In the new State Auditor’s Statewide Single Audit, NCDHHS didn’t properly monitor millions in federal funding for Medicaid, foster care, substance abuse and other government programs.
Some N.C. lawmakers are thinking about ways to deal with foster children whose birth parents are struggling with substance abuse. House Bill 918 would allow foster parents who have cared for a child up to 3 years old, for at least nine months, to file a motion terminating the birth parents’ parental rights. It would...
RALEIGH — North Carolina law provides that a biological father has a right to prevent his offspring from being put up for adoption without his consent. To preserve this right, the father must provide actual financial support for the offspring. In a recent ruling, the state Supreme Court clarified what constitutes the necessary level of support under the law. In doing so, it rejected a lower standard established by the N.C. Court of Appeals.
RALEIGH — North Carolina social-service agencies can provide financial incentives to families that adopt “special needs” children, but not all marriages last. What effect do these adoptive-assistance payments have in determining child-support payments? The answer, according to the state’s second-highest court, is they should be treated as income to the children, not as subsidies to the parents, and that they do not fully offset the need for child support. Thus the NC Court of Appeals rejected a father’s argument that his court-ordered child support was set too high, noting a court in Arizona had ruled the same way in a similar case.
