Revoke deadbeats' licenses?

Legislative auditors found $325 million is owed to Utah children in unpaid child support and they recommend lawmakers give the Office of Recovery Services tougher enforcement tools to collect the money.

An audit by the legislative auditor general released Thursday recommends the agency should be given the ability to administratively suspend non-payers' drivers' licenses, as well as professional and recreational licenses.

"A credible threat of driver's license suspension could increase collections from those individuals who can afford to pay child support yet do not," according to the audit. The ORS collected more than $158 million in child support in 2005 but still reports $325 million in total uncollected child support.

"This is money that should have gone to Utah's children," the audit states.

Legislative auditors recommend that lawmakers bring Utah in line with the 36 other states that allows administrative suspension of driver's licenses as a child support enforcement tool.

The move would require a statutory change, something members of the Legislative Audit Subcommittee suggested Thursday may be hard to get.

"I know that that's been a difficult one in the past because, of the want of a better word, the concern about a Gestapo,' " said Senate President John Valentine, R-Orem. "But the report shows that we're not getting the enforcement that we need by going through the judicial process."

Current law allows drivers' licenses to be suspended judicially, but the tool is rarely used. In fact, auditors found only two such cases in the 2003 and 2004 fiscal years.

Mark Brasher, director of the Office of Recovery Services, said he would welcome any change that would allow his office to more effectively collect unpaid child support.

"Certainly any of these tools would be useful and helpful, but it's a policy decision that really needs to be discussed by the Legislature," he said.

If awarded, Brasher said his office would use the suspension tool carefully to preserve the rights of non-custodial parents.

"It's a process that you would want to approach very conservatively to make sure that, one, you don't make mistakes and two, that you apply it fairly," he said.

Thursday's audit recommends that lawmakers and ORS officials establish a specific procedure, including an appeals process, for license suspensions.

Auditors identified nearly 20,000 non-custodial parents owing more than $500 in back child support who have valid Utah drivers' licenses. The amount owed by this group is more than $120 million.

Judges are often hesitant to suspend a person's license to drive, Brasher said, aside from extreme cases where no other options will work to collect back child support.