Ingham FOC Collaborates with City of Lansing to Help Incarcerated Parents 'Avoid Common Pitfalls'

By Harry Moxley, Director, Ingham County Friend of the Court

In 2016 the Capital Region Community Foundation awarded a grant to the City of Lansing’s Office of Financial Empowerment for a pilot project called, “In Reach.”[1]  The project’s goal was to assist individuals either entering or leaving incarceration to facilitate successful reentry into society upon release.  The Office of Financial Empowerment found three major financial problems facing individuals released from prison: child support accrued during incarceration resulting in unmanageable debt; identity theft; and loss of bank accounts.

In a video interview about the project, Erin Frisch, Director of the Michigan Office of Child Support, said, “We found over time that many child support payers have accumulated a lot of child support debt.  And what we have found is sometimes that debt can be overwhelming.  When it’s overwhelming, folks tend to shy away from participating in the [child support] program and really supporting their children with what they can do now and today.”

Researchers also recognize child support arrears as a key obstacle to successful reentry for parents released from incarceration.  Eli Hager, staff writer for the Marshall Project, wrote in a 2015 article published in the Washington Post: “Of the 2.2 million people incarcerated in the United States, about half are parents, and at least 1 in 5 has a child support obligation.”

Interagency cooperation was a key factor in the success of the In Reach project.  Partners in the pilot included: the City of Lansing Office of Financial Empowerment; the Ingham County Friend of the Court (Ingham FOC); the Ingham County Health Department’s Strong Start/Healthy Start “Dads Matter” outreach program; the State Court Administrative Office’s Friend of the Court Bureau; the Michigan Office of Child Support; and the Michigan Department of Corrections Offender Success staff.  

Each of the participating agencies experienced unique benefits of this project.  From our perspective at the Ingham FOC, the benefits were immediately evident.  Brenda Knauf, former casework supervisor for Ingham FOC, explained that the partner agency relationships provided crucial information to more accurately process cases.  “It really helps when everybody works together,” she said.  “People seem to think we have this one big system, and all this information is in it, and everybody has access to it—and there isn’t one big system.  We all have to communicate with each other and pass along information.”

Through successful collaboration with the partners, Ingham FOC was able to: 

1.  Effectively identify and work with our incarcerated payers to efficiently adjust support obligations when payers enter incarceration (according to the payer’s ability to pay;
2. During incarceration or immediately upon release, review state-owed arrears and fees for eligibility to discharge due to inability to pay, and remove the arrears as appropriate; and
3. Inform payers of their eligibility for a review of their support obligation upon release from incarceration, given the change in circumstance they may be facing.

For the period of the In Reach pilot program (December 2016 through December 2017), Ingham FOC successfully modified more than 200 cases by order, for more than 150 payers.

A project participant explains in a video interview that he has
been able to exercise more parenting time with his children as a
result of having less income withheld to pay off his arrearages.
He uses the extra income available to feed and clothe his 
children while they are in his care.

Some of the project benefits are less easily quantified.  “The non-custodial parents are contacting us more, and we’re working with them, and it’s helping reduce enforcement hearings and issuing warrants,” said Knauf.  “And there’s just more collaboration with our office because they know we’re working with them, not against them.”

Ingham FOC actively tracks approximately 800 dockets (out of almost 20,000 dockets total on our caseload) in which the payer has been incarcerated on a medium- to long-term basis (i.e., from a few months to 10+ years).

We compile incarceration information for our caseload from a variety of sources on a monthly basis, including:

• Ingham County MDOC Probation Office (e-mails all new Ingham MDOC commitments for the week);
• Ingham County Jail’s daily inmate roster (e-mailed daily);
• mi-support Data Warehouse reports regarding prisoner and incarceration information; (QN-114 SVES-Prisoner Information and LC-011 Proactive Locate-Incarceration reports);
• Ad Hoc Query of MDOC inmates with FOC cases from the Michigan Child Support Enforcement System (MiCSES);
• MiCSES report of cases with current incarceration dates and arrears; and
• Websites including: Vinelink.com, OTIS.com, Inmateinfo.com, BOP.gov, and many other state and local websites.

The payer’s release date is often unknown and sometimes the payer remains incarcerated past the earliest release date (release dates are not updated beyond the earliest release date in many of the above-mentioned systems).  By tracking cases and setting a follow-up date to recheck for release, Ingham FOC has been able to ensure that almost all cases of incarcerated payers are promptly identified for an FOC-initiated support review, and as appropriate, have the support obligation suspended during incarceration.  The same cases are also identified upon the payer’s release to reinstate the support obligation.  At that time, the payer is also notified of eligibility for a support review if his or her circumstances have changed due to incarceration.

Monitoring cases for entry and release from incarceration has paid off for Ingham FOC performance measures, as well.  For 2017, Ingham County exceeded its Michigan Child Support Program performance goal by attaining 72.05 percent of current support collected in the same month it is due.  Our improvement on this factor from 2016—and relative to the statewide average—is undoubtedly due in part to reduced charging of uncollectable support from incarcerated payers.  Similarly, our 2017 arrears case-collection factor is 71.95 percent and exceeds our goal by more than 10 percent.

“I would encourage other counties to look at their community partners, find out what resources are available, and see if there’s an office of economic empowerment in their area,” recommended Ingham County Circuit Court Administrator Shauna Dunnings.  “And if there isn’t, talk to your city about what you can do to be able to establish partnerships with community partners to provide this service.”

Please watch the City of Lansing video “Avoiding Common Pitfalls” containing the above excerpts and more at https://vimeo.com/246531194.

Harry Moxley is a 1990 graduate of Michigan State University (B.A., Accounting).   He has worked for Ingham County for 27 years.  From 1991-2001 he worked in the Ingham County Treasurer’s office.  From 2001-2014 Harry was Assistant Director of Operations for the Ingham County Friend of the Court, and he has served as the Director there since 2014.

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[1] The In Reach project is also referred to as “Avoiding Common Pitfalls” by the City of Lansing’s Office of Financial Empowerment.