LANSING —Members of the state House Judiciary Committee heard testimony Tuesday on proposed legislation aimed at reforming Michigan’s guardianship system, voting to approve new versions of bills with several potent elements removed.
Committee Chair Graham Filler, a DeWitt Republican and bill sponsor, acknowledged the changes during Tuesday’s hearing.
“We’re definitely doing this with eyes wide open and trying to make a piece of legislation that actually works in the real world,” Filler said.
The substitute legislation does not require guardians to be immediately certified and does not increase the in-person visit requirement from quarterly to monthly, as was the case in the original version of the bills.
“That was just viewed as an unrealistic concept so we’ve modified that,” Filler said, of monthly in-person visits.
Guardians and conservators will be required to secure “some form of certification,” but not until funds to administer the requirement are allocated by the legislature.
Additional visits by guardians can be made virtually, over the telephone or, if that is not convenient, a guardian can speak with a vulnerable person’s healthcare provider.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who in 2019 drew from a wide swath of advocacy and legal groups in making appointments to her Elder Abuse Task Force, also testified about what she described as significant changes to the legislation.
“We, along with most of the task force members, believe these changes strike the proper balance,” Nessel said, adding the package ensures vulnerable people are protected, while burdens on professional guardians and the court are minimized.
Nessel credited AARP, the Alzheimer’s Association, probate court judges and probate court registers, law enforcement, county prosecutors, elder law attorneys and members of the disability community for their support of the revised legislation.
Conspicuously absent from this list of supporters is the Michigan Guardianship Association, some members of which served on the Elder Abuse Task Force.
Vice President Georgia Callis, of Guardian Care, Inc. did not respond to a request for comment, though the association previously publicly opposed the package.
MGA is also not listed in a list of supporters Nessel’s office provided to the committee, records show.
Guardians and conservators in Michigan are appointed by probate court judges, to make medical, housing and financial decisions for someone when a judge decides they can no longer make these decisions for themselves.
Elected officials have been trying to fix guardianship for decades, though each attempt has yielded little real change.
In 1996, the State Supreme Court convened a task force on guardianship reform that produced 11 recommendations, including that “minimum ethical standards for professional guardians and professional conservators should be promulgated and enforced.”
In 2005, then-Governor Jennifer Granholm established another task force which also recommended minimum standards for guardians. This task force warned elder abuse cases would likely to rise significantly, owing to Michigan’s aging population.
The recommendations led to no new legislation and in 2012, state auditors found court administrators had only complied with a few of the previous recommendations made in 2003.
Reformers have urged lawmakers to pass a certification requirement since the 1990s, which would mandate education, training, background checks and insurance bonding for guardians and conservators.
Salli Pung, the state’s long-term care ombudsman, who chairs the task force’s subcommittee on certification, supports new versions of the legislation, records show, yet has also been a vocal supporter of requiring Michigan’s guardians to be certified.
“If we’re going to require certification for a dog groomer, we should be requiring it for people who are responsible for every aspect of someone’s life,” Pung previously said.
The bills
were approved for a second reading and no date has been set for a floor
vote; the Michigan Senate is also considering a proposed legislation
package similarly aimed at reforming guardianship and conservatorship.
2 comments:
I was their along with senate candidate and anti guardianship abuse advocate Jody White. Both of us put in cards to speak and we were told we were going to be able to speak. These bills give zero protection to the elderly and are only aimed and making sure guardians are paid! Guardianship needs to be abolished it is the equivalent of human trafficking (slavery)
Guardianship won't be abolished or gotten rid of like an amputation. It will be replaced by alternative forms of "protection" that do not remove a person's rights. Get your state to adopt The Uniform Guardianship, Conservatorship and Other Protective Arrangements Act. It means a court cannot place a guardianship or conservatorship on someone if alterrnative solutions exist-- for example, your own social support system of trusted family members, associates, or close friends who are willing to assist you as they most likely already do.It also ensures due process protection and a lawyer who represents YOU and not what others think is best for you.
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