The legislature intends, in establishing a child support schedule, to insure [ensure] that child support orders are adequate to meet a child's basic needs and to provide additional child support commensurate with the parents' income, resources, and standard of living. The legislature also intends that the child support obligation should be equitably apportioned between the parents.

The legislature finds that these goals will be best achieved by the adoption and use of a statewide child support schedule. Use of a statewide schedule will benefit children and their parents by:

(1) Increasing the adequacy of child support orders through the use of economic data as the basis for establishing the child support schedule;

(2) Increasing the equity of child support orders by providing for comparable orders in cases with similar circumstances; and

(3) Reducing the adversarial nature of the proceedings by increasing voluntary settlements as a result of the greater predictability achieved by a uniform statewide child support schedule.

Effective dates—1988 c 275: "Except for sections 4, 8, and 9 of this act, this act shall take effect July 1, 1988. Sections 4 and 8 of this act are necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, and safety, the support of the state government and its existing public institutions, and shall take effect immediately [March 24, 1988]." [ 1988 c 275 s 23.]

Severability—1988 c 275: "If any provision of this act or its application to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the remainder of the act or the application of the provision to other persons or circumstances is not affected." [ 1988 c 275 s 24.]