http://www.cleveland.com/news/index.ssf?/news/pd/na01chil.html

THE PLAIN DEALER.

COLUMBUS - The state has asked an appeals court to throw out a lawsuit filed by a child-support advocacy group seeking millions of dollars in back payments the state has withheld.

Attorney General Betty Montgomery filed a motion with the 10th Ohio District Court of Appeals last week to dismiss the lawsuit filed by the Association for Children for Enforcement of Support for lack of jurisdiction.

ACES sued the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services this month over the back payments. The state has acknowledged that it withheld about $6 million in the payments from noncustodial parents. ACES pegs the total closer to $13 million.

The state says that the withheld money involved only back payments to custodial parents and that no current payments were withheld. The department said it had not reprogrammed its computer system to stop intercepting the payments. A 1996 federal law prohibits states from taking back payments intended for welfare recipients.

State officials have begun paying back more than $1.3 million withheld since October. They promised an additional $5 million would be returned once the state determines which families are owed money from an earlier, three-year period.

Montgomery wants the lawsuit thrown out because Ohio did not agree to allow those back payments to pass through the state to the recipient before Oct. 1. Montgomery spokesman Joe Case said yesterday that the motion does not change the intent of the state to make the back payments. It was filed only to "protect the integrity" of the Ohio law governing the payments.

In a letter to Gov. Bob Taft on Wednesday, ACES President Geraldine Jensen complained that the motion sent mixed signals.

"This is the opposite of your promise to make sure that these families receive refunds," Jensen wrote.

Kevin Kellems, a spokesman for Taft, said he could not comment on a pending legal matter.

-- Anonymous, April 02, 2001