Child support services to consolidate at new East Flamingo Road location
Life is about to get a little easier for parents who pay child support.
The Child Support Center of Southern Nevada will open on March 29, bringing together services and offices that for years have been scattered across the Las Vegas Valley.
Child support is taking 330 employees with the district attorney's office to 1900 E. Flamingo Road, a location that for years was occupied by the Southern Nevada Water Authority. Also moving are case managers, investigators, process servers, auditing and a collections department.
"It's new to us," said Assistant District Attorney Teresa Lowry, a veteran with nearly 20 years service who heads both the family support and juvenile divisions.
In addition to housing two courtrooms for hearing masters, the Flamingo property will consolidate several of the center's other programs.
The center will bring its 87,000 case files to the new location. Lowry said about half of the cases involve a custodial parent on some kind of public assistance, a scenario that triggers an automatic case for the noncustodial parent, who will be compelled to pay back the governmental agency that assisted the parent with the child or children.
The center also handles paternity cases. "We are collecting that money to put into state coffers and keep the programs going," said Lowry.
While the state faces budget turmoil, Lowry said government understands the toll the economy has taken on personal budgets as well.
"There's a difference between deadbeat and dead broke," she said. "Our objective now is to engage people to work with us. Clearly we have the highest unemployment in the country at 13 percent and we want our orders to be reasonable."
While jailing parents who don't pay child support or taking their driver's licenses will continue to be pursued in extreme cases, Lowry said her department will try to take a innovative approaches to gain compliance .
Contact reporter Doug McMurdo at dmcmurdo@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-8135.
