How does the judge decide
child support?
The short answer is that the judge
doesn't decide child support at all. Child support is per Florida
Statute 61.30 Child support guidelines, and is based on a few bits
of information and a mathematical formula applied to it. The
information required is the same information required for the Family
Law Financial Affidavits and Parenting Plan. Once both parties'
financial affidavits and the parties' parenting plans are available
the child support amount can be calculated.
The information required is:
Both parties' net income;
Which parent is paying for and amount
paid for after school care or child care (if any);
Which parent is paying for the child or
children's medical insurance and uninsured medical expenses; and
Number of overnight visits the children
spend with each parent.
All of this information, except for the
number of overnight visits, is taken from the parties' financial
affidavits. The number of overnight visits is taken from the
parenting plan.
Within the Florida Statutes and also on
the form Child Support Guidelines Worksheet there is a table to find
the amount of child support that both parents need to contribute
based on the parents' combined incomes. The table has rows to find
combined income amounts, and columns for the number of children. Once
that amount is found, all the other information is applied.
Frequently, parents' incomes are not
identical, and the number of overnight visits are not exactly half
and half. So a percentage of child support is assigned to each
parent, and the difference between the two amounts is paid to the
parent earning the lesser amount or having the child with them the
most. The Florida Supreme Court has a web form that automatically
calculates the amounts. But, preparing the Child Support Guidelines
Worksheet is not difficult, with a calculator and a little time.
Because of the information required to
calculate child support, the financial affidavits and the parenting
plan must be completed first.
Sometimes, especially in magistrate's
court, the parties will be told to simply provide their last three
pay stubs, and somehow, child support is calculated from that
information alone. Beware this process, as it does not provide a full
financial picture.
The court recognizes that although a
child support order is a binding court order -- circumstances change
over time. The basis for a modification of a child support order is
the existence of substantial change that affects any of the parties.
"Substantial change" has many
definitions. Specific definitions of substantial change are best
found in case law. However, in general, substantial change for
modification of child support is involuntary, unanticipated and
permanent.
