Beyond Basics: Tackling Extraordinary Medical and Extracurricular Expenses | Episode 217 Artwork

Divorce at Altitude: A Podcast on Colorado Family Law

Award-winning Colorado divorce attorneys, Ryan Kalamaya and Amy Goscha, provide an approachable, insider view to divorce, parenting, relationships, and breakups. Episodes will include conversations with experts such as custody evaluators, CPAs, mediators, and family law judges. Listeners can expect to receive tips, tactics, and a frank conversation about some of life's toughest topics. Many people think that divorce is like climbing a mountain. Ryan and Amy have guided countless clients to the summit, and they share their weekly thoughts on divorce at altitude.

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Divorce at Altitude: A Podcast on Colorado Family Law

Beyond Basics: Tackling Extraordinary Medical and Extracurricular Expenses | Episode 217

October 28, 2024 • Caitlin Geary

Podcast Description:

Welcome to Divorce at Altitude, a podcast focused on Colorado family law, hosted by Ryan Kalamaya and co-host Amy Goscha. In each episode, we delve into various topics related to divorce, child custody, and co-parenting in Colorado. Whether you're navigating a divorce or just curious about the legal process, we offer practical advice and tips to guide you.

In this "how-to" episode, Ryan explores extraordinary medical and extracurricular expenses and their impact on child support in Colorado divorces or custody cases. Using the hypothetical case of Eric and Melanie Wolf, Ryan breaks down how costs like private school tuition, medical bills, sports, and other activities affect the financial dynamics between divorced parents.

Episode Highlights:
- Extraordinary Medical Expenses: How are major medical costs such as surgeries or braces shared between parents? Ryan discusses how these expenses, not covered by insurance, are typically split proportionally based on income.
- Extracurricular Expenses: From sports and music lessons to private school tuition, Ryan explains how these optional yet significant expenses can impact child support calculations. He also shares key legal precedents that guide courts in determining whether these expenses are reasonable and necessary.
- Real-Life Examples: With examples like travel soccer and ice skating, Ryan illustrates how disagreements over extracurricular costs can be resolved, either through court intervention or mutual agreement.
- Child Support Worksheet: Ryan shows how adding or excluding certain expenses directly impacts the amount of child support one parent pays to the other.

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What is Divorce at Altitude?

Ryan Kalamaya and Amy Goscha provide tips and recommendations on issues related to divorce, separation, and co-parenting in Colorado. Ryan and Amy are the founding partners of an innovative and ambitious law firm, Kalamaya | Goscha, that pushes the boundaries to discover new frontiers in family law, personal injuries, and criminal defense in Colorado.

To subscribe to Divorce at Altitude, click here and select your favorite podcast player. To subscribe to Kalamaya | Goscha's YouTube channel where many of the episodes will be posted as videos, click here. If you have additional questions or would like to speak to one of our attorneys, give us a call at 970-429-5784 or email us at info@kalamaya.law.

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DISCLAIMER: THE COMMENTARY AND OPINIONS ON THIS PODCAST IS FOR ENTERTAINMENT AND INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES AND NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING LEGAL ADVICE. CONTACT AN ATTORNEY IN YOUR STATE OR AREA TO OBTAIN LEGAL ADVICE ON ANY OF THESE ISSUES.

