Privatization

I mentioned last week that I thought child support services should be privatized - based on a few observations - number one, the constitutionality of a new type of debtor prison we have instituted - but being a recipient of assistance by the child support department, I am happy to receive that assistance. Our deadbeat would never voluntarily pay, he only pays when the boot of the justice system is seemingly on his throat.

http://haloscan.com/tb/jverner/rw_unique_entry_id_41_page70 had an interesting post on this. "And therein lies the rub. As with any large, bureaucratic organization, efficiency frequently suffers. Private child support collection agencies often do a better job of collecting child support than does the AG's office. In a recent court hearing in Dallas, a judge scolded an assistant AG for allowing a child support obligor to fall tens of thousands of dollars behind. A private agency, the judge observed, would have stayed on top of the matter. In another case, a federal judge remarked that one private child support collection agency "has achieved an undisputed impressive rate of collection."

Private child support collection agencies charge fees, but they tend to produce better results than the AG's office. Why couldn't the AG's office do better? How comfortable would we be with privatizing child support collection altogether? Although the system would probably operate more efficiently, there is something about granting this much government power to a private company that gives me the willies.
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Here's my take - if a private organization received the matching funds that the states currently do, and operated on grants and other funding options they wouldn't have to charge the custodial parents part of the child support proceeds.

My scoff is, if employees currently working for our lovely county employers, had their paycheck, bonuses, and job actually based on performance you'd see a huge increase in collection of past due amounts. The entire system needs an overhaul from ground up.