COLLECTIONS DIFFICULT WITH BUDGET CUTS.

Byline: Grace Lee Staff Writer

The Ventura County agency that collects unpaid child support still hopes to match last year's record collections of more than $52 million despite state funding cuts that have left 50 jobs unfilled this year.

Officials with the county's Child Services Department said that in spite of a $1.3 million budget cut - the budget now stands at $21 million - they hope to maintain success in nearly 49 percent of cases - above the state average of 44 percent of cases in which noncustodial parents make some kind of payment.

``Many of our single parents - be they mother or father - depend on the child support to clothe and house their children,'' said Diane Kahdeman, a child-support specialist for Simi Valley.

By the time parents walk into the Simi Valley office to seek help, she said, they are often one step away from government aid.

Simi Valley cases, while making up just under 5 percent of the county's caseload, bring in 12 percent of the total child support the department collects. Of the more than $52 million collected last year, Simi Valley parents contributed almost $6.3 million.

Stan Trom, head of child services for the county, said payments that are collected average about $250 a month.

``This isn't the extras. These are the basics,'' Trom said. ``You're talking about medical services, rent, utilities.''

The department is making cuts in outreach efforts and doing more Internet training to save on travel costs. In addition, the department has streamlined administrative costs by accepting credit card payments over the Internet.

``We won't cut back on activities that directly impact the collection of child support,'' Trom said.

With the cuts, the bottom line is fewer people doing more work, he said.

Of the department's 50 current vacancies, 33 were inherited from last year. The department has about 300 staffers.

Last year, the collections increased by more than $3 million from the the previous year despite having roughly the same number of parents.

The department obtains child-support orders for parents with custody and also tracks down the actual money, often by garnisheeing the wages of absent parents.

Before that can be done, however, caseworkers first need to track down parents, especially those in hiding.

Dianne Seno, a supervising child-support specialist, acts like a private detective and hunts down delinquent parents and their assets. She searches the Internet and follows a path of telephone numbers as well as public records and on a site she calls the ``parent locater.''

Recently, she hunted down a self-employed father who had been dodging payments for his 8-year-old Camarillo son for five years.

With five specialists on her team each averaging 300 to 400 cases a month, Seno said she feels the strain created by the unfilled positions.

Still, she said, she and the rest of the department's staffers are motivated by the fact that they are a last resort for children and their single parents.

Grace Lee, [phone]

grace.lee(at)dailynews.com