Bexar commissioners OK guardianship funding with plans to include program in 2019 budget

Bexar County commissioners this week approved about $116,000 to fund five months of the probate courts’ guardianship program for people with incapacitating mental or physical conditions, carrying the initiative through the end of the fiscal year.

Judge Kelly Cross, who runs one of the county’s two probate courts, said that while the program still lacks adequate staffing to meet the county’s guardianship needs, she was pleased commissioners approved the funding.

“Any kind of help is good help, so you know what they say, beggars can’t be choosers. I’m OK with it,” she said. “We’re powerless.”

About 96 percent of the funding goes toward the salaries of four guardianship employees: the program manager, an office assistant and two guardians. David Marquez, executive director of the Bexar County Economic & Community Development Department, recommended adding a third guardian in the fiscal 2019 budget.

“That funding could be requested from the (county budget’s) general fund, or we may approach the probate court to see if they would be willing to fund some, or part, or all of the additional guardian capacity that we would add,” Marquez told the commissioners Tuesday.

The money approved Tuesday brings the guardianship’s total funding to about $255,000 for the final 11 months of the fiscal year. In October, the court approved $139,000 for six months of the program, from November through April, after initially omitting the program from its annual budget.

The fund that the probate judges administer had covered costs in October, the first month of the fiscal year. Marquez acknowledged in an interview Monday that the funding exclusion was a “funding miscue” and “misunderstanding on my part,” as he was new to overseeing the program.

Marquez added that the program would be funded through the county’s fiscal 2019 budget next year, conditional on the commissioners’ approval. Commissioners Court makes the county’s budgetary decisions, and they set a $1.76 billion budget for the 2018 fiscal year.

Cross and the county’s other probate judge, Tom Rickhoff, have complained of poor communication with the commissioners, even claiming that they weren’t made aware the commissioners planned to consider the funding until Monday.

Otherwise, Cross appeared to see two aspects differently than Marquez and the commissioners: the appropriate caseload per guardian, and whether the program should be designated as one of “last resort.”

The 2014 “memorandum of understanding” establishing the guardianship “pilot program,” signed by Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff, several other county officials and both probate judges — Rickhoff and then-Probate No. 1 Judge Polly Jackson Spencer — signifies the program “will be a Guardianship Program of Last Resort.” It also allotted about $291,000 for the 2015 fiscal year.

But Cross said Monday the program is not a “guardian of last resort.”

“That’s very important. What it means is, the court can give you anybody, it can give you an illegal alien, head-injured person, no benefits, no housing, no Medicaid. That’s the guardian of last resort,” she said.

She further added the guardianship program could not feasibly be one of last resort because “we have no ability, except through charitable sources, for someone who is not a citizen of the U.S. and would not qualify for benefits.”

The Texas Judicial Council unsuccessfully recommended in 2014 that the Legislature establish a statewide public guardianship office, which currently does not exist.

“A public guardianship office serves as the guardian of last resort when no other appropriate guardian can be located. Texas currently does not have a guardian of last resort, and judges are oftentimes faced with the difficult task of locating an appropriate guardian for an individual,” the council’s 2016 Elders Committee Report & Recommendations reads.

Some court members, including Wolff and Precinct 2 Commissioner Paul Elizondo, have urged state involvement because the county lacks the resources to adequately provide guardianships for enough people.

In his presentation, Marquez said the program was designed for each guardian to handle 25 wards, and for the program manager to handle 15, for a maximum of 65. But Cross said each guardian should be assigned 20 wards, noting that some cases are particularly “hard and time-consuming.” She also said five guardians would be an ideal amount, not two. The program currently handles 45 wards.

On Tuesday, Wolff pointed to the services the court already contributes funding to, saying the county already is “very much involved” in helping people with mental and physical issues.

“There is an array of services — Meals of Wheels is one of them — that we fund, and I think those wraparound services are important,” Wolff said. “And I think it's important to also understand that that is the key point of helping these people. And we fund a number of those that do that.”

During his presentation, Marquez outlined the duties a guardian performs, including many tasks the guardians are precluded from doing. He said guardians cannot “prevent a ward from making a bad decision,” “use force to make a ward take medication” or “place a ward in a mental health facility.”

Guardians also do not “supervise a ward around the clock” and are not responsible for a ward’s illegal acts or for funding the ward’s expenses, he said.

“I think there needs to be greater clarity about what kinds of cases we can and can’t take,” Marquez said. “These are social workers, they’re not mental health professionals. So they have limitations on the types of cases they can take.”

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Bexar commissioners OK guardianship funding with plans to include program in 2019 budget