By Donna Lamb

aintaining health benefits for Medicare-eligible retirees. Tracing firearm possession. Reforming the New York State judicial election process. Fining building owners for failing to remove graffiti. What do these things have in common? They were all subjects of legislation introduced at the most recent New York City Council meeting. Each item was duly assigned to an appropriate committee and will now begin wending its way through the system until, if it fares well, it will emerge once more on the floor of the council for a vote.

One piece of legislation that completed its journey and came up for a vote at this meeting was Intro. 409-A. It is an Amended Local Law designed to protect single parents and their children from the unscrupulous practices of some privately owned debt collection agencies that specialize in child support payments.

It had been brought to the attention of the council that there's a desperate need to regulate these child support collection agencies which are excluded from existing federal, state and local consumer protection laws. This exclusion has permitted them to engage in such practices as charging exorbitant prices totally out of proportion to the amount of money collected, exacting high fees for all kinds of services they should not be charging for at all - like filling out an application or terminating a contract, and utilizing fuzzy accounting practices that designate current child support payments as in arrears when they're not.

Employees of these agencies have also been found to falsely impersonate state child support agency employees or law enforcement officers, claim powers not authorized by law, threaten and harass both custodial and non-custodial parents, and bully grandparents into disclosing their charge account numbers.

In the press conference directly preceding the City Council meeting, Council Member Yvette Clarke stated that within the sensitive and oftentimes emotional debate over child support payment, there is a tremendous need to put a stop to these types of practices. "This legislation provides the appropriate protection against them while providing a deterrent to those who would profit from other's misery," she said.

This legislation stemmed from an investigation by the council's Committee on Oversight and Investigations, chaired by Council Member Eric Gioia. What they discovered, he said, was that "All too often single moms come to these private agencies in their most desperate times to try to get the resources that their children need and are entitled to by law. Instead, they are forced to sign contracts that are terribly unbalanced and put them in a bad way."

The legislation was then passed on to the, pointed out that while we've all heard about "deadbeat dads" it is just as urgent that something be done to curb "predatory companies that come forth and prey upon women and children. Single parents and children are a vulnerable group," she observed. "By extending New York City's consumer protection laws to include these agencies and by creating basic disclosure requirements, we are making sure that there are basic ground rules for this industry."

In an interview later, Boyland elaborated on some more ways these private agencies bilk customers, such as taking astronomical amounts of money as sort of a finder's fee while failing to tell them that they could go to a city agency that performs these services for free. She told of a woman who was entitled to about $900 a month, but after the agency took it's cut, she only got about $100.

Boyland mentioned, too, that her committee had worked closely with the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) which had helped bring to light many issues they probably would have overlooked without them.

In the meeting Council Member Vincent Gentile said that because he worked for many years at OCSE, he understands very well the numerous problem that single-parent families face when trying to collect child support, including debt collection agencies trying to take them for a ride and fleece them of the money they deserve. "This bill will at least address some of these issues by making the parents aware of the New York City debt collection services that are available to them free of charge," he commented. "It will also do some type of licensing and coordinating of the agencies. This is a good start at something that is long overdue."

To the joy of everyone involved, when it was time to vote, the bill was passed unanimously.