Florida Leaders Want Changes in Senior Guardian Program

ORLANDO, Fla. — Top Florida officials are looking to make changes to the state’s guardian program for seniors.

Concerns with the program first came to light after a hearing led to the removal of nearly 100 seniors in former professional guardian Rebecca Fierle’s care. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Secretary of Elder Affairs Richard Prudom say they are willing to make legislative changes to better the state guardianship program.

Prudom says while the Office of Public and Professional Guardians is responsible for taking complaints against professional guardians, the office is not directly responsible for oversight and keeping track of the number of seniors each professional guardian is assigned.

“I think it’s a serious important issue, that it deserves more of a quick fix. It is something that I will be working with the governor and his policy staff, and we will be working with the legislature, and I think the judicial branch as well,” Prudom said.

In a recent interview, Spectrum News 13 spoke with DeSantis, who vowed for change within the guardianship program.

“As we look at this guardianship program if there needs to be legislative changes, those could be something we propose for the next legislative session,” DeSantis said.

How the Guardian Program is Structured in Florida

Currently, the Department of Elder Affairs operates the public and professional guardian program out of Office of Public and Professional Guardians. Judges appoint guardians when the court declares an individual incapacitated and in need of guardianship.

If no family or friend is able or willing to serve, or if the court determines that the family member is inappropriate to serve as guardian, the vourt appoints an outside guardian.

If the ward has assets from which to pay the guardian, a professional guardian is appointed. If the ward does not have assets, a Public Guardian is appointed, and services are paid by the state through contracts the Dept. of Elder Affairs has with 17 Offices of Public Guardian across Florida. 

If a legally sufficient complaint is reported to the Office of Public and Professional Guardians against a professional guardian, it is referred for investigation to the Clerk of Courts’ Statewide Investigative Alliance, as part of the agreement with the Dept. of Elder Affairs.

Complaints and Reform

According to the Dept. of Elder Affairs, since 2016, 764 allegations against professional guardians have been investigated. Approximately 11 percent of those had substantiated findings, or were noted as concerns.

Secretary Prudom says he recently cleared an 80+ case backlog of complaints that had not been closed. He plans to make changes to improve this process.

“What we are going to do actually is, to be more responsive," Prudom said, "Is when an investigation is completed, we are going to release that investigation to the complainant, rather than wait for the administrative process to take place. I think that is going to be more responsive to the needs of the complainant.”

The Dept. of Elder Affairs can only reprimand professional guardians by stripping them of their license — further action can only be taken by the courts or law enforcement.

Secretary Prudom wants to see more oversight for professional guardians, and is working with the governor and other state leaders to make changes.

“That’s what I’ll be doing, working on how to provide monitoring to the over 550 guardians that we have the state, that operate in all 67 counties and have thousands of wards under their supervision. That is what I will be working on to ensure what has happen to date doesn’t happen again.” 

While there is an ongoing FDLE criminal investigation centered on Rebecca Fierle, she's not been charged with a crime. We continue to seek comment from her attorneys.  

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Florida Leaders Want Changes in Senior Guardian Program

New Program to Root Out Fraud in Florida's Guardianship Program

Charles Waldon spent decades working several jobs while raising a family of five children. He invested in real estate in South Florida and in Georgia, all aimed at building a nice nest for retirement.

"I worked all my life, you know, and tried to build up a retirement," said Waldon via Skype Monday. "I think I did a pretty good job."

But Waldon can’t enjoy the fruits of the retirement he worked so hard to build. The 85-year-old former firefighter is in the midst of a family conflict between his youngest daughter, Carla Alger, and his daughters – Sandra Dunn, Inez Howard and Glenda Waldon. The family’s strong divisions over money, care of their parents, and properties and produced accusations of exploitation from both sides. So Alger asked Miami-Dade Probate Court to help protect her parents and the retirement funds they need during their senior years, she said.

"Granted I started the process out of desperation because I thought if I don’t do something they [her sisters] are going to take mom and dad,” Alger said while in court last week.

Her sister Sandra "Sandi" Dunn disagrees.

“My dad is on food stamps. She’s preventing him for accessing his own money,” Dunn said.

Last year, a Miami-Dade probate judge appointed a professional guardian for the couple – Charles and Peggy Waldon – after a panel of doctors said they were incompetent. Peggy, who