“I just want to have someone else benefit from my
experience,” said Maureen Larkin-Hoover of Howard Lake, as she unloaded
a large box of forms and papers to share from her attempts to collect support
for her son as a single parent after her divorce in 1994.
Larkin-Hoover has never received a penny of child support
from her former husband, the late Jerry Luallen of California.
To get out of an abusive relationship with her husband
and to be near her family for emotional support, she moved to Minnesota.
After her divorce, she filed her case with Scott County
Child Support.
She started filling out forms, and there never seemed to
be an end to them, she said.
“I’ve been willing to fill out any amount of paper
work required to do the job, as many times as they want me to,” said
Larkin-Hoover.
Filling out those forms was sometimes uncomfortable. It
was degrading to have to answer some of the questions, she said.
Those questions were intended for unmarried mothers on
assistance, she said, but the support was the most important thing, so she
did it.
She signed papers that gave Scott County exclusive rights
to pursue child support payments from Luallen.
The documents from Scott County stated that it would be
the county’s responsibility to locate the absent parent for purposes of
enforcing child support.
The county stated in the papers that it would establish
paternity, contact the absent parent, enforce the current court ordered
obligation, monitor child support payment records, implement income withholding
orders, enforce court ordered health insurance provisions, and do tax offset
filing, if appropriate for arrearage collection.
It continues: “The purpose of the service is enforcement
of current support, however, an effort is made to collect delinquencies.
Records are carefully maintained and monitored.”
A disclaimer does appear. It says that individual workers
handle 400 to 500 cases each, and this limits their ability to provide personal
service.
Larkin-Hoover provided her caseworker with addresses of
Luallen’s home, work place (Anderson Trucking, St. Cloud), relatives, phone
numbers, and any other information it requested.
“When the county asked for a photo, I thought, ‘Oh,
boy. They are really going to look for him,'” she said.
Nothing happened.
They gave her a personal identification number (PIN) and
a toll-free phone number to call for updates on her case.
It never worked, she said.
She even talked to a lawyer who said it wasn’t worth the
money to find Jerry; he would be too hard to track down, she said.
Larkin-Hoover works for a trucking company, and said the
company takes child support out of checks all the time. The parents are
found through their social security numbers.
She gave Scott County the name of the trucking company
in St. Cloud and Luallen’s social security number, and that didn’t help
either.
Skip Humphrey and Tony Onnen received calls from Larkin-Hoover.
They were supportive and sympathetic, but could do nothing personally.
Legislative action was what they talked about, but that
didn’t translate into anything useful for her.
The hardest part, she said, is to read the articles in
the Star Tribune about the wonderful things that are done to collect child
support from deadbeat parents.
“It is all so political. It all sounds so hopeful,”
she said.
Reality for her was a different story.
“I was trying to make it on my own, and wasn’t on
public assistance,” she said.
This seemed to make a difference in how she was treated
by her caseworker, said Larkin-Hoover.
Another twist in the whole situation is that Larkin-Hoover
is the adoptive mother of Luallen’s natural child, and she has been the
sole support of Chad since the divorce.
Her son has fetal alcohol syndrome and has special needs.
This has made it even harder for her to find the money
for medical support for Chad through the years.
Luallen died recently, and Larkin-Hoover called Scott County
Child Support to report it.
“They said they were glad I called. Now they can close
the case,” she said.
“I have faced the fact that I will probably never
get anything, but I wish there was some way to help others in the same situation,”
Larkin-Hoover stated.
Somewhere there is another single parent who is struggling
and doesn’t want to go on assistance, she said.
“She may see this and say, ‘That’s my story,'”
said Larkin-Hoover.
When Scott County Human Services Director Maila Hedin
was contacted about the case, she said, “This one had several problem
areas, but it did fall through the cracks, unfortunately.”
The first area was the fact that the divorce was not before
a judge, and Luallen was served notice by publication.
“Her attorney could have set a dollar amount for child
support, but he didn’t. It was left to follow guidelines for the dollar
amount and was never set,” she said.
“Maureen came in to have a dollar amount set, and
gave her caseworker the information needed, said Hedin.
Luallen was actually located in March 1997, but never responded
with the required information.
There was apparently no follow-up, said Hedin.
That caseworker is no longer working for Scott County,
she said.
There has been some major restructuring in the department.
Now, collecting money where there is a dollar amount due
is the area where the department is really good, Hedin said.
“About 80 percent of our cases are for parents who
receive no assistance and are the working poor,” she said.
“I am a little disappointed,” said Hedin.
“We expect people to go beyond the caseworker to a
supervisor or director, if they are not making any progress. They need to
be aggressive on getting results,” Hedin said.
“If anyone is having difficulty receiving child support
payments, I would urge them to be assertive and ask to speak to a supervisor.
“It is my job to see that these problems are taken
care of, and I believe we do a good job of that now,” said Hedin.
Hedin has offered to help in any way the county can, if
there is a probate for Luallen or perhaps a lawsuit pending in his death.
“If we can establish either of these things, we can
file a claim,” she said.
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