What You Need to Gather for the Child Support Worksheet

All Kansas Judges use the Kansas Child Support guidelines to figure the Child Support paid.

It is the duty of the parties to bring a worksheet prepared following those rules to Court at the time of the final divorce hearing.

Check out our Frequently Asked Questions about interactive interviews.

This interactive interview is aimed to get your info and create a worksheet based on these rules.
You will need to have facts ready for the interactive interview if you want to complete the interview without pause.

► A link is provided at the end of the page to the interview. The interview is for cases where the joint income of both parents is less than $50,000.

What Will I Need to Complete the Child Support Worksheet?

During this interview you will need to know:

1. The Income of Both Parents

You should know your own income, based on hourly pay or monthly income.
- You should be ready to deliver a pay stub to support the amount you put in this interview.
You can guess the income of the other parent if you don’t have specific data.

2. The Costs of Health Insurance

Can be given by either parent.
If other adults or children are included in the health insurance, you will need to define the part of the cost that goes for these children.
- That may mean finding out the cost of the insurance without these children, and taking that away from the cost that is in fact paid.
- Keep records of this totaling.

3. The Costs of Work Related Child Care for These Children

If each parent pays a part of the child care, you need actual or estimates of the cost paid by the other parent.
- Remember summer costs as well as costs during the school year.
You may need to figure the cost for an entire year, then divide by 12 to get a monthly mean.
You should keep copies of the papers upon which you base your cost.

4. Custody Plan

You will also need to know what the care plan is between the parents. You will be asked the amount of time that each parent spends with the child.

You may need to calculate the percent of time the child/ren are with each parent. You can do this in the following way.
- Start with 168 hours during each week. This is because the school or day care hours are not taken into account.
- Subtract the hours in school or day care.
- Track the number of other hours that the child/ren are with each parent.
One way to do this is to make a chart showing each hour of the day. Make a column for each day of the week.
- If the parenting time schedule is different from week to week, include as many weeks are you need, to get a repeating schedule.
- Mark the number of hours the child is with each parent.
Count the total hours and the hours for each parent.
- The mother’s share is her hours/total hours.
- The father’s share is his hours/total hours.
- This gives you a percent of time with each parent, which is needed for figuring child support.
If the parent’s share the time evenly (each has 50% of the time) then you do not need to do the math above.

If you want some estimates of the ratios, rather than completing the additions above, here are some estimates:

If the non-residential parent has less than 39 hours a week, it is less than 35% and no further calculation is needed.

If the non-residential parent has about 45 hours a week, that is 40%. (Note: A Friday night to Sunday night schedule, each week, would be about 45 hours a week. But, an rotating every other weekend schedule would be about 22% time. )

If the non-residential parent has about 50 hours a week, that is about 45% of the time.

These percentages are estimates because the amount of time varies with the hours spent in child care or school.
These estimates are based on a plan where the child/ren spend 40 hours a week in school or day care.

FAQs

What About Shared Custody or Other Options?

Even when the parent’s agree to share the time with the child on an equal basis, the child support guidelines may set child support to be paid by one parent to the other.

There is a method for defining support in a shared custody plan.

This would need the parent to have a written agreement for meeting the direct expenses of the child/ren.

On a regular basis, the parents would trade receipts for things like clothing, school expenses, sports fees, etc.
- One parent would pay an amount to even up the amount paid.

Parents using this plan have to have a written agreement outlining how they will deal with these expenses.

The child support is then aimed to meet the housing, child care, insurance and food needs of the child/ren and deal with an earnings gap between the parents.

If the parents do not have a written plan for dealing with expenses in a shared custody deal, there is a process for settling child support.

You will be asked if the parenting time is equal and if you have a written plan.
If you answer that there is not a written plan, then one parent will be in charge of all the direct expenses of the child.
The interview will ask which parent is responsible. Then the interview will decide what amount of child support is due to that parent on an Equal Parenting Time worksheet.

Why do I Need to Compute the % of Time the Child is with Each Parent?

The Child Support guidelines allow a change of child support for a parent who has the child/ren more than 35% of the time.

This adjustment varies with the amount of time the child spends with the non-residential parent, if the amount of time is more than 35% of the time.
The amount of time with the non-custodial parent must be more than 39 hours a week to qualify for the adjustment.

What if we Don’t Agree About Child Support?

Sometimes, the parties don’t agree about the factors that go in the guidelines.

In that event, each party would prepare their own worksheet based on the factors they believe should be included.
The Judge can then gauge both worksheets and make a decision about what should be included.

Can I Prepare More than One Worksheet from One Interview?

Because of the programming that goes on behind the scenes in the interview, some choices don’t reset if you start over.

If you want to do a different interview with totally different theories about custody plans, for instance, please start over and do a new interview, entering your data again.

Who Can’t Use this Program Successfully?

If the joined income of the parents is more than $50,000, then this program won’t work.
When parents have had other children since the first child support order, they may be eligible for a multiple family adjustment.
- This program does not automatically calculate those adjustments.
When the parent paying child support lives in another state, they may qualify for an Interstate Pay Differential Adjustment.
- This program does not calculate that adjustment.
For parents who are not swapping (every other year) which parent claims the dependent deduction on Federal Income Tax returns, there is a variation on child support.
- This program doesn’t calculate that adjustment.

► Parents with one of these conditions are urged to consider other options, including:

Prepare their own child support worksheet from www.childsupporttools.com (The cost is currently $19.95 for single family – multiple uses for up to 30 days.)
Review the child support guidelines at http://www.kscourts.org/Rules-procedures-forms/Child-support-guidelines/2012-guidelines.asp and prepare a child support worksheet.
Seek help from an attorney who will provide limited scope representation, allowing you to select the services you wish from an attorney, paying for only those services you select and completing the other needed tasks yourself.
- You may find an attorney who offers this type of legal services from the Kansas Bar Association Lawyer Referral Service at 1-800-928-3111