INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana could soon start taking something besides money from the wallets of deadbeat parents.

Noncustodial parents who owe at least $25,000 in child support and have not made payments for at least one year could have their driver's, hunting and fishing licenses suspended under a new program announced Monday by Gov. Mitch Daniels.

"We're saying to those who are not doing their duty by their children, a duty a court ordered them to do, please come and get started," Daniels said at a Statehouse news conference.

"We don't want to take anybody's license ... but if you won't do your duty, then certain privileges the state confers ought not be yours until you start doing your duty," said the governor, who was joined by other state officials and by prosecutors from counties where the program will begin.

Initially, it will be tried in Marion, Lake, Allen and St. Joseph counties — the state's four most-populated areas — along with Vanderburgh, Tippecanoe, Monroe and Kosciusko counties. About 4,000 delinquent parents currently meet the criteria for suspension in those eight counties, Daniels said. The rest of the state's 92 counties will come aboard soon, he said.

The suspensions would not be automatic, nor would delinquent parents have to make full payment to avoid the suspensions, Daniels said. The prosecutor's office in each county will administer the suspension process, which will include a series of notifications and a 60-day period for response, and will be flexible in helping people set up payment schedules.

"I hope personally we never have to suspend a single license. I hope the people who are shirking the legal and certainly moral duty to their kids will think harder about it and come on in," Daniels said.

He said similar programs have been tried and "worked well" in Maine, Washington state, Tennessee and Mississippi.

Steve Johnson, executive director of the Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council, said many in arrears would begin making payments once the new program was publicized.

"People will come into compliance simply because they want to keep their licenses. Hopefully, we'll not have to take action against these people, and they'll voluntarily appear and at least start making payments," Johnson said. "We don't expect them to pay it off all at once, but hopefully this will bring them into line and make them see we're really serious about this."

Daniels said eventually the threshold for suspension would be lowered from $25,000 to $2,000 in unpaid support and from one year of nonpayment to three months. The state's Department of Child Services estimates more than 76,000 cases representing more than $1.3 billion in support currently meet that lower threshold, he said.

"Maybe some folks will only be able to begin making payments. But every dollar will go right where it's needed most, in the home where children live," Daniels said.

Extreme cases, where parents have the ability to pay but still refuse, could result in jail, said Prosecutor Carl Brizzi of Marion County, the state's most populous.

"If you have time to hunt and fish, then obviously you have time to meet those financial obligations," Brizzi said.

Prosecutor Bernard Carter of Lake County, the state's second-most populous, said he views failure to pay child support as child abuse.

"At the same time, we're very thoughtful on the other side in terms of inability to pay," he said. "In Lake County, we have a lot of people who economically don't have the ability to honestly pay in some cases. And we look to those. We have good people in our office who really give that second look at those kind of cases. But the ones who truly have the ability to pay and don't pay, in my opinion, need to go to jail."