EVANSVILLE, Ind. — The last two decades have been a “rollercoaster” for Evansville mom Julie Eder and her three children.

The 17 years since Eder’s divorce from the father of her kids have involved brief periods of compliance with court-ordered child support payments followed by disappearing acts. At one point, Eder hired a private investigator to track down her ex-husband in another state. 

“It’s been a rollercoaster because you never know if he’s going to quit (paying) or not,” Eder said. “He might be paying for two years, and then he would quit.” 

Eder’s ex-husband owed their children nearly $73,000 in child support arrearages as of April 30, according to court documents.

A message left with his attorney went unanswered.

In Vanderburgh County, noncustodial parents owe their children more than $71.6 million in arrearages as of June 30. According to Director of Child Support Matthew Keppler, his office is involved in more than 9,000 open child support cases.

“If they’re not paying, this has a huge impact on the parent that’s raising the child,” Keppler said. “And doing without, it basically means they’re left with a burden of doing the role of both parents.”

Child support caseloads in Vanderburgh County

The number of cases and arrearages owed “used to be a lot worse,” Keppler said.

When he began working in the child support division of the Vanderburgh County Prosecutor’s Office, there were nearly 16,000 open cases and $100 million in child support owed. 

For the last decade, Keppler said there has been a gradual reduction in caseloads because of key policy changes at the state level; namely, lowering the age of emancipation for child support purposes from 21 to 19 years old. 

Now, child support no longer accrues after the youngest sibling turns 19, although outstanding payments from previous years don’t disappear.

No longer requiring custodial parents who receive Medicaid benefits participate in the child support program also helped cut caseloads.

“A lot of those people didn’t really want our help… so we were able to close some cases that way,” Keppler said.

“We don’t want to help people that don’t need it,” he added. These changes allowed his office to “do a better job of focusing on the cases where people really do want our help.”

The prosecutor’s office also began consolidating paternity cases a few years ago, instead of opening a separate case for each child born outside their parents’ marriage. And once paternity and child support orders are established, it comes down to enforcement. 

“Most of our parents who we’re trying to get service on, it’s not a big issue,” Keppler said.

“But for those that move a lot or are otherwise hard to find or not involved with the child, then we have some challenges there as far as getting people into court.”

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‘Worst-case scenario case’

“What we found is that the vast majority want to pay their support,” Keppler said. “Now, not everybody can do it all the time, but what we found is that if you give people a way to do it, they’ll try better to do it.”

The number one way to collect child support is through income withholding orders, which automatically takes money out of a paycheck. Temporary work or jobs that don’t withhold taxes can complicate payment, but there are other methods available to noncustodial parents, like paying in-person, online or by check. 

“If it’s a worst-case scenario case, if it’s somebody who has shown repeatedly that they are able to pay, they can pay and they just choose not to, we do file on a limited basis criminal non-support felonies,” Keppler said. “We reserve those for the worst cases, the most blatant cases, as far as disregarding the support order.”

Online county court records show more than one warrant has been issued for Eder’s ex-husband’s arrest in the past.

Eder said he regularly earned six-figure salaries before their divorce was finalized in 2004. He was fired a few months after their split, she said, which started a cycle of disappearances and job-hopping.

“In my mind, I kept thinking, ‘Well, we’re going to catch up with him, and he’s going to start paying again – it’s the law,'” she said. “You know, it’s justice. That’s what it’s supposed to do, that’s what’s supposed to happen.”

‘It feels like he’s winning’

According to Keppler, his office can use several avenues to enforce payment — garnishing wages, tax refunds, casino or lottery winnings, to name a few. Others include reporting them to the credit bureau, suspending driver’s licenses or placing liens on vehicles and property. 

During the pandemic, they were able to garnish unemployment payments and the first stimulus check.

Keppler said the most severe consequences for nonpayment are civil contempt actions and the threat of incarceration. Those don’t apply if a person has a genuine reason for not paying, like an injury preventing them from working. 

“There has to be a track record of being found in contempt of court usually for not paying,” he said. “So basically, what being found in contempt means is that you have the ability to pay and you just didn’t.”

In most felony cases, the court gives the individual probation on the condition they start making regular payments. If they don’t, Keppler said his office asks the court to consider jail time.

“I think some people need the threat of incarceration to incentivize them to make payments regularly,” Keppler said. “Really, that’s the goal there and what we’re looking for. We’re not actually looking to incarcerate people – I mean, the goal is to get them to pay, not to sit in jail. But for some people who have a track record of making an effort basically not to pay, we feel like that’s something we need.”

If a case escalates to that point, the court determines an amount the parent can pay to facilitate their release. Unlike bond in other criminal cases, the money goes toward their child support balance.

“You hold the keys to the jailhouse, in that if you post that amount, you’ll get out,” Keppler said.

But after the emancipation age, jail is no longer an option on a contempt action, Keppler said. 

“Some of these cases can go on and on and on well after the children are emancipated,” Keppler said. “So whatever you didn’t pay, you still owe.”

Since her twin sons turned 19 in June, Eder said she has considered giving up her fight against her ex-husband. 

“It’s been costing me more money than I’m getting, and it feels like he’s winning,” Eder said.

‘A day late and a dollar short’ 

Eder expressed frustration about the handling of her case.

“We should never have gotten to this point,” she said. “There were so many things that could have been done, enforcement things, prior to this point. And they weren’t or they were done too late.

“The burden has always fallen on me for everything” because of that, Eder said.

“Thank goodness that I was able to support my kids, but when three of them are in daycare and you’re spending $17,000 a year on daycare, that’s a lot of money,” she said. “You have to make a lot, and at that point, I didn’t. There would be times I’d go without lunch and eating and stuff like that so I could keep my kids’ lives consistent.”

At one point, she supplemented her full-time salary with a part-time job to enable her to hire a private investigator to track down her children’s father. 

“My kids have been blessed – or I’ve been blessed, I guess, that I had an education and that I was able to provide for them,” Eder said. “They’ve been successful. Because there’s a lot of parents out there that don’t have the means that I have, and I feel for them. I mean, they can’t afford an attorney; they can’t afford a private investigator.”

Eder recently raised money to put up digital billboards raising awareness about child support. They will run different messages each day between Aug. 2-8 along the Lloyd Expressway and U.S. 41.

Eder has also advocated for more support of custodial parents by the local and state authorities.

“I still feel blessed that I was able to do what I was able to do, but at the same time, all the enforcement tools and everything everybody talks about is not as it seems. And people need to see that.”

Evansville Mayor Lloyd Winnecke proclaimed August as Child Support Awareness Month in an event in front of the Civic Center Thursday.

In a copy of the proclamation provided by Eder, the mayor said, “Hoosier children are owed approximately $2 billion in child support arrearages, and custodial parents often find enforcement of child support court order very difficult and the burden of financially supporting the children falls solely on them.” 

Eder hopes one day to start a nonprofit organization to support and offer resources to families facing similar challenges. 

She plans to name it A Day Late and A Dollar Short, “because that’s what I feel like my support experience has been – a day late and a dollar short,” she said.

“It’s made us a stronger family, all four of us together,” she said. “It’s showed my children that you can’t trust everybody. And blood makes you related; it doesn’t make you family.”