Senator Shirley Smith yesterday called Donald Hubin, Ph.D., Chairman of Fathers and Families of Ohio’s Executive Committee, to open up a dialogue about Senate Bill 292, the child support legislation that Senator Smith sponsored.
F & F of Ohio has been actively campaigning in the legislature and the media against certain aspects of the bill, which will raise child support obligations in the middle of the worst economy since the Great Depression. To participate in F & F of Ohio’s campaign against the bill, please click here.
During the conversation Hubin focused on the problems with the inadequacies in the proposed parenting time adjustment. The proposed provisions would be highly unfair to non-residential parents who have their children a significant portion of the time and would encourage parents to engage in long and expensive legal battles over insignificant differences in parenting time.
Senator Smith seemed receptive to these concerns and open to rethinking some of the provisions of the bill. The Senator volunteered that she, too, had concerns about some aspects of the parenting time provision.
She committed to gathering more information from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services about the specific issues Fathers and Families has raised concerns about and committed to getting back to Hubin to discuss the issues more fully.
Fathers and Families commends Senator Smith for being open to discussion about our concerns with SB 292 and to considering improvements to the bill. Because there are some good portions of the bill, we look forward to working with her office to modify the bill so that it will be beneficial to Ohio families.
Hubin has also been engaged in a dialogue with Ohio Senator Bill Seitz, SB 292’s co-sponsor.