Los Banos Rotary Club History
County Taxpayers Foot Bill for 1200 Children

As a taxpayer in this county "you are the provider for more children than bear your own name."

Such was the opening statement of Pat Halford, Merced, deputy district attorney of this county, in a talk to members of the Rotary Club here Tuesday.
Explaining this somewhat surprising statement, Halford said there are nearly 1200 fatherless or father-neglected children in this county who last month were given financial support to the tune of approximately $100,000 in federal, state and county funds. The federal support for the needy children's program amounts to 46 per cent of the total bill, the state furnishes 36 per cent of the money, and Merced county taxpayers pay the balance—about 18 per cent.
About $100,000 in county tax dollars will be required to finance the program in this county in the coming year.

Attorney Halford's job is to work with the county welfare department in ascertaining the validity of each child support application, and in ferreting our fathers who have forsaken and abandoned their wives and children.
California law, Halford explains, makes the father financially liable for the support of their offspring. The problem is to find them and keep track of them. If they have departed to another state the problem is further complicated as welfare department and courts in such states are generally too busy with their own problems to give much time to tracking down a father wanted for non-support of a child living in California.

Then, too, Halford relates, of times a mother with several children finds it to her financially advantage to run the wage-earning father out of the house and make application for county aid. For instance a mother with eight children can receive an assistance check $371 a month; the pay to a mother with one child is $141.00 month. Often the assistance check is more than would be the father's monthly earnings. Hence the father remains conveniently away from home when the welfare department worker makes the routine investigation—but the children continue to multiply.

The purpose of the child aid program, Halford related, is to see that these children have at least partially normal home life and have the opportunity to grow up to become useful and responsible citizens. In the big majority of cases, he emphasized, the program fulfills its purpose and is a big improvement over the old system of state orphanages or needy institutions.
It is the few chiselers, falsifiers and neer-do-wells that provide the administrative headaches, and it is the lot of the district attorney's office to everlastingly pursue such individuals so that the program as a whole might succeed.

On the favorable side, Halford said the per capita ratio of fatherless children in this county is .57 per 100—somewhat better than Stanislaus County's record of .72 per 100, or Tulare's .87 per 100.

July 25, 1958

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