I am continuing to fix the screw-ups that the state of Texas has caused, because it went from “HHSC can not find copies of the good cause forms”, that have been on file since 2014, to “according to someone working at the child support office in the capital, the form that was on file wasn’t even the right form in the first place”, even though it was accepted in 2014 and has functioned since then. It has just gotten to the point where I am now putting in a closure request on the cases each day to prove a point, to make sure that the state knows that I am not screwing around when it comes to the safety issues that would present themselves working either one of these cases, am regularly inquiring on the child support website about the status of the closures of the cases to continue to make that point, and have filed a complaint with the HHSC state ombudsman as well as several complaints about the Austin caseworker with the child support website. I figure that they can’t ignore all of these things, especially if I continue to escalate them. If I absolutely must (since Bub’s paternal grandmother is once again paying on her adult son’s order), I’m thinking that I will actively refuse all child support monies disbursed to me by sending it back to the State Disbursement Unit.

I shouldn’t be having to work this hard to keep my family safe from harm, but here we are, doing this again.

For some reason, our local HHSC claimed to have “lost” the good cause forms that have been on file with Bub and Monster’s child support cases since 2014 (Monster’s had one since 2007, but a social worker took the good cause indicator off of his case without telling me in 2014). I was able to contact a customer care representative at the child support office who was perplexed that they were claiming to have lost the forms, because he stated that the good cause forms are referred with the rest of the case each time that HHSC’s automated computer systems mistakenly refer the cases to be enforced. He was able to send me the good cause waiver that the child support office has on file, which I sent to HHSC both by e-mail and as a change request, especially since he indicated that it could be e-mailed and I wanted to expedite things as far as I possibly could. At some point after that, though, family violence indicators were put on the cases as they appear to be pending closure, which means that customer care representatives working at the child support office can not see a lot of the information relating to the cases that they could once see. So I’m waiting on them to… liaison with HHSC about why these cases continue to be referred, and attempts made at working them, in spite of the fact that working either case poses safety issues to us. The state office has now gotten in on this as well, although it also appears that my local office is continuing to do work trying to figure out why these cases continue to be referred for enforcement and why folks are mysteriously “losing” documents.

The last time that this happened was in 2014, and it resulted in one case actually briefly being worked to the point of wage garnishment. I think I’ve mentioned that somewhere in here before, but the person in question… retaliated when they found out that their pay had been garnished, quit their job violently, and fled the country over it for as long as they could stay there. My only regret was that he could not stay longer.