The committee has made more revisions to the 2024 version of the Kansas Child Support Guidelines and sent them to the Supreme Court for signature. The Proposed 2024 (version 2) Guidelines can be read here. Pursuant to CFR 302.56, the committee seeks public comment via Survey Monkey on the newly revised guidelines. The process of soliciting feedback from the public occurs only after all changes have been approved by the committee and sent off to the Supreme Court for signature. This is done to comply with Federal laws.
The latest issue of the guidelines corrects several typos and references that made it out the door on issue 1. Additionally, there are some substantive changes to the Equal Parenting Time formula - including a new name. Here are a few highlights:
- "Less than zero" language has been removed - Horray!
- Renamed the "Equal Parenting Time Formula" to "Direct Expense Formula"
- Direct Expense Formula now assumes clothing is provided by each parent and is automatically included in the formula.
- Shared Expense Formula has been moved down in the guidelines for some reason.
For shared residency, parents now have two options, but both options are considered "Deviations to the Rebuttable Presumption," which was a change introduced in the first 2024 guidelines release. The two calculation options for shared residency are the Shared Expense Formula (high-low)/2, and the Direct Expense Formula (high-low)/2 + Direct Expenses. The later option is where the parent receiving support is responsible for paying for all the child(ren)'s direct expenses and reimbursing the other parent's expenditures for the same. The newly named SEF and DEF formulas are sure to be confusing for the next 4 years.
Note: the meeting minutes do not reflect that the committee ever approved making any shared residency formulas "Deviations to the Rebuttable Presumption." Prior to 2024, calculations for shared residency were integral to the rebuttable presumption. Now, by making them "Deviations," shared residency adjustments will require the judge make written findings to approve it. It's possible the next guidelines review would involve the argument that since the shared residency forumulas are no longer used (because the committee made them harder to get approved), they should just be removed from the guidelines. Hopefully that's not the progression.