CO Child Support Commission Statutory Changes

The act makes several changes to the Colorado child support guidelines and related statutes based on the work and final report of the 2013-2015 Colorado child support commission. The changes include:

• New legislation that permits the state child support enforcement agency to discover and administratively seize insurance claim payments, awards, and settlements for the purpose of meeting past-due child support obligations;
• Changes to the income adjustment formula when parents are obligated to support children with multiple co-parents and joint legal responsibilities for the children;
• An amendment to the definition of 'shared physical care' so that overall parenting time with a child is considered rather than simply the number of overnights with a child;
• Changing the reasonable cost threshold percentage for the enforcement of court-ordered medical support from 20% to 5%;
• Adding statutory language requiring the annual exchange between parents of information relevant to child support calculations that have occurred since the previous child support order;
• Limiting the time period for which a party may seek retroactive child support based upon a change in physical care to 5 years; and
• Adding language regarding notice to possible and presumptive fathers.

(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)