Child support may be modified after one of three circumstances occur. In Rhode Island, child support is based on the parties income and available resources support and that information, along with some other factors such as daycare costs, medical insurance costs, or the number of other minor children a party is responsible for, is what is plugged into the "guidelines" to calculate child support. There are three general events that can occur that will trigger the ability to review and modify child support.

If there is a "significant change in circumstances" as it related to the factors set above, then the courts will "open the door" to a review. Notice that part one is to open the door for a review. Whether there is a change after the review is the second part. What constitutes a significant change in circumstances is up to the judge, but can safely be assumed to include changes in income by 10% up or down, changes in the number or minor children, or other changes in the variables used to originally calculate the support order.

There are two other ways to "open the door" for the right to review child support, and technically, they are "significant changes in circumstances" as first described above. First, by statute, the courts will consider there to be a change in circumstances automatically if it has been more that five years since the existing child support order was entered. The other method or opening the door to a review occurs automatically every time Child Support Guidelines are updated, which occurs every five years or so.

Now that the door is open for review, the courts will recalculate support based on all the factors set out at the beginning of this topic to come up with the new support order. Generally, is you get this far there will be a change, however, it court be very small.

Example: Bob and Lisa have two children and have been divorced for two years. Bob is paying child support to Lisa per the "guidelines." Lisa has another child with her new husband, and Lisa gets a pay raise of 20%. Bob files for a change in support. Both the new child and the pay raise constitute a significant change in circumstances. The door is open, but the support only changes by 50 cents per week. In this case the pay raise would by itself reduce Bob's support obligation, but when calculating support, Lisa now gets a deduction from her new income for her new child, balancing out the change.