Article Summary: "No visible means of child support"

The Plain Dealer
January 20, 2003

Stacy Posey agreed to take in her three nieces last summer so they wouldn't have to be placed in a foster home. She wanted the girls to stay with family, not strangers, even though she and her husband were short on cash.

To help with expenses, the Cleveland woman should have received $530 a month, money the state collected in child support from the girls' father.

She was due nearly $3,200, or six months of child support, but the money is parked in a state bank account while workers wait for paperwork to release the money. Nobody knows when Posey will get her check - or how many other Cuyahoga County families caring for the children of relatives are owed child support.

Layers of bureaucracy and lack of communication between county child-protection workers and those who oversee child support payments have left these families stuck with the bills for foster care.