Judiciary Launches Online Child Support Calculators

In a highly collaborative effort, the Indiana Supreme Court has created three new electronic tools that will make calculating child support obligations easier and faster, Chief Justice Randall T. Shepard announced today.

“These tools will assist judges, attorneys, and citizens around the state make accurate calculations of child support in domestic relations cases that follow the Indiana Child Support Guidelines,” said Chief Justice Shepard.

These three calculators, which generate the required child support court forms, include:

1. an online, interactive Step-by-Step Calculator complete with instructions, definitions, and references to the Guidelines;
2. an online, interactive Practitioners’ Calculator specifically designed for members of the justice community with experience calculating child support; and
3. a Downloadable Calculator for Microsoft Excel™ for use on computers without an Internet connection by members of the justice community with experience calculating child support.

The calculators are the product of collaboration between the Division of State Court Administration, the Indiana Judicial Center, the Judicial Conference of Indiana Domestic Relations Committee, the Indiana Supreme Court Judicial Technology and Automation Committee (JTAC), and the Marion Superior Court. Technical development of the online calculators was completed by eGov Strategies of Indianapolis. JTAC staff members completed the technical development of the downloadable calculator.

“The greatest benefit of these calculators is their ease of use,” said St. Joseph Superior Court Judge Michael Scopelitis, who chairs the Domestic Relations Committee. “Not only do the calculators simplify the process of determining support obligations in compliance with the Child Support Guidelines, but using each calculator should be intuitive for their respective audiences.”

The idea for an online child support calculator originated when the Marion Superior Court initially contracted with eGov Strategies to develop an online calculator for its website. That calculator was widely popular, but became outdated when amendments to the Indiana Child Support Guidelines became effective at the beginning of 2004. In late 2003, in anticipation of the Guideline changes, Marion County handed the application over to JTAC so that JTAC could facilitate the necessary updates and the collaborative effort that has led to the development of two additional tools and make the tools available for statewide use.

“We’re grateful to Marion County for allowing us to take its innovative idea and try to make it even better,” said Justice Frank Sullivan, Jr., Chair of JTAC. “We’re hopeful these calculators will be used all over Indiana.”

To access the Online Child Support Calculators, visit www.IN.gov/judiciary/childsupport.

About eGov Strategies
Since 1996, the eGov Strategies team has pioneered nationally-recognized website strategies, processes and Internet-based technologies to enable online access to government and non-profit information and services. eGov Strategies LLC (www.egovstrategies.com) works with city, town, county, and state governments to plan and implement the strategic evolution of their websites.