Hundreds of Maryland lottery winners were allowed to keep their prizes despite overdue child support payments, according to a new audit blasting the state’s child support enforcement agency.
The agency did not report more than 600 deadbeat parents to the Maryland Lottery, which would have diverted their winnings into payments, according to a three-year audit issued Thursday by the state’s Department of Legislative Services.
A sampling of 11 parents owing $244,000 in child support showed they kept $29,1000 in lottery winnings — a violation of state law and an indication the child support enforcement agency isn’t doing enough to collect from deadbeat parents, said Maryland’s chief auditor, Bruce Meyers.
“They have to check it out,” Meyers said. “Some of it was collected, but they could have just done a better job.”
The audit also criticized the agency for not suspending or revoking state-issued professional licenses from delinquent parents. More than 5,200 licensees owe child support totaling $47 million, according to auditors. More than half of 20 sampled had not made any recent payments.
The findings touched a nerve of Del. Charles Barkley, a Montgomery County Democrat who in 2007 worked to pass legislation adding lawyers to the list of 16 licenses subject to revocation for unpaid child support.
“It’s absurd,” Barkley said. “It’s not easy to collect the money, but we give them a lot of tools and we expect them to use them. I think with that threat, people do come clean and pay overdue bills.”
Joseph A. Jackins Jr., executive director of the state’s Child Support Enforcement Administration, was unavailable for comment, but is scheduled to appear before the General Assembly’s Joint Audit Committee on Tuesday to respond to the findings. Written responses included in the 43-page report said the administration is setting up automated matches with licensing boards and the state lottery.
The agency stopped seizing funds from delinquent parents’ bank accounts, according to the audit, and issued support checks to dead people. Child support payments totaling more than $331,000 were made to 576 people 30 days or more after their deaths, according to the audit. In a sampling of 20 deceased people, checks totaling $152,000 payable to them were cashed by unknown people.
Officials within the agency said most checks were cashed by appropriate people, such as subsequent caregivers. Other checks written to deceased child custodians are under investigation, and administration officials said they’ve requested advice from the Maryland attorney general.
The study spans March 2004 through August 2007. As of then, unpaid child support in Maryland totaled $1.57 billion.
