A new law coming into effect Thursday bans parents from getting a hunting or fishing license if they fail to pay their child support payments.
SALT LAKE CITY – Utah lures dead parents with a new law that goes into effect Thursday that bans them from getting a hunting or fishing license if they fail to pay child support.
“I think this is positive message for us,” said Senator Todd Weiler of R-Woods Cross. “It’s not that we don’t want to hunt and fish; we want people to pay their child support.”
Weiler was the Senate sponsor of HB197 during the 2020 AGM. He says the new law will apply to parents who are more than $ 2,500 in arrears with child support payments.
“If you’re a lot behind, all you have to do is agree to a payment plan to catch up and then you can qualify for a license,” Weiler said.
Weiler says parents who are behind with their child support payments can call the Office of Recovery Services with the Utah Department of Human Services to set up a payment plan. The ban will then be removed from your account with the Division of Wildlife Resources.
Faith Heaton Jolley, spokeswoman for the Department of Wildlife Resources, pointed to statistics from the Office of Recovery Services showing that nearly half of parents who are behind with child support payments have also had a hunting or fishing license in the past . However, it is unclear how many of these parents are active customers.
“They essentially informed us that about 9,400 of those 19,000 people (after alimony) also have DWR badges,” said Heaton Jolley.
The Wildlife Resources Department could also suffer a financial blow if “dead” parents fail to take to the streets.
“The rough estimates of the financial impact for us were also about $ 440,000,” said Heaton Jolley.
But at the end of the day, they say Utah’s families are well worth the inconvenience.
“I’ve got a lot of angry emails, how dare you even think about it? ‘ But it’s like, “How dare you not pay your child support?” I think this door swings both ways. ” said Hamlet.
“We want to make sure that people take care of their families,” said Heaton Jolley.
The law was passed last year but postponed for a year to give parents time to catch up. In addition, current licenses are not affected until they need to be renewed.
For more information, please contact the Utah Department of Human Services, Office of Recovery Services.
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