What to Expect When You're Expecting Child Support: An analysis of Kentucky's Revised Child Support Statutes

Blog Post | 110 KY. L. J. ONLINE | March 24, 2022

What to Expect When You're Expecting Child Support: An analysis of Kentucky's Revised Child Support Statutes

By: Will Mathews , Staff Editor, Vol. 110

“Child Support, Alimony, she’s eating steak, I’m eating baloney.”[1] This lyric from the 1990 Ray Charles song may seem a bit out of date, which of course it is, much like the Kentucky Child Support Statutes and Guidelines which were implemented the same year.[2]  For several years now the family law community of Kentucky has been calling for an overhaul of the statute to elevate it to modern standards. The old guidelines had not been updated to account for the higher costs of raising a child and inflation that has occurred since 1990, nor was there a set guideline for split timesharing arrangements.[3] Finally, in 2021 the Kentucky Legislature revised the Child Support Guidelines.[4] These revised statutes raised monthly obligations and included provisions for dealing with split timesharing, however, it left some critical problems.[5] The fundamental issue with the new statute is that the amount of child support is reduced if there is any deviation from equal timesharing.[6]

The issue boils down to a simple mathematical anomaly. Without boring any reader with extensive math, I will attempt to break down how child support is calculated as easily as possible. The first part of calculating child support is to find each parent’s monthly gross income, these two numbers are added together, that total number is then applied to a corresponding list in the Kentucky Child Support Guidelines.[7]  The number from the guidelines is the base obligation for child support.[8] That number is then multiplied by the percent of income, the higher-earning parent is contributing (see footnote 9 for example of calculation).[9] If the parents have equal timesharing which is the rebuttable presumption in Kentucky, then the parent with the higher monthly earning pays their percentage of that amount to the lower-earning parent in child support. [10]

The problem occurs when there is a deviation from equal time-sharing. While equal timesharing is the standard, it does not always occur. This can happen by court order or through an agreement by the parents.[11] If the deviation occurs, then the calculation of child support changes. For example, if the parents agree that the child will stay with Parent A for two-thirds of the month and Parent B for one-third of the month, the amount of child support Parent B owes Parent A decreases significantly (see footnote 12 for example of this reduction).[12] The result is that Parent A has the child more time than before, therefore incurring more expenses in caring for the child, but has had the amount of support they receive drastically reduced. The reason this happens is because there is a double reduction happening in the mathematical formula. The statute calls for a calculation that involves reducing the amount of child support by the amount the other parent has “overnights” with the child.[13] This makes sense since the other parent is likely incurring the expenses when the child is with them, where it gets wonky, and problematic is that the child support obligation is then reduced a second time to account for the amount of time the child support receiving parent has the child.[14]

In 2019 in a Presentation to the Interim Joint Committee on Judiciary, members of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services expressed findings and recommendations for updating Kentucky’s child support statutes.[15] The recommendation regarding computing child support for parents with timesharing schedules was based on Oregon’s model.[16] The Oregon model provides for a gradual change when one parent receives extra “overnights” with the child.[17] In Oregon’s model, if the parents moved from equal timesharing by one overnight, the adjustment in child support obligation is calculated using the timesharing table and results only in a .0007% change.[18] Clearly, the Kentucky Legislator did not follow the recommendation set by the Cabinet.

Impact of the Law

The clear impact from the new law is that in a non-equal timesharing scenario, the amount of child support received will be drastically decreased, which for many low-income families can have a devastating impact. Child support income accounted for over two-thirds (70.3 percent) of the mean annual personal income for custodial parents below poverty who received full child support.[19] The vast majority of parents receiving child support are mothers.[20] The new law will have a disproportionate effect on women, who are already nearly twice as likely as men to fall below the poverty line.[21] While it is unclear exactly what the Kentucky legislature was thinking, one might wonder if the extremely male-skewed legislature had anything to do with it.[22] In the alternative, an argument could be made that this change of law will help to enforce the presumption of equal timesharing. While studies have shown that children are better off with two present and active parents, jeopardizing the financial stability of single parents seems a dangerous way to encourage equal timesharing.[23]

[1] Ray Charles, Child Support, Alimony. Would You Believe? (1990).

[2] Hoffman, Walker, & Knauf, Changes in Kentucky Child Support Laws (Apr. 27, 2021) https://www.hoffmanlawyer.com/blog/2021/04/changes-in-kentucky-child-support-laws/.

[3] See Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 403.211 (West); Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 403.212 (West).

[4] Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 403.211 (West); Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 403.212 (West).

[5] 2021 Kentucky Laws Ch. 47 (HB 404).

[6] Id.

[7] In this example, for ease of comprehension, I am excluding costs for childcare and medical insurance premiums.

[8] Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 403.211 (West); Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 403.212 (West).

[9] For example, Parent A earns, 2500 dollars a month, Parent B earns 7500 dollars. Their total gross income for the month is 10,000 dollars.  For one child the guidelines recommend 1099 dollars a month in child support. With equal timesharing, Parent B would owe parent A: 1099 x .75= 824.25. See Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 403.211 (West).

[10] 2021 Kentucky Laws Ch. 47 (HB 404).

[11] 2021 Kentucky Laws Ch. 47 (HB 404), Section 3 (1).

[12] Using the numbers calculated in note v, if parent A now has the child for 2/3 of the month the new amount of child support is calculated with this reduction equation. The amount Parent B is responsible for in child support multiplied by the amount of time Parent A has the child: 824.25 x .67 = 552.25. Then that number is further reduced by the amount Parent A would owe in child support multiplied by the amount of time Parent B has the child: 274.75 x .33= 90.67. Therefore, Parent B now owes only 461.58 dollars in child support.

[13] 2021 Kentucky Laws Ch. 47 (HB 404).

[14] Id.  

[15] Cabinet for Health and Family Services, Findings and Recommendations from the Review of the Kentucky Child Support Guidelines, Presentation to the Interim Joint Committee on Judiciary (Oct. 4, 2019).

[16] Id. at 39.

[17] Id. at 35. The term “Overnight” is also used in KRS 403.211, it refers to any extra nights the child stays with a parent that deviates from equal timesharing.

[18] Example: Each parent’s monthly income is $4,950. Basic obligation for 1 child = $1,000. Obligor’s share is $500. Obligor has 1 overnight. Adjustment is $1,000 multiplied by .0007 resulting in 70 cent adjustment. Id.

[19] Timothy Grall, Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support: 2013, Current Population Reports (Jan. 2016).

[20] Id. at 1 (finding that only 17.5% of primary parents were men).

[21] Id. (finding 31.2% of mothers were below the poverty line compared with 17.4% of fathers).

[22] Kentucky Commission on Women, Legislative Overview, https://women.ky.gov/Legislation/Pages/default.aspx#:~:text=Kentucky%20State%20Legislature%3A%20Women%20currently,of%20the%20entire%20General%20Assembly (last visited Feb. 18, 2022).

[23] Branwen Jeffreys, Do children in two-parent families do better?, British Broadcasting Corporation (Feb. 5, 2019), https://www.bbc.com/news/education-47057787.