Today (May 15, 2024) I received a copy of yesterday’s Order from the Indiana Supreme Court for the immediate amendment of the numeric table following the Indiana Child Support Rules & Guidelines. The Order suggests there was a glitch in the old numeric table such that the combined child support obligation of both parents having weekly adjusted income in the (composite) range of $4,000.00 to $5,000.00 could produce the erratic result of the support for two or more children decreasing when income increased.
I suspect the glitch to be of fairly recent vintage. A handy Indiana Rules deskbook from 2018 tells me that support for two children at $4,000.00 per week in parental income was $455.00 per week. Under the amended numbers of May 14, 2024 the support for two children at that income level is $636.00. I wonder whether the support calculation glitch manifested in the production of worksheets through the online Judiciary site application.
Whoever discovered the calculation glitch deserves recognition and congratulations. Our SCOTSI needs to embrace the lesson of its duty to be very, very careful in the passage of rules. It would behoove the SCOTSI to accept responsibility for the glitch and to explain how the precipitating errors came about.
Addendum: What will be done with the cases in which the old numeric chart resulted in “Guidelines” calculations at odds with the new amended chart? Does the “victim” of the glitch have a remedy if the support under an amended calculation is not off the old figure by 20% or more?
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