"DEADBEATS DONT DRIVE" BILL SENT TO GOVERNOR By SECRETARY OF STATE GEORGE H. RYAN

After passing the Illinois Senate on a unanimous vote in April, my bill to make deadbeat parents pay court-ordered, overdue child support or face the loss of their drivers licenses was approved 108-1 in the House in May.

Senate Bill 1204 is currently awaiting action now by Governor Jim Edgar.

Threatening deadbeats with the loss of their licenses is a powerful enforcement tool. Once they see a suspension notice, they decide to pay up.

Under the bill, the Secretary of State's office would suspend the driving privileges of deadbeat parents found in contempt of court for falling behind 90 days or more in child support payments.

Parents have 60 days to contest the suspensions or avoid them entirely by paying the overdue child support. The bill also allows them to secure limited driving privileges for employment or medical reasons.

We don't want to take away anyone's livelihood. We're just insisting that these parents take care of their own children — just as the vast majority of people in this state do, day after day.

In Illinois, an estimated 700,000 parents owe more than $1.3 billion in past-due child support to their children and the custodial mother or father. Nationally, about $34 billion in past-due child support is owed to children.

Uncollected child support forces thousands of single parents in Illinois onto the welfare rolls, further straining the resources of an already strapped child welfare system. Lack of child support is the number one reason single parents have to seek public aid.

With the signing of this bill, I expect a sharp increase in collections with very few license suspensions, based on the experiences of other states.

In Maine, for instance, notices were sent to more than 21,000 parents whose drivers and occupational licenses were in jeopardy of being suspended in 1993. But only 41 licenses actually have been suspended, while officials have collected $24.9 million in back-due child support.

Maine is among 10 states that enforce child support collections by threatening deadbeat parents with loss of driving privileges, vehicle registrations or occupational licenses.

In California, which suspends occupational licenses by matching them to files of deadbeat parents, officials estimate that the average collection has been $1,000 to $1,200 per match. In one county, 79 percent of those delinquent parents identified by the system were still making regular payments after one year.

According to the Children's Defense Fund, only 3 percent of people default on their used car loans while 49 percent of people ordered to pay child support default on their payments.

Most of these deadbeat parents can afford to pay. They just don't. It's sad that these parents obviously value their cars and drivers licenses more than they do the welfare of their children, but we hope to rearrange those priorities.

SB 1204 was sponsored in the House by state Representatives Al Salvi, R-Wauconda, and Judy Biggert, R-Westmont. Senate sponsors were state Senators Karen Hasara, R-Springfield, and Todd Sieben, R-Geneseo.

When this bill becomes law, we not only can put heat on parents who don't pay, but we can cut welfare rolls and make life better for hundreds of thousands of Illinois children. •

June 1995 / Illinois Municipal Review / Page 7