Ryan Kalamaya: 0:01

Welcome to Divorce At Altittude, a podcast on Colorado family law. I'm Ryan Kalamaya. Each week, along with my business partner and co-host, Amy Goscha, or an expert, we discuss a particular topic related to Divorce or co-parenting in Colorado. In addition, we have created a short series of lessons that will take you through the legal process of Divorce and answer your questions from simple to complex. Divorce isn't easy. The end of a marriage, especially when children are involved, brings a great deal of loss and change. We hope these practical tips and insights will help you on your journey to a new. And better life. This is a how to episode on extraordinary medical and extracurricular expenses for children and how they can impact child support in a Colorado divorce or custody case. Now, if we take our hypothetical divorce clients, Eric and Melanie Wolfe let's assume they have children, Adam and Eve there's going to be a child support paid most likely from one spouse to the other. Now, how does the extraordinary extracurricular expense such as private school come into play? That is one of the topics that we're going to get into in this how to episode. And you need to understand the impact on how this can relate to financials in a Colorado divorce, and it comes down to a share of income and share of parenting for determining child support. If you want more information, I've recorded how to episodes on the high level aspect of child support, what it's for, and you can hear some general themes that are applicable here. If In an episode in which I talk about work related daycare. Now, let's just as a general kind of purpose lay the foundation for what we're talking about. Under 1410. 115, child support is established by a child support commission and they determine how much it takes to raise children. I have children they they eat. And they require a long shuttle driving, which incurs gas, and I have to have a bigger place because they need room. And so there's heat, there's water, there's all those different things that are attendant to raising children. And that is baked into the child support guidelines. And those guidelines determine a base level of child support. That's not what we're talking about here. And it's important for people to understand the difference between basic child support obligations, what is on the worksheet, and that's based on Adam or Eric and Melanie's respective incomes and how much time they spend time with Adam and Eve. Let's first delve into extraordinary medical expenses. Now, In that baked in child support, basic baseline amount of child support is the consideration that if Melanie, for example, has the children 50 percent of the time or more, she is going to incur various medical expenses and that's for wellness checkups. Let's say that Adam has some sort of sickness and he needs medicine, he might have allergies, whatever the case may be. And what the Child Support Commission has determined that roughly, that's going to be 250 per child per year. But as parents know, there's often something that comes up. Indeed, there's always something that, that comes up. And that could be for things like Braces, surgeries, therapy. If Adam goes to the emergency room because he was out mountain biking and he braces a leg, how do we deal with that expense for the deductible, for example, on the uninsured aspect of that medical cost? Those are going to be shared in proportion to the parents income. So it's going to be a proportional share. And in the previous episode that I did on work related daycare, I mentioned things such as a 60 40 split, a 50 50 split. Really comes down to the parents incomes and how those extraordinary Medical expenses are going to be shared, and so in the parenting plan, or the separation agreement in the divorce, or if there's a decree, an allocation of parental responsibilities allocation, there's going to be a decree in an agreement, and it's going to be on the child support worksheet as to the proportionate share of income. Also, reiterate that if there is maintenance awarded. Typically that share is 60 40. So if Eric is paying Melanie spousal maintenance, usually the proportion on child support and therefore the split of extraordinary medical expenses is going to be Eric paying 60 percent and Melanie paying 40%. And that's going to be for, in essence, the uninsured component Of Adam's medical expenses again, 250 in a particular year. So that E. R. visit that will be split and usually parenting plans and separation agreements will say that if Melanie. Here's the deductible that she then will provide a receipt after insurance does its own thing. And, she will provide an invoice showing Adam that she made that payment and then request reimbursement. There is case law and there have been disputes about what happens, for example, for therapy or counseling. For something that may not be covered by insurance, and oftentimes parenting plans will spell out that the parties agree to seek out some sort of provider that is covered by insurance and oftentimes. In extraordinary medical expense situations, consent or something of that variety. Usually, these are time sensitive issues. If it's an emergency room visit or something there, there might not be the ability to reach an agreement. But if there is braces or some sort of upcoming surgery that might be elective or counseling, those sorts of things. There's going to need to be an agreement that is a nice segue into what is often the most contentious issue or can be a very contentious issue. And that is extracurricular expenses. What I mean by extracurricular expenses is things like sports, music lessons, specialized training. The tutoring, the college readiness, those sorts of things that go beyond. The standard activities and it's helpful for listeners to understand that generally a court is going to see that someone's going to need to compromise and their standard of living is going to have to change through a divorce. But if anyone is not going to suffer, it's going to be the children and in determining the duty of support and for child support under 14, 10, 15, there's various factors that the court is going to take into consideration and it's going to take into consideration the financial resources of the child. Now, people might laugh, but, children might have the ability to earn income. They might have a trust, there might be something set up for them, and that's going to be a factor. Indeed, another factor is going to be financial resources of the custodial parent. And most importantly, the standard of living the child