Child Custody
New Jersey has used child support guidelines in one form or another for over 20 years. The basic concept of using child support guidelines is that both parents' actual incomes or expected incomes are entered into a computer program, along with the number and ages of the children, the anticipated amount of time that the children are expected to spend overnight with each parent, and other factors. The concept is that by entering similar data from similar counties into a fixed program, the judiciary is able to create a system whereby children in all of New Jersey's 21 counties are treated equally.
Prior to the institution of the child support guidelines, the county and judge a child support case was heard before would often determine how high or how low the child support would be. One of the purposes of the guidelines was to put an end to this seemingly unfair reality.
In 2006 the child support guidelines were reviewed and revised. One striking difference to the new child support guidelines is that they apply to people at a substantially higher income level than had the previous guidelines. However, there is a problem with the guidelines the way they currently exist in that it appears that custodial parents at higher incomes are now receiving less money under the new guidelines than they were under the previous set of guidelines. At the present time it is not clear even to those who created the guidelines why this is the case and the guidelines are presently being reconsidered. Accordingly, at the present time, one needs to keep in mind that if child support was set for a custodial parent a year or two ago and if child support is being recalculated today with the exact same information, it is possible that the custodial parent will receive less money, even though that was not the intention of those who revised the guidelines.