Judiciary committee advances spousal-support guideline bill, adopts lower income threshold

A joint standing committee of the Legislature voted to report out LD 2142, a bill from the Family Law Advisory Commission that would create a presumptive guideline for awards of general spousal support, adopting an amended trigger that applies when a recipient’s adjusted spousal-support income is 65% or less of the payer’s.

Legislative analyst Janet Stilko summarized the bill for the committee, saying the draft would add a statutory definition of “spousal support income” based on the child-support gross-income worksheet (subtracting the payer’s spousal-support obligation and presumed child-support expenditures from gross income) and establish several rebuttable presumptions tied to marriage duration. Stilko described a durational multiplier — years married × 0.015, capped at 0.30 — that produces a presumptive award roughly between 15% (10-year marriage) and 30% (20+ years) of the adjusted-income difference.

“Right now courts consider 18 statutory factors; this bill gives jurists a concrete starting point and requires them to make findings on the record if they deviate,” Stilko said, urging that the statutory factors remain central to the analysis.

Ed David, a FLAC member who presented the commission’s proposed language, told the committee the amendment replaces permissive drafting (“may consider”) with mandatory language (“shall use”) so courts must explicitly apply the enumerated factors when deciding whether to deviate from the presumptive calculation. David said FLAC also added language to exclude clear outliers — very low or very high incomes — from rigid application of the guideline.

Members pressed several practical questions about tax treatment and whether the formula properly accounts for the post-2018 federal tax change that made most spousal-support payments non-taxable to recipients. Opponents at the public hearing had argued the bill’s spousal-support income definition could overstate the payer’s available funds while understating the payee’s due to tax differences; FLAC responded that it used pretax income and adjusted multipliers to reduce discovery burdens about tax consequences.

Judge Martin, who chairs the Family Law Advisory Commission and joined the panel remotely, said the measure’s intent is to provide a consistent starting point while preserving jurists’ duty to consider the statutory factors and to write findings explaining departures. “This gives me a starting point — I’m not pulling a figure out of thin air,” he said.

Representative Adam Lee told colleagues he had wavered but supported the bill after adjustments and proposed lowering the 75% trigger in the draft to 65% so the presumption would apply in cases where income gaps are larger and presumptions more clearly appropriate. The committee accepted that change: the motion to report the bill as amended (including the FLAC technical fix, drafting clarifications, and the 65% trigger) passed on a roll call of 12 in favor, 0 opposed, with two members absent.

The measure now moves forward as a committee recommendation; the committee’s analysis noted no anticipated fiscal impact. Supporters said the formula should assist self-represented litigants by giving a predictable starting point, while critics warned the calculation could be mechanical in some fact patterns and emphasized courts must retain discretion to account for tax consequences, imputed income, and other statutory factors.

The committee recorded its vote and noted absent members have until Monday at noon to cast their votes if desired.