary increase in your arrears balance until the arrears are recalculated the 1st day of the following month.
I understand your frustration and hope that I have not further confused the issue for you. Upon receipt of your complete financial history please add all payments due and subtract the total amount of all payments made by you or on your behalf and report any discrepancies immediately.
I hope this information will be helpful to you.
Sincerely,
Child Support Enforcement
Thank you for any attention and support you can provide.
Arthur Shuey
June 12, 2001
Mr. Arthur F. Shuey
108 South 13th St.
Wilmington, NC 28401
RE: Case #xxxxxxx
Child Support Arrears
Dear Mr. Shuey:
Enclosed in my May 4, 2001 letter to you was a complete record of payments received on your behalf for child support payments in the above referenced case. These include payments made directly AND through wage withholding. Please reference the Order/Payment History. As a result of your dispute of the arrears, I also included a manual calculation payment card I prepared as a check and balance to the ACTS figures. These two documents include ALL payments received including what is shown on the employee check history provided by Anderson & Daniel and The Reserves Network.
The Automated Collection and Tracking System is functioning as designed and actually allows you an extra 30 days to pay your monthly child support before applying any unpaid current support as arrears. If you have questions or complaints regarding the functionality of the ACTS system, I refer you to Barry Miller, Chief of Child Support, 100 E. Six Forks Road, Raleigh, NC, 27609, phone 91-571-4114, fax 919-881-2281.
Your first child support payment in the amount of $327.00 was due on December 1, 1998. In order for a payment to be withheld and received in a timely basis, your employer, St. Andrews-Covenant Presbyterian Church, would have to have withheld from your November 30, 1998 check. I fail to see how you have determined that you should have started out with a credit since the November 30, 1998 withholding you discussed would not have posted by your first due date of December 1, 1998 if mailed timely.
Applying simple arithmetic to calculate your arrears through the date of my last correspondence, add everything due from December 1, 1998 through April 30, 2001. Subtract all payments received and you will arrive at the $287.23 arrearage as of April 30, 2001. If you have proof of payments made that are not reflected in the information provided, we will gladly review the proof and make any applicable corrections. To date, we have not received any such additional proof from you.
We commend you for your care and concern for your daughter and regret that you feel you have had a bad experience with our office. Our concern is to provide the best possible service to all individuals as possible. If Ms. Judith A. Glavin, requests in person or by sworn statement that we close her case with this office, we will do so. The request must come from her.
If the above information is not satisfactory, your remaining option is to file a motion to modify support through the New Hanover County Clerk of Court asking the court to render a decision regarding the arrearage matter.
Sincerely,
Larry Mays
Child Support Case Manager
June 15, 2001
Larry Mays
New Hanover Child Support Enforcement
343-5279fax
RE: Case #xxxxxxx
Dear Mr. Mays:
Thank you for your letter of the 12th, which begins with a statement made partially in bold and upper case type that you had previously supplied me a complete record of payments. Let me refer you to your predecessor’s fax to me of November 16th, 2000, which notes payments received which were not included on your May 4th, 2001 record of payments received. Therefore, your May 4th record is not complete.
Your June 12th letter then stated that the ACTS system “is functioning as designed,” and referred me to Barry Miller should questions or concerns remain. If that system is indeed “functioning as designed,” then it was not defined to identify arrears. My arrears showed up on 10/9/2000 as $262.03. Since that time, your records and mine agree that the specified weekly child support amount of $75.46 has been deducted from my weekly paycheck and routed to my daughter through correct channels constantly and consistently, yet your May 4th record, prepared with the ACTS system, shows alleged arrears fluctuating from a low of $56.29 to a high of $387.79 between October, 2000 and April, 2001. If I owe $75.46 a week and I pay $75.46 a week, “applying simple arithmetic,” to quote your June 12th letter, results in “arrears” as the word is commonly defined remaining unchanged. Under the ACTS system, they do not. Therefore, the ACTS system, is it is indeed “functioning as designed,” is not designed to determine arrears. Furthermore, Mr. Miller, along with the Governor, Raleigh and Wilmington press and decision makers within your agency and NCDSS at state, regional and local levels, has already been made aware of my concerns about the ACTS system, having received notice of a recent update to my website that included the text of my May 7th letter to you, to which you responded on June 12th.
The third paragraph of your June 12th letter states that my first child support payment of $327.00 was due on December 1, 1998. My memory of initial arrangements differs, and having already found a discrepancy between your records and those of your predecessors on my case, I believe we should look into it. Please provide me a copy of the instructions provided to my employer of that time, St. Andrews-Covenant Presbyterian Church, concerning payroll deductions for child support.
Your letter then mentions an arrears amount of $287.23, which varies from the $262.03 original arrears amount, which should not have changed since I have met 100% of obligation since the $262.03 amount was announced last autumn. You go on to request that I provide proof of any payments made in addition to those in your May 4th, 2001 list, and I’ve already referred you to such proof, as it exists in November 16th, 2000 correspondence to me from your agency. You still haven’t told me how to route the $29.60 that I know I owe my daughter properly through the system, and your closing suggestion that I contact the Clerk of Court to modify support is questionable, as I do not wish to modify support.
Your advice on closing my case with your office is questionable, as I, not Mrs. Glavin, initiated child support arrangements. However, I would like to pursue the matter. To do so, I need to be able to offer my daughter and her mother the same security, benefits, guarantees, etc. that they receive under current agreements, but without the involvement of your agency. Please provide me a document detailing the current agreement so that I can begin drafting a proposal to Mrs. Glavin.
This issue has been before us since October of last year without much progress toward resolution. Figures provided from letter to letter and from caseworker to caseworker vary, so that I can’t make a payment toward alleged arrears with any confidence in its accuracy whatsoever. Nor, based on experience to date, can I get instructions on how to pay $29.60 toward arrears. As discussed above, I believe that your last letter contained a number of unsupported, unsupportable and false statements.
I look forward to receiving the documents I’ve requested and your advice on how we might actually proceed toward resolution from here.
Yrs,
Arthur F. Shuey