MONTPELIER, Vt. — State officials will begin this month to pull licenses from parents who are not paying child support.

The almost 17,000 parents who are delinquent on child support payments were put on notice this summer that license suspensions could be their fate under a new law, said Tom Rotella, who is working with the court and with motor vehicles to set up procedures for pulling licenses.

But as the Vermont Office of Child Support prepares to enforce the law passed by the state legislature last spring, it has been slow to use other weapons at its disposal or inducements that have worked in other states.

For example, Vermont almost never refers cases to federal prosecutors and refuses to make public the names of parents who are behind in paying child support.

The threat of publishing names cut Maine’s delinquents from 10,000 to 2,400 this summer, authorities there said. In Massachusetts, the state has listed some delinquents on the Internet.

Interest in the issue of deadbeat parents has intensified because of the case of Jeffrey A. Nichols, 47, of Charlotte, who owes about $600,000 in back child support. Nichols, who is thought to owe more back child support than any parent in the country, was arrested Aug. 7 and is now being held in a New York jail.

His former wife, Marilyn Nichols-Kane of New York City, said the debt was allowed to accumulate partly because there was no public pressure for Nichols to pay. Nichols-Kane said she believes officials should publish the names of delinquent parents.

“Even if it brings in $1,000 more, making public the names is another way to collect money due for needy children,” Nichols-Kane said. It also saves taxpayers money, she said.

The Vermont Child Support office has referred only one case in three years to U.S. Attorney Charles Tetzlaff for prosecution, said director Jeff Cohen.

At least 75 parents in Vermont owe $40,000 or more for past child support, according to statistics from the child support office.

Vermont ranks first in the nation in its number of delinquent parents who make at least “some” payments, according to figures from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Vermont’s rate of 38.5 percent is about twice the national average.