Opinion ID: 2570552
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: CSED Never Issued a Final Support Order.

Text: The superior court found that Button was not required to pay arrears that accrued before the disestablishment order because no final support order had been in effect. In reaching this decision, the court ruled that Button's appeal of the agency's informal conference decision prevented CSED's support order from becoming final. CSED argues that this decision was erroneous, because an informal conference decision is a final order regardless of pending administrative or judicial appeals. Alaska Statute 25.27.170(b) resolves this question in Button's favor: If a request for a formal hearing under (a) [4] of this section is made, the execution under AS 25.27.062 and 25.27.230-25.27.270 may not be stayed unless the obligor posts security or a bond in the amount of child support that would have been due under the finding of financial responsibility pending the decision on the hearing. If no request for a hearing is made, the finding of responsibility is final at the expiration of the 30-day period. [5] A plain reading of AS 25.27.170(b) indicates that a support order becomes final after thirty days only if no formal hearing is requested. Indeed, if an informal conference decision were a final order, then any change in support pursuant to a formal hearing would be a prohibited retroactive modification of child support. [6] The legislative history of AS 25.27.170 supports this plain reading of the statute. As originally enacted in 1977, former AS 47.23.170(b) (now AS 25.27.170) provided: If a request [for a hearing] under (a) is made, the execution under secs. 230-270 of this chapter shall be stayed pending the decision on the hearing, or the decision of a court, if appealed. If no request for a hearing is made, the finding of responsibility is final at the expiration of the 30-day period. [7] Thus, the statute at its inception explicitly provided that a support order was not final pending administrative or judicial review. In 1994 the legislature substituted the current version of AS 25.27.170inserting the requirement that a bond be postedin order to comply with requirements for federal funding. [8] A CSED representative testified at a state house committee hearing that the 1994 changes to the Alaska statute were aimed at complying with federal law; there was no suggestion that the amendment was designed instead to make a statute intended to stay the execution of a support order pending appeal into a provision that had the opposite effect. [9] CSED's second argumentthat AS 25.27.170(b) pertains only to NFFR appeals, not to appeals of informal conference decisions, which are immediately enforceableis contradicted by the administrative regulations governing the hearing process. Those regulations provide that a putative obligor may request a formal hearing after an informal conference decision. [10] The regulations state that informal conference decisions are final for purposes of appeal to a formal hearing but not for purposes of appeal to superior court. [11] Thus, AS 25.27.170(b) serves to convert a NFFR or an informal conference decision into a final order only if no formal hearing is requested. Because Button appealed the informal conference decision within thirty days, and his administrative appeal was stayed pending a decision by the superior court, the superior court correctly held that there was never an enforceable support order. [12]