Jenna Buzzacco-Foerster
Sen. Jeff Brandes has filed a bill aimed at providing standardized visitation plans for unmarried parents.
The St. Petersburg Republican filed legislation (SB 590) Monday, which would create a standard visitation schedule for unmarried parents. If adopted, the proposal would encourage contact between non-custodial parents and their children.
“Spending time with our children is the most valuable gift parents can give,” he said in a statement. “The state currently requires child support be paid but is silent on time. This bill seeks to offer parents an optional time sharing plan, used in many other states, that puts the focus on parents spending time with their children.”
The time plan, according to Brandes’ office, would be provided as an option when parents meet with the Department of Revenue to set up child support. It would allow the parents to bypass the court system.
Under the proposed plan, children would be with the non-custodial parents every other weekend; one evening per week; Thanksgiving break and spring break in even numbered years; winter break in odd years; and for two weeks during the summer.
Parents could accept the plan as laid out, deviate and agree upon a different plan, or go through further mediation. It provides several exceptions, including when a family member lives more than 100 miles away or when there are concerns of familial or domestic violence.
3 comments
Thomas jenkins
February 2, 2017 at 2:15 pm
This has been needed for a long time many so called non custodial parents have been consistently extorted and exploited by a money for state gains system
eddieyutreatmelikeanimal
February 7, 2017 at 10:09 pm
Nice cliche gesture.
In reality, If the so called “mom” lifts her pinky and decides not to allow the man to see the child, how will the man (who is already dead broke by paying child support), be able to pay an attorney to represent him in the “civil” court?
How will the man (statistically the NCP will almost always be a man), entrust the kangaroo court who took his child away already from him through the use of force, to enforce an order like this?
The sad reality is that the mother simply has to threaten the NCP with more child support or pay off a so called “psychologist” to assert that your child is mentally ill and unable to see you again.
These minor changes are extremely minor and take far too long to implement.
Accepting the changes as phenomenal is analogous to eating a saltine cracker after starving for 6 months. The saltine cracker is going to taste like a 6 course meal.
eddieyutreatmelikeanimal
February 7, 2017 at 10:13 pm
Also, how does the court expect 2 people who often couldn’t get along in the past to suddenly become amicable willy nilly?
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