SB 105

This bill reorganizes certain aspects of the Department of Children and

Families administrative rules relating to commonly used child support formulas in

order to reflect current practices. The manner of calculating the amount of child

support and the applicable formulas are not changed in the bill. The bill also makes

statutory changes to eliminate future family support orders.

Under current DCF rules, the child support formula that applies in a shared

physical placement arrangement is included among the formula for “special

circumstances.” The bill moves the formula that applies in a shared physical

placement arrangement to a new section of DCF's rules before all of the child support

formula variations. The bill also specifies that, under DCF rules, the designated

percentage that applies in a nonshared physical placement arrangement applies

only if the conditions for the shared placement formula do not apply.

The bill creates a new defined term under the DCF rules for a “designated

percentage,” to mean the applicable percentage of a parent's monthly income, or

adjusted monthly income, that is available for child support. The “designated

percentage” phrase is then used within the calculations for a shared-placement

arrangement and circumstances of a serial-family parent, split-placement parents,

and combinations of special circumstances.

The bill retitles the applicable DCF administrative code chapter from “Child

Support Percentage of Income Standard” to “Child Support Standard.” The bill also

removes the definition of the term “standard” or “percentage standard” from DCF's

rules and moves a Note appended to the definition of “standard” in the DCF rules to

the new definition of the “designated percentage.” The Note specifies that the

standard is based on national studies and is adjusted downward to reflect costs

incurred by a parent when a child is in the parent's care and costs to maintain a

child's health insurance.

The bill moves the listing of the designated percentage amounts, and the

standard that applies to a request for a deviation from the percentage standard, to

be placed with and follow the shared physical placement arrangement formula under

DCF's rules. The new section is titled, “Determining the child support obligation.”

The bill also updates cross-references within the DCF rules to reflect the

reorganization of the shared physical placement and designated percentage

provisions.

In addition to the administrative code changes, the bill also changes the

statutes to eliminate family support orders, providing that no new family support

orders may be issued beginning on the bill's effective date. Family support orders

issued before the bill's effective date would remain in effect and be subject to all

provisions in current law that apply to family support orders, including provisions

relating to calculating interest and the duties of DCF regarding application of

payments received.