At least 20 elder or disabled adults in Southwest Florida who have no money, no reliable family, a diminished ability to make their own decisions and nowhere to turn for support are among the Floridians feeling the sting of Gov. Rick Scott's record veto of $461.4 million in state funding last month.
Scott vetoed $750,000 in
funding for public guardianships this year for indigent, incapacitated
adults in Sarasota and Escambia counties. Lutheran Services Florida, a
nonprofit agency that handles state-funded guardianships in these two
counties, is now scrambling to serve 100 Sarasota County wards without
pay, and has stopped taking any new cases.
"We
know there's at least 20 on the waiting list," said Chris Card, chief
operating officer for Lutheran Services. "We've had to lay off staff and
reorganize our whole organization to support the public guardianships
we have. It's not as robust a program as we want to offer them."
The
moratorium means any elder unable to make decisions about where or how
to live, and lacking enough money to live on, cannot be given protection
by authorities unless attorneys and guardians take on the case for
free. When wards placed in guardianships have enough assets to cover
their expenses, those assets are used to pay the professionals who
determine their fates.
The
agency has resorted to such a freeze before, because of shortfalls in
donations during the Great Recession. During that two-year period,
according to Sarasota guardianship director Anne Ridings, the total
number of new adult guardianship cases in the 12th Judicial Circuit
dropped by 25 percent.
(Continue Reading) Full Article & Source:
Governor's veto strands indigent wards of state
1 comment:
Lutheran Family Services? Isn't that who is holding Julie Ferguson's Mom?
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