would have enjoyed had the marriage not been dissolved. And in circumstances where there's not a marriage, you're still going to consider with the standard of living. Mayor Eric and Melanie were together, then you also need to consider the court's going to consider the physical and emotional condition of the child in his or her educational needs. And then finally, the financial resources and needs of the non custodial parent. This brings us to things that can be very expensive, and those would be activities or things such as private school. And in a situation, Melanie, once she realizes if she's going to be the recipient of child support, money is not going to go to her. The same distance as it did during the marriage, she might object to a private school or Eric he might object to a private school because it can be very expensive. And if there's a case, interim marriage of pay on where it discussed the history of the child's private school, and how it played a role in determining whether the educational expenses should be. Awarded and considered because the statute says that it needs to be for the educational needs. Whether private school is actually necessary, if a child has special needs, if there is an agreement, for example, on a religion, if there is some sort of a specific need, then, the court's going to take that into consideration. And I will also submit that. Courts are going to take into consideration how long a child has been in a particular private school. So if that child is, for the 1st time going to be going to private school, the court might say that's not a reasonable cost. And there is intermarriage of West, which stands for the proposition that these extracurricular expenses, they need to be. Reasonable and indeed, often that is where the dispute comes in and that brings us to a couple other examples in my territory, Aspen, skiing or hockey, there are some considerable expenses with, these extracurricular activities, because they involve travel, they entail significant equipment, equestrian, ice skating, those sorts of things. If Eve is a figure skater, she might require a private ice skating coach and that is what the court addressed in, in her marriage of Laughlin. And in that case the court determined that the ice skating fees, it was an extraordinary expense because of the child's significant involvement history in that activity. And so the net result is that it could mean that Melanie. Would receive potentially less child support on a monthly basis because Eric and instead is paying for those extracurricular activities. And so then the clerk really has some wide discretion on whether or not these expenses should be factored in or included again. As I said, in the. Episode on work related daycare, there is the option of dealing with this off the worksheet. It would be private school that Eric pays 60 percent of the private school tuition directly to the private school and then Melanie pays 46. 40%, same thing in terms of, the travel soccer, the competitive soccer, the competitive, fill in the blank, but the alternative also is that we could put it on the worksheet. And for listeners, or people that are watching this, you can see I'm sharing a screen and the child support worksheet has. Eric paying Melanie 307 per month. This is based on Eric making 120, 000 and Melanie paying 70, 000. And if we include, for example, let's say 2, 000 is the monthly amount for Eric. The private school, then all of a sudden, instead of going 307 dollars, Eric paying Melanie, if Eric is the one that actually pays those expenses and the court could determine, for example, that it's better for them not to communicate and that these expenses just need to be paid. And so it would be baked into the child support. All of a sudden, we go from 307, Eric paying Melanie. Now, it was Eric 429 per month. And when parties see the effect of these extraordinary expenses and how they can change child support, there can be some significant. Disputes over whether these are reasonable, whether this is really in the children's best interest and should continue going forward. And again, I'll reference inner marriage of West where the, there can be the reasonableness comes in to play. So the final thing that I'll point out is that. Oftentimes, parents will have an agreement that they will discuss these extracurricular activities before enrolling them, and there can also be an agreement where, let's say that Adam is in a travel soccer team, and he, Eric and Melanie agree that they'll pay the thousand dollars or whatever it is for the year, and that's going to cover the regular programming. But if Adam gets invited to go to California for a tournament. And that's gonna, cost several thousand dollars. Eric might be in support of that because he played college soccer with something, in, in that, and he's more supportive of the soccer. And Melanie could say, listen, I'm not opposed to Adam going to California. I think, it's something I know he wants to do. I'm not worried about his safety, but I just can't afford to pay that. Adam, at that point. Is in this quagmire where he, really wants to go, but his parents are having to, negotiate and deal with whether or not they can afford it. And there can be circumstances in which both parties go to Adam and they say, this is just not in the cards or Eric could say, listen, I'm willing to pay for that. And I'm not going to include it in my child support worksheet. It's on me. And so there can be various. Solutions there, and then if parents get into a disagreement, they can go to the judge and ask the judge to make a decision. I'll tell you, judges tend to be pretty cranky and not really, happy to be dealing with these sorts of one off disputes and instead they can often, agree, or the parties can agree to take these sorts of disputes to a PCM or an arbitrator and get that decision, very quickly. Quickly, but that hopefully gives an idea of extracurricular and extraordinary medical expenses and how they relate to child support. Thanks for listening or watching this short lesson on the Divorce Ude podcast. If you found this helpful, please leave a review or share with a friend. It does help for others that are going through or thinking about a Divorce in Colorado. If you want to find out more information, Please visit Kalamaya Law or Divorce at Altittude dot com and that's K A L A M A Y A law. Remember, this is educational information, it's not intended to be legal advice. Please consult with an attorney about the particulars of your case. We're happy to answer questions. Feel free to give us a call at(970) 315-2365.