A child’s biological parents have a statutory duty to care for, educate and support the children they bring into the world. So long as they can work out things themselves, how those responsibilities are measured financially, is up to them.

Once a complaint for Divorce, Separate Maintenance, Paternity or Support has been filed, the law requires that the Court determine what is the appropriate amount of child support to be paid by one party to the other. The Michigan Child Support Formula Manual has been determined by the Michigan Legislature and the Courts, to be the presumptive guide on which parent should be paying support to the other, and the amount. The Michigan Child Support Formula takes into consideration the parent’s respective incomes, the number of children, how parenting time is allocated between the two parents, health insurance costs for the children if paid by one parent or the other, certain tax considerations, and whether there are different custodial arrangements for different children.

Commencing October 1, 2008, a new Child Support Formula came into existence. 

Prior to October 1, 2008, there were 2 types of child support calculations.  One, the standard model, was for situations where the non-primary custodial parent had 1 or more of the couple’s children less than 128 overnights.  Charts, based on the number of minor children, determined the amount of child support that should be paid the primary physical custodian, by comparing the two parties’ income. Where one parent’s income intersected on the chart with the other parent’s income, that was the amount of child support the primary custodial parent received from the non primary custodial parent.  If the non-primary custodial parent had 6 or more consecutive overnights, they’d get a 50% reduction in child support for the 6 or more days they had the children  With a wage withholding order typically in place, getting a credit for those 6+ overnights was often more trouble, time and money wise, than it was worth to pursue. 

The other method of calculating support, called the Shared Economic Responsibility Formula model (SERF), was for situations where the non primary custodial parent had at least 128 overnights.  It didn’t matter if they had 6 or more overnights in a row.  The SERF model added up all the overnights throughout the year, factored in the parties respective incomes, and presumed that the non primary custodial parent would be picking up a sufficient amount of the economic burden of keeping the child(ren) overnight, that they should get a break in child support.  This typically resulted in a 35-40% decrease in child support, sometimes more, as soon as parenting time hit 128 overnights.

The problem was, the prior existing formula wasn’t fair to either primary custodial or non primary custodial parents, and caused many costly, unnecessary court battles, often over a handful of overnight parenting time days.  Why?  Because of the financial “cliff” that existed at 128 overnights.  At 127 overnights, a non primary custodial parent has assumed a substantial responsibility for taking care of the children, and yet, under the prior formula, they did not receive any reduction in their child support obligation.  Once they got over 128 overnights, their child support obligation often dropped well over 40%; clearly disproportionate to the actual division of financial responsibilities.  This was unfair to the parent who was taking care of the children the vast majority of the time. So, even if a particular parenting time arrangement made sense, given the parties work demands and the historical sharing of the care, maintenance and educational needs of the children, as well as the children’s schedule, the natural inclination was often for one party to fight to get over 128 overnights, often having to propose a convoluted parenting time schedule to get those days in, while the other parent fought to keep the sharing of overnights under 128 days. The financial sword was going to cut one way or the other, and neither wanted to be hurt.

Carlo J. Martina thought this was a travesty, and felt that the legal wars, anger, and bitterness which resulted, was too high a price to pay.  As Chairman of the State Bar of Michigan’s Family Law Council’s Family Support Committee, he fought for over 7 years to change the Michigan Child Support Formula.  The effort paid off.  As of October 1, 2008, a new child support formula was implemented in Michigan that eliminates many unfair aspects of the prior Child Support Formula Manual.

For more information on child support, please refer to:

• The New Child Support Formula
• Costs
  
• Duration of Child Support
• Modification of Child Support
• Special Needs of Children
• Enforcement of Child Support