It Is Not Added onto Base Child Support
Video Transcribed: Does child support include school-sponsored extracurricular activities in Oklahoma? I’m Tulsa attorney, James Wirth, I’m doing a series of videos related to Oklahoma child support.
And the question is if the children have school-sponsored extracurricular activities who pays for that? Is it ordered to be paid as part of the child support? Or, is it separate from that, which means it may be on the custodial parent. So the answer to that generally, is that it is not covered. It is not added onto base child support. So, 99% of the time the courts followed the Oklahoma Child Support Guidelines.
In the guidelines, you plug in certain numbers, primarily the party’s incomes, and it spits out the amount of support that the parents have to pay, and that does not include a special provision to add on to that for extracurricular activities. There is a special, in part of the guidelines that add on for daycare expenses, for health insurance, for out-of-pocket medical, but not for extracurricular activities.
However, there is a statute in Oklahoma to deviate from the guidelines. And it’s not used that often, because courts generally don’t like to deviate, but under the right circumstances, you can get a judge to do so. And it’s statutory, it’s part of Title 43, Section 118H, And it is Subsection H. And it deals with extracurricular activities.
And it says that school-sponsored extracurricular activities, such as band, clubs, and athletics that are not otherwise required to be used in calculating the child support, can be ordered on top of child support under the right circumstances.
And what the court looks for is whether there’s a history of this expenditure for those activities, whether the parties have the financial ability to pay them, and whether the child has exhibited an extraordinary aptitude.
The court’s going to review those and decide whether to deviate from the Oklahoma Child Support Guidelines and then add it to the base child support.
Meaning, that the obligor, the person that pays child support, is going to be paying their pro rat share of it. So the costs are split, and of course, if we’re deviating, the court could order that party to pay more than the pro-rata share.
Otherwise, if you’re going by the base child support guidelines that don’t add on additional costs for extracurricular activities, that means it’s on the custodial parent. The custodial parent gets to decide what types of extracurricular activities the child does but maybe isn’t able to afford them. And if that parent cannot afford them, then I guess the child can’t do it, unless you can convince the court to add in child support based on this deviation.
So, if you’ve got any questions about child support in Oklahoma or family law in general, you’re going to want to talk to an attorney about that. Get legal advice for that privately and confidentially. To get that scheduled with a Tulsa Child Support Collection Attorney at my office. You can go online to makelaweasy.com.
