🚀 go-pugleaf

Well, the taxpayer-funded, privately operated FMEP did it again.

After just shy of a year in their program, I withdrew due to my lack of
amusement with their infamous Comedy of Errors operations, etc.. I had
figured out that -- in my case anyway -- I stood a much better chance (once
withdrawn from FMEP) of recovering from my ex-husband several thousand dollars
in child support arrears, on my own.  Their records show that my enrollment was
withdrawn effective February 22, 1993.

I have recently received disclosure that some funds from the federal government
owed to my ex were garnisheed (for child support arrears) by the FMEP on
January 16 and 29, 1993 and again on February 13, 1993.

As I have never received such funds and am back in court on Monday, May 17, to
address the matter of arrears, I called the FMEP to enquire as to what had
become of those said federal funds garnisheed on behalf of our children?  I
was told that those funds had been returned to my ex as a result of my
withdrawal from the program!  Please note that those monies were garnisheed
36 days, 24 days and 9 days respectively, *prior* to my withdrawal from the
program!  The garnisheed amount in question?  $468.75 TOTAL.  (Oooh, ahh)

As my ex has disclosed only that the funds were garnisheed and has not
disclosed the fact that they were subsequently returned to him, I asked the
FMEP to advise me of when those funds were returned to him.  They then informed
me that as I was no longer enrolled with them, they would not give me that
information.  They are aware of the fact that my court proceedings concerning
the matter of child support arrears will resume this Monday.  In other words,
my ex has copies of the chequestubs reflecting the garnishees -- and therefore,
indicating payments towards arrears -- while I have nothing to show that those
funds were subsequently returned to him by the FMEP.

I told the FMEP that I do not recall anything in the Family Maintenance
Enforcement Act that indicates they can return garnisheed amounts to the
debtor parent, provided arrears are known to be owed and as long as the
creditor parent is enrolled.  The staff I spoke with acknowledged that there
is not such a clause in the said Act.  I then asked her where in the FMEP's
policy and procedures manual it contained any such clause, assuming that they
must have one in their manual that is not covered by governing legislative
Acts.  She said she "could not" (would not?) answer that question for me.

B.C.'s taxpayers pay over $6 million a year to fund the FMEP.  The FMEP's
"success rate" is a mere 26%.  Their caseworkers have an average caseload of
1100 - 1300 clients per worker.  Needless to say, the program is hardly
efficient in most cases.

It seems terribly apparent to me that the program is yet another bureaucracy
working to cover their own privately owned, publicly funded asses and not
one dedicated to the role it was supposedly intended to assume -- that of
recovering court ordered support from delinquent debtor parents, for their
children.

Also, the few debtor parents who have experienced firsthand the other side of
the FMEP coin, that I know, have been garnisheed for funds they didn't owe;
treated like criminals if and when they were laid off, etc. from work *even
when they had been paying full and regular support prior to that time, through
the program*; and so on.

I certainly maintain that there needs to be a system in place for the
enforcement of child support orders, for cases in which the debtor parent fails
to but has the ability to pay, assuming the Order itself is reasonable.
Unfortunately,  it seems that an additional system is needed to make sure the
enforcement agency is truly doing its job efficiently and intelligently.  (Now
there's an oxymoron, "government intelligence"!)

At the same time, the last thing we need is more government bureaucracies and
more taxes!  Sigh...

Lisa (Graham) Lambeth

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Lisa Lambeth                             lisa@oneb2.almanac.bc.ca
Nanaimo, B.C.
Canada                                   NEXT?