Note: This is a follow-up to a story published in November 2022 regarding the Mississippi Department of Human Services and its child support system amongst the statewide welfare scandal currently underway. The two mothers quoted in this story have asked to remain anonymous, under fear of reprisal from the legal system.
Families across the Pine Belt are finally getting some answers from the Mississippi Department of Human Services regarding its child support program and the funding from it – or lack thereof – but for some, those answers have only raised their ire or brought about more questions.
A recent records request to MDHS shows that for Fiscal Year 2022, the department collected more than $1.47 million solely through a $35 fee that is assessed each year to custodial parents receiving child support through the department. That fee, which is federally required and sent to the Office of Child Support Services, is taken out annually at the moment a custodial family receives $550 in child support in any given year.
For one Forrest County mother who was forced to pay $5,000 to an attorney when the father of her child brought forward a custody case after being sued by MDHS for child support payments – after five years of paying cash for child support without the intervention of that agency – that amount is unacceptable.
“The Mississippi Department of Human Services can initiate a case on your behalf to collect child support payments and make money doing it,” the mother said. “(This is) in addition to a copious amount of fees taken monthly and yearly to accommodate for the ever-changing standards of the federal governments and state departments.”
The mother said in her case, she never filed a complaint with MDHS. Instead, the initiation of the case by the department in 2019 was based solely on Medicaid coverage provided for the child or the custodial parent at that time.
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, the state froze all Medicaid cases so that no one could remove themselves if they were to become no longer eligible, which made matters even more confusing,” she said. “This means that MDHS was actively initiating court cases against non-custodial parents on the sole basis of Medicaid recipients, while ignoring those recipients’ wishes to be removed from the coverage altogether (if they wanted to be).
“As a result, the cost of these cases can be broken down by the very fees (we’re talking about).”
Those fees do not include the ones for measures such as genetic testing, courts costs and the like, which are assessed to the non-custodial parent and are dependent on the specific facts of a particular case. The $35 non-refundable fee is applied to all “never assistance” cases, meaning those in which the custodial parent is not currently receiving, or has never received, benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, colloquially known as food stamps.
The $35 charge also does not replace a non-refundable application fee of $25, which is still meted out to custodial and non-custodial parents who are not receiving funds from SNAP or the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program, commonly known as welfare.
“The idea is to collect money in back payments to cover costs for Medicaid services provided to the child or custodial parent over the course of their life,” the Forrest County mother said. “This makes matters more complicated when you begin to question the relationship between Medicaid and the department of human services, TANF and SNAP.
“If you were to ask these departments outright if they are affiliated with one another, the official answer is no. However, based on fees assessed at the state and federal level, the answer is most certainly yes.”
Other than the records requests, when The Pine Belt News made calls to the MDHS, either a representative was not available for comment, or those calls went unreturned.
According to data from MDHS, some child support enforcement numbers from the current fiscal year include:
- 211,058 cases with a current support order; 86.7 percent of cases have a current support order.
- More than $2.98 million that has been collected from account seizures.
- More than $3.41 million that has been collected from unemployment.
- More than $54.89 million that has been collected from tax offsets.
- 3,752 cases which have been sent to other states.
- 1,454 cases which have been received in Mississippi.
- More than $259.38 million that has been collected from income withholding; and
- More than $3.31 million that has been collected from liens.
MDHS child support payments are issued on what’s informally referred to as a “Mississippi Card,” properly known as the Economic Assistance Eligibility TANF Way2GoCard. Child support payments can be made by person-to-person agreement without the involvement of the department unless the custodial parent is enrolled in other government programs, such as non-TANF Medicaid, IV-E foster care or SNAP.
“Since the department took over management of the payments, it has resulted in regular delays in those payments, which can vary anywhere from one to 15 days to be deposited to my Mississippi card,” the Forrest County mother said in November. “It’s not a regular set thing; you never know when it’s going to show up on the account. A (new law) means that a separated parent who has been on welfare will receive the first $100 in child support that comes in each month before the state takes the rest.
“Before DHS was involved, I regularly received payments on the first of every month from the biological father of my child. Since DHS came into the picture, the money comes out of his account on the first of every month; they take out a $20 fee from him, in addition to the $300 that he is supposed to pay me in child support. But most times, the payment doesn’t come to me until the ninth of the month, and sometimes it’s even later than that, depending on holidays and weekends.”
Other MDH fees include:
- ATM cash withdrawal: $1.75 each time;
- ATM balance inquiry: 75 cents each time;
- Card replacement: $5;
- Expedited card delivery: $15;
- ATM denial for insufficient funds: 50 cents after the third request (each call, each calendar month);
- Calling customer service: 50 cents after the fifth call (each call, each calendar month); and
- ATM surcharges: Some bank ATMS will apply a fee called a surcharge to use their ATM. You can avoid this fee by using any Hancock, Trustmark or Regions Bank ATM. If any other ATM besides those are used, various other fees are charged by the owners of those ATMs, sometimes up to $3 or more.
“Mothers who are receiving child support through the department of human services are obviously in need of financial support; otherwise, they would not be enrolled in the service to begin with,” the Forrest County mother said. “These fees, however small they may seem, can make the difference between whether any given child is able to have a proper meal.
“This could literally cause a child their next meal in some cases. Also, that ($20) that is tacked to the non-custodial parent’s payment to cover the cost of the legal expenses that were initiated by the department of human services in the first place, could be given to the child or the custodial parent to further assist with the cost of care, but instead, it’s used to pay the agency for their involvement for their efforts to collect payments on behalf of the custodial parent.”
Back in 2016, MDHS contracted with Ridgeland-based YoungWilliams to operate child support services. According to Mississippi Today, over the past six years the state has paid that firm $153 million to operate the program; in October 2021 YoungWilliams was paid another $135 million to run the program for an additional five years.
Mississippi Today states the program reaches almost 800,000 parents and kids throughout Mississippi, which has the highest case rate of any state in the nation.
A year after YoungWilliams took over, a consultant determined compared to state-run offices, that firm performed worse in almost every measurable metric.
Recently, MDHS received an additional $200 million from the American Rescue Plan Act, a $1.9 trillion economic stimulus bill issued by the federal government to speed up the United States’ recovery from the economic damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mississippi is currently in the midst of an expansive welfare scandal involving former quarterback Brett Favre, which was brought about because of the alleged misspending of $954 million in welfare funds throughout the state. That includes:
- A state-of-the-art volleyball stadium at the University of Southern Mississippi that could have paid for a year’s worth of child care for 920 families;
- Retired self-help training from professional wrestlers that could have paid for 22,704 electricity bills;
- Endorsements from Favre that could have paid for a year’s worth of diapers for 1,145 mothers;
- Three luxury vehicles that could have paid for a year’s worth of transportation stipends for 55 low-wage workers;
- Rent on a Flora house ranch that could have paid 494 monthly rent payments; and
- A fitness boot camp that could have given cash assistance for 138,234 people ($170 a month for a family of three for a full year).
Favre has come under fire in recent months for pressuring former Governor Phil Bryant to build the volleyball facility, known as the “Wellness Center,” on the USM campus. After it came to light the center was paid for with TANF funds, the debate has raged on how to settle the matter of repayment.
USM officials have offered to let MDHS use that facility, along with others on campus, for needy families, but MDHS officials say that procedure is against the law, as those funds are not allowed to be used for the construction of brick-and-mortar facilities.
As such, MDHS has rejected USM’s offer. In the time since, Tommy Duff – who serves as president of the Institutions for Higher Learning board of trustees – has expressed his belief that USM should pay back the funds.
Earlier this month, former USM president Rodney Bennett was subpoenaed for communications with Favre and other individuals allegedly involved in the scandal. That measure, which was filed in Hinds County Circuit Court, requires Bennett to produce materials related to the matter, or to permit an inspection of premises, and makes 11 requests including written correspondence, emails, social media posts, text messages, phone calls and all other types of communication.
Favre has maintained he was unaware of any misspent funds. In May, he filed an appeal with the Mississippi Supreme Court to dismiss himself from the welfare scandal case – which features more than 40 defendants – but that appeal was denied earlier this month.
According to the Senate Study Group on Women, Children and Families conducted in September, the following annual costs are necessary to support one adult and two children:
- Food: $6,644
- Child care: $3,783
- Medical: $7,127
- Housing: $9,009
- Transportation: $9,905
- Other: $5,099
- Total before taxes: $41,657
- Annual taxes: $7,750
- Total: $49,401
According to the study group, $36.62 per hour would be needed to meet these expenses; currently, the minimum wage in Mississippi is $7.25 per hour. The group states that access to items such as childcare vouchers or Medicaid can determine whether a working family sinks or floats.
Another mother, also from Forrest County, who is currently married to a man who has a child from another marriage, said although the man’s child support was being garnished from his paycheck, those funds were not being sent to the child’s mother for up to two to three months at first.
“(The child’s mother) got an attorney and was getting warrants signed to get him picked up when we found out about it,” she said. “I had to take copies of his paycheck stubs to her lawyer’s office to prove where it had been paid.
“During that time, there was lots of tension and she wasn’t bringing the child (to visit the father). That’s why he told (the mother) he’d pay it, but it would have to go through the chancery courts, but he was done with DHS.”
