Can't Stand Child Support Enforcement Agency

For over 12 years, the Michigan Friend of Court county office that we have had to deal with for my stepchildren's child support has been nothing but difficult. My husband has always paid his child support on time, along with all their stupid fees they charge to handle the child support (because the kickbacks they get from the Federal government for every dollar they collect isn't enough). We had a few problems:

1. If you are a dad, you are automatically assumed to be a deadbeat before they even look at your record showing otherwise. You could hear the sneer in their voices when they spoke to you. The only time we didn't was when one of our caseworkers was a man. That was the only time my husband was shown a little respect for being a loving, responsible father.
2. Another problem we had every year was with their record keeping on the child support they received and their false accusations of support arrearages. It was so atrocious for years that we would spend months (every.single.year) trying to prove to them where they made a mistake in record keeping and were accusing my husband of being in arrears falsely. At one point, it took me over a year to prove to them that their accountant screwed up, not us. Eventually, dh's ex would agree that he wasn't behind but only after months (or a year) of tying ourselves into pretzels with all the canceled checks, employer garnishment records, and their own accounting records (yes, we had to point out to them where in their own records THEY screwed up and it would take months for them to finally fix the records).

Since the state took it over from the county, we have only had one problem like that happen so it is better. Instead of every year of being falsely accused of arrearages and threatened with income tax garnishment, it's only happened once in the last few years. The ex would get her money faster if we paid her direct but that would mean trusting my husband to pay her directly instead of the Friend of Court but she won't do that. He was trustworthy enough to be primary caregiver for the kids while he was with her but after he left her, he's not trustworthy enough since HE dumped HER I guess. Who dumps who makes the difference in how you can parent I guess. Not. She'd rather he pay weekly fees for the county to process her child support and also lose a part of her child support on the additional fees they just tacked on this year (at least she has to pay some of them now!).

So now what is my problem? My problem is the Friend of Court county office can't just mess up the support records of my husband for his two children but now they are affecting my own child's entrance to get into a preschool program so she can get her speech needs met there. A week ago, our county agency faxed them a request to verify the child support my husband pays for my stepkids. All they have to do is fax them back a sheet of paper that verifies that he pays x amount of dollars weekly/monthly. Did they do it? Of course not! This information is holding up my three-year-old's application. If the class fills up, which is likely since it is highly sought after in our community, she won't be able to get in.

It's not enough that they made our lives hell for years. Now their incompetence has to affect my child's speech intervention needs as well.

I sent the Friend of Court an email today requesting they submit this information ASAP. Hopefully they do it soon.