Take Notice, New Laws Now On The Books Tougher Child Support Law, Workers Comp For Farmers Among New State Rules
Months of high-profile advertising and thousands of warning letters give way to enforcement today, now that the state has formal authority to pull the licenses for everything from driving to practicing medicine or law from deadbeat parents.
“The perspective you have to keep in mind is that this is a choice,” said Shannon Barnes, state bureau chief for Child Support Services. “They have chosen to accept the consequences.”
But the potential for punitive action against more than 8,000 parents who owe over $100 million in back child support is only one of 18 new laws that take effect with the new year. The scores of other laws approved by the 1996 Legislature took effect July 1.
Farmers and ranchers have to buy workers compensation insurance for their hands as Gov. Phil Batt’s major legislative achievement of 1996 takes effect. Some agricultural organizations are still grousing about losing the industry’s 79-year exemption from the employee injury reimbursement program.
Motorists will pay more to register their vehicles. State and local governments will pay more to publish legal notices. And grazers start paying a surcharge to underwrite range management programs.
But state license plates will be easier to read. Military veterans can get a plate recognizing their service. Property owners who clean up pollution on their land qualify for up to a seven-year exemption of half the increased value of the cleaned-up land from property taxes. And a Lewiston company will see its property tax bill cut by up to $20,000 in recognition of the equipment it uses to recycle consumer products and industrial waste.
The crackdown on parents who are at least three months or $2,000 behind in their child support payments makes Idaho the 39th state to go after the licenses to force noncustodial parents to fulfill their financial responsibilities.
Idaho, however, is the first to level the same threat against custodial parents who fail to honor visitation orders.
Spokesman David Ensunsa said the notification and paperwork requirements under the law would probably mean the first license suspensions will occur sometime in February.
The new law is a cornerstone of the state’s welfare reform program laid out by Gov. Phil Batt’s special task force just over a year ago. Supporters maintain the No. 1 reason people go on public assistance is failure of the other parent to pay court-ordered support.
But while welfare reform is a major change in public policy in Idaho, the new law that will affect more people than any other raises the annual vehicle registration fee by an average of $6. That hike will pour another $7.5 million into state highway maintenance each year.
The newest and oldest cars will pay the brunt of the higher fees. Registration for cars up to 2 years old is now $48, up from $36.48. And cars over 8 years old will cost $24 to register instead of just over $16.
The fee for 5- and 6-year-old cars jumps to $36 from $26.28. But the increase for cars 3 or 4 years old is just $2.50 to $36 and for those 7 or 8 years old less than $2 to $24.
The fee increase was the final phase of Batt’s highway improvement program, that also included a four-cents-a-gallon hike in the fuel tax.
The new license plates will be easier to read with the county-designator becoming the first two full-sized characters on the plates instead of the half-sized characters one above the other.
State and local taxpayers will be shelling out about 20 percent more to have legal notices published in their local papers as required by law.
Statewide, the publication bill is expected to rise from $1 million last year to $1.2 million in 1997. A surcharge due with annual property taxes takes effect on grazers.
The owners of land classified as dry grazing will pay two cents an acre while those with state or federal permits will pay 10 cents for each cow-calf pair or equivalent they graze on public lands. The cash will finance operations of the Idaho Rangeland Management Committee.