LRB-0707/1
EAW:kjf
2019 - 2020 LEGISLATURE
2019 Assembly BILL 96
March 22, 2019 - Introduced by Joint Legislative Council. Referred to Committee
on Family Law.
AB96,1,1 1An Act relating to: calculating the child support obligation.
Analysis by the Legislative Reference Bureau
This bill is explained in the Notes provided by the Joint Legislative Council in
the bill.
For further information see the state fiscal estimate, which will be printed as
an appendix to this bill.
The people of the state of Wisconsin, represented in senate and assembly, do
enact as follows:
Joint Legislative Council prefatory note: This bill was prepared for the Joint
Legislative Council's Study Committee on Child Placement and Support. To reflect
current practices, the bill reorganizes certain aspects of the Department of Children and
Families administrative rules relating to commonly used child support formulas. The
manner of calculating the amount of child support and the applicable formulas are not
changed in the bill.
Under current DCF rules, the child support formula that applies in a shared
physical placement arrangement is included among the formula for “special
circumstances.”
The bill moves the formula that applies in a shared physical placement
arrangement to a new section of DCF's rules before all of the child support formula
variations. The bill also specifies that, under DCF rules, the designated percentage that
applies in a nonshared physical placement arrangement applies only if the conditions for
the shared placement formula do not apply.
The bill creates a new defined term under DCF's rules for a “designated
percentage,” to mean the applicable percentage of a parent's monthly income, or adjusted

monthly income, that is available for child support. The “designated percentage” phrase
is then used within the calculations for a shared-placement arrangement and
circumstances of a serial-family parent, split-placement parents, and combinations of
special circumstances.
In addition, the bill does all of the following:
Retitles the applicable DCF administrative code chapter from “Child Support
Percentage of Income Standard” to “Child Support Standard.”
Removes the definition of the term “standard” or “percentage standard” from
DCF's rules.
Moves a Note appended to the definition of “standard” in DCF's rules to the new
definition of the “designated percentage.” The Note specifies that the standard is based
on national studies and is adjusted downward to reflect costs incurred by a parent when
a child is in the parent's care and costs to maintain a child's health insurance.