Children deserve the security of having their needs met. Parents are responsible for providing financial, medical and emotional support for their children. To achieve these goals, we establish and enforce child support orders, treating all parties with respect, and serve the community through outreach and education.

While continuing to maintain a high percentage of child support collected and distributed to local families within the month that it is due, Child Support Services payments will provide as many opportunities as possible for low-income parents to participate in the State of California’s Child Support Debt Reduction Program. The Debt Reduction Program allows eligible parents with past-due child support payments the opportunity to reduce the amount they owe to the government. The debt reduction owed to the government does not impact or reduce what is owed to the families.

As of January 2023, there is $7.4 million in local child support arrears owed to the government across 523 cases in the Department’s caseload. This is down from $8.3 million across 565 cases in March 2022 after first-year efforts. The Department’s goal is to triple those results by July 2024, reducing the amount of government arrears within the caseload to $4.3 million and reducing the case count with government arrears to less than 400 cases through an increase in community trust and outreach within our financially vulnerable neighborhoods.

Giving a child the care and love they deserve when parents live apart can be difficult. The Marin County Department of Child Support Services can provide the resources parents need to raise a child separately while working together.