By Laura Gómez | Arizona Mirror
Every month Raymond Kingman has to pay $250 in child support, but the Arizona Department of Economic Security has been taking $275 a week in child support deductions from his unemployment pay.
Since mid-March, when the downtown Tucson restaurant where he worked as a server closed and he lost his job, Kingman says he’s been forced to overpay $2,200 in child support – money that he needs to meet his basic needs during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kingman is among the unemployed Arizona parents paying child support who had to wait for weeks for DES to fix a system issue that delayed their federal $600 unemployment assistance, and later saw the agency overcharging them for child support.
“I have observed frequent mishaps like this while assisting clients in dealing with DES. There is no excuse for these types of mistakes when the stakes are so high. I understand that mistakes happen but when you’re tasked with garnishing a child support payor’s state benefits – especially during a public health emergency – then you simply have to be more careful.” ~ Kaine Fischer
