ELKHART – Over $22 million!!
That’s how much money parents paid in child support in Elkhart County in 2012 and double the amount collected ten years earlier.
In 2003, Elkhart County Prosecuting Attorney Curtis Hill, Jr. promised his office would take more responsibility for collecting child support.
Since then, collections have dramatically increased.
Hill says child support collected in 2012 totaled $22,248,073, a 7.6% increase over 2011’s number.
Over the past decade, the Elkhart County prosecutor’s office has collected more than $169 million, a 68% rise.
While annual child support collections have reached an all-time high, Hill says his office is running very effectively. The county’s Child Support program spent over $1.2 million dollars last year, which Hill says means for every $1 spent by his office towards the enforcement of child support resulted in $17.88 collected.
With reimbursements from the federal government, Hill says the actual cost of the program for Elkhart County was $390,641, or $57 collected for every $1 of Elkhart County money spent.
Hill says the county’s child support division is currently handling over 12,000 cases.
During 2012, Hill says his child support investigator, Dave Floerchinger, arrested 222 people for being behind on their child support by a total of nearly $3.4 million.
