$60M owing in child and spousal support payments, report shows

Recipients of court-ordered spousal and child support payments in Nova Scotia are owed over $60 million in unpaid amounts over the lifetime of the province's program.

The figure is contained in a report released Tuesday by the province's auditor general, who says the program does not adequately monitor and enforce court orders.

"Court-ordered spousal and child support payments can be essential for some families' financial stability," said Michael Pickup.

"Weaknesses noted in our audit should be addressed quickly as the program strives to more effectively manage getting money in the hands of recipients as ordered by the courts."

Nearly 14,000 children involved

The report says there are 15,065 cases in the program involving 13,824 children. It says in fiscal 2017-18, $54.7 million in payments was sent to recipients.

However, over the life of the program, $63.4 million in outstanding payments has accumulated. Of that total, $15.3 million is associated with inactive accounts that currently aren't being enforced because of the payers' situations.

Pickup says the program, administered by the Justice Department, sustained serious staffing losses when the former NDP government moved its administration to New Waterford in 2013, resulting in weak enforcement.

There was no comprehensive assessment of the risks associated with the relocation, which was announced in 2012 and completed by June 2013.

Move to New Waterford caused problems

The report says the program had to hire 24 new staff, while most of the approximately 35 supervisors and staff either retired or left for other jobs following the announcement of the move.

"Management told us the high turnover resulted in a major loss of knowledge and experience amongst enforcement staff," the report states.

"Resources had to be focused on staffing the new office and training new hires, which reduced time available to enforce court orders and collect payments."

The report says management has indicated the program continues to face significant staff turnover and absenteeism, which has affected its collection of payments. Caseloads are also high and range between 330 and 450 cases per enforcement staff.

Pickup said his office reviewed 25 cases where enforcement action was needed to collect outstanding payments and found that in 21, appropriate action wasn't taken, or was taken later than it should have been.

In one example, actions weren't taken for 20 months on a case with an outstanding balance of $19,500, while in another a default letter was sent to someone owing $48,000, although no additional enforcement actions were taken until the recipient called five months later indicating payments still hadn't been received.

The report says the program also lacked standard orientation for new staff and no training plan to guide them in their duties.

In its response, the Justice Department says it is working to improve the deficiencies highlighted in the report and has a current collection success rate of 87 per cent.

It said arrears on active cases have been declining and are now at their lowest level in four years. The department said it had registered a 19 per cent increase in enforcement activities since March of last year.

Maintenance enforcement program blamed

Angela Power and her ex-husband separated in 2002. She said support payments dried up over the past five years.

Power blames the maintenance enforcement program for not taking appropriate action to force the sale of a home that her husband owns, but doesn't live in. She said she's entitled to about $200,000 from the sale of the home as well as another $200,000 in unpaid support.

"Let's get this done," Power said. "The more you let people do this and get away with it, the more people won't pay. It's a snowball effect. That's why there's 66 million … owing, because they know they can get away with it."

The 40 enforcement managers who work in the New Waterford office are part of the Nova Scotia General Employees Union.

Its president, Jason MacLean, said Tuesday he'd raised the issue in the past.

Nova Scotia Justice Minister Mark Furey insists that despite the problems around training and staff shortages the program is performing better now than in the past.

"There were 23,000 enforcement actions in the 2017-18 fiscal year," Furey said. "That was a 19 per cent improvement over the previous period."

The director of the maintenance enforcement program, Steven Feindel said he doesn't believe the $60 million in unpaid amounts is really such a high number.

"That $60 million number actually accrued since the program began in 1996," said Feindel. "So it doesn't just happen over a short period of time."

Feindel and the minister say there are no plans to set up more satellite offices outside of the centralized location in New Waterford. They do promise more investments in technology though.

"The technology investments are going to make a big difference so we can free up the time of our enforcement officers to do the enforcement activities that they need to do."