Wednesday, July 15, 2020

How Does the Judge Decide Child Support?


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.