I have worked in the Friend of the Court Office for 26 years and have seen many changes in the child support program.  Some of these changes could be overwhelming for parents trying to receive or pay child support.  Understanding the basic process of how child support is established, collected and distributed can help make the system less stressful.

The child support program in Michigan is referred to as an IV-D Agency. There are two different ways you can seek child support establishment and enforcement services — both of which require you to request IV-D services through the Office of Child Support.

If you have a child in your care and apply for Medicaid, cash grant or other types of assistance from the Department of Health and Human Services, and you are not living with the other parent, an automatic referral for child support will be made to the Prosecutor’s Office in the county the child lives.  The Child Support Division in the Prosecutor’s Office will work to establish a child support order for your child.

The second way to request IV-D child support services is through a privately filed divorce or child support case with or without an attorney. You can request IV-D services and find helpful information online at: micase.state.mi.us.

The Uniform Child Support Order identifies when support starts, how much support is to be paid or received each month, how long support will last, how medical costs are divided, and the overnights per year that the child will be with the payer of child support.

The UCSO becomes part of your public case file maintained by the clerk’s office.  Unless you opt out of FOC services, the FOC will monitor and enforce the child support provisions of your UCSO.

The FOC inputs the terms of your USCO into the Michigan Child Support Enforcement System computer program to monitor your case. The FOC also enters employment information, insurance information, address information, and demographic information into MiCSES to help manage your case. The MiCSES program will monitor payments and alert the FOC to take needed action such as when a parent is not paying support as ordered.  If the child support payer is employed, the FOC will issue an income withholding notice to the employer to withhold a pro-rated amount to match the pay-cycles to satisfy the monthly obligation.  The employer will deduct the amount from the payer’s pay and mail it or electronically send it to the Michigan State Disbursement Unit in Lansing.

MISDU collects all regular support in Michigan.  When MISDU gets a support payment, the payment is receipted to your specific child support account.  MISDU issues out payments every day for cases all across the state.  You will have a choice of either having your support payment issued to a debit card or you can request a direct deposit.   However, if a parent is receiving state assistance, like a cash grant or Medicaid, their support or the ordinary medical portion of their support is re-directed to the State.

You cannot receive both a cash grant and/or Medicaid and receive child support.  The support will be re-directed to the state as partial  reimbursement for your state assistance.

If either parent’s circumstances change, a parent can ask the FOC to review child support administratively to see if a change in child support is warranted or a parent can file a motion asking the court to change child support.  If a parent has a change of circumstances, that parent should immediately ask for a review or file a motion because child support does not automatically change just because a parent’s circumstances change. Attorneys are helpful in legal proceedings, and if you can’t afford an attorney, michiganlegalhelp.org is very useful for persons representing themselves.

If you have questions about child support processing, please contact the FOC by calling (269) 445-4436 or emailing foc@cassco.org and a child support professional will be happy to answer your questions.

Please also email foc@cassco.org if you have ideas about future topics for future FOC columns.

Donella Kujawa is a Cass County Friend of the Court, Financial Case Management Supervisor.