Faulty - Inaccurate Government Records

American Injustice - Lying Judges and Lawyers

Faulty - Inaccurate Government Records

County welfare - child support collection office overpays foster parents thousands

Jefferson County, Alabama's welfare and child support collection agency has overpaid more than $410,000 to foster parents who no longer have children, with some over-payments going back eight years.

The Birmingham News reported today that one foster parent has received $20,381 for a child who has not been in state care since 1989. In another case, a foster parent got $1,832 from September through May for a child who had died.

The over-payments by the county Department of Human Resources were revealed in a state review of 524 foster children, In 91 cases, foster parents received too much money.

The county said it has stopped the over-payments, which averaged $4,509 a child. But foster parents who wrongly took money must either repay it or face possible prosecution for fraud, said Mary Lou Kevorkian, the county welfare director.

The state report blamed the over-payments on a lack of communication between county case workers and clerks and a misunderstanding of agency record-keeping. The county stopped making reviews aimed at tracking children in foster care.

The amount of over-payments ranged from $200 for a foster parent who received $25 a month since October to a parent who was paid $22,654 to care for three siblings removed from the foster home in late 1994.

According to Walker County, Alabama's welfare and child support collection agency, neither the state nor the individual county agencies have a policy of refunding over-payments to non custodial parents that overpay their child support. Isn't it ironic that the county agency is ready to charge foster parents with fraud for receiving over-payments, but do not return child support over-payments, that are erroneously collected from non custodial parents?

The same agency that cannot keep proper records, concerning foster care, maintains the child support records paid by non custodial parents. How accurate are the child support records? In claims of arrearage cases, that can result in imprisonment for debt, courts will only allow the misinformation and inaccurate records maintained by the individual collection agencies as evidence.

The state and county collection agencies are guilty of fraud for collecting too much child support and refusing to refund the over-payment? However, fraud charges are not possible, because the criminals within the agency, that illegally confiscate property, receive full protection by the courts through immunity doctrines.

Immunity doctrines circumvent the constitutional protections that allow citizens the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

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