The Utah legislature recently passed a law that will prohibit parents who are delinquent on child support payments from owning hunting and fishing licenses in the Beehive State.
The law specifically targets those parents who owe more than $2500 in child support payments, and the ban can be lifted if the parent agrees to a payment plan to pay off their debt.
The Utah DWR estimates the bill will affect about 50% of all parents in the state who are behind on child support payments. Officials estimate that the financial impact to DWR revenue will exceed $400,000.
The fact that legislative officials were able to make a connection between “deadbeat parents” and hunting and fishing licenses in maybe the slickest bureaucratic move I’ve ever seen.
I’m not going to play the stereotype game, but I couldn’t help but laugh that over 9,000 of the 19,000 parents behind on child support payments in Utah also have owned hunting and fishing licenses.
Maybe this will give those people some extra motivation to do the right thing. Or it could just lead to more illegal hunting… who knows?