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.

LEARN MORE.

Legalese versus Readability

To a writer, the struggle between readability and gobbledygook is as important as the struggle between good and evil. The battle for dominance is particularly important to legal writers. Gobbledygook has long been the evil king – readability the rebel. Legal writers writing court pleadings and contracts for other lawyers and judges are content to uphold the status quo – stick with the legalese and jargon. Keep the unlawyers out. Other legal writers, who write for consumers are translators, translating the arcane and obscure words into everyday language.

I plugged the following paragraphs into Dr. G. Harry McLauglin's SMOG calculator. SMOG is an acronym for: Simple Measure of Gobbledygook. The SMOG calculator was developed in 1969 (imagine!) and back then you had to do the math yourself. It is based on the number of syllables in each word, number of words in each sentence, and number of letters in each word. Dr. McLaughlin states on his SMOG website,

“My readability formula SMOG estimates the years of education needed to understand a piece of writing. SMOG is widely used, particularly for checking health messages”.

The Federal Trade Commission requires that health messages for the public be written at no higher than a fifth grade reading level. I believe there should be a similar requirement for legal messages.

The following paragraphs are an excerpt from the instructions for the Petition for Simplified Dissolution of Marriage, Florida Supreme Court approved form 12.901(a), which was published on 1/2015:

When should this form be used?

This form should be used when a husband and wife are filing for a simplified dissolution of marriage. You and/or your spouse must have lived in Florida for at least 6 months before filing for a dissolution in Florida. You may file a simplified dissolution of marriage in Florida if all of the following are true:

You and your spouse agree that the marriage cannot be saved.

You and your spouse have no minor or dependent child(ren) together, the wife does not have any minor or dependent children born during the marriage, and the wife is not now pregnant.

You and your spouse have worked out how the two of you will divide the things that you both own (your assets) and who will pay what part of the money you both owe (your liabilities), and you are both satisfied with this division.

You are not seeking support (alimony) from your spouse, and vice versa.

You are willing to give up your right to trial and appeal.

You and your spouse are both willing to go into the clerk’s office to sign the petition (not necessarily together).

You and your spouse are both willing to go to the final hearing (at the same time).

If you do not meet the criteria above, you must file a regular petition for dissolution of marriage.

This petition should be typed or printed in black ink. Each of you must sign the petition in the presence of a deputy clerk (in the clerk’s office), although you do not have to go into the clerk’s office at the same time. You will need to provide picture identification (valid driver’s license or official identification card) for the clerk to witness your signatures.

The results were:

Readability Consensus

Based on 8 readability formulas, we have scored your text:

Grade Level: 10

Reading Level: standard / average.

Reader's Age: 14-15 yrs. old (Ninth to Tenth graders)

According to the Florida Literacy Coalition:

"One in Five Florida Adults Lacks Basic Literacy Skills:

More than 2.6 million adults in Florida— or 20 percent of those 16 and older — lack even the most basic reading skills, according to estimates released Thursday by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Florida, with its large immigrant population, has the third lowest adult literacy level of all the states, behind California and New York. The state experienced a 33% increase over ten years in the percentage of people who fall in the lowest literacy skill level, with rates ranging from a low of 7 percent in St. John’s County to 52 percent in Miami-Dade."

I plugged in the first two paragraphs of this blog post into the SMOG calculator and received the following results.

Readability Consensus

Based on 8 readability formulas, we have scored your text:

Grade Level: 8

Reading Level: fairly difficult to read.

Reader's Age: 12-14 yrs. old (Seventh and Eighth graders)

 I think its ironic that I am not making any attempt to write at any grade level. I'm only trying to make the words I write as clear and concise as I can. And the State of Florida, who should be striving to make the language on the pro se form instructions easy to read, are more difficult to read than my writing.