There are two main components to child support in California:
- guideline (or base) child support, meant to address food, clothing and shelter and
- child support add-ons.
The add-ons are further subdivided into mandatory add-ons and discretionary add-ons.
The mandatory add-ons are:
- out-of-pocket (not covered by insurance) medical expenses and
- child-care costs required to allow a parent to work or train for work.
The discretionary add-ons are:
- educational and special needs;
- extracurricular activities; and
- travel expenses for visitation
Proportional Sharing of Add-ons
California officially began using proportional sharing as the default method for dividing child support add-ons on 9/1/24. Previously, courts generally used a default 50/50 split for mandatory add-ons. A parent had to proactively request a proportional division to avoid this 50/50 split.
Now the law provides for these add-on expenses to be automatically apportioned in proportion to each parent’s respective “net monthly disposable income.” This of course is generally more fair.
Authorized programs for calculating guideline child support now also calculate this proportional split. The calculation is to determine your monthly gross income and then subtract allowable deductions.
For your gross monthly income, all sources of income need to be included such as wages, tips, overtime, bonuses, self-employment earnings (gross minus business expenses), rental and investment income, and unemployment / disability / workers’ comp benefits.
Allowed deductions include state and federal income tax, FICA and State Disability Insurance, health insurance premiums for yourself and the child(ren), mandatory retirement contributions and union dues.
Once net monthly disposable income is calculated for both parents, they are added together to find the total net monthly disposable income. Then the proportional share for each parent is their net monthly disposable income divided by the total net monthly disposable income.
When you work out your own divorce or co-parenting settlement agreement, on your own or with the assistance of a mediator, then you are free to use whatever add-on cost-sharing arrangement the two of you agree upon.
As a divorce mediator and a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst I use the authorized program called Cal Support Pro for child suppoert calculations.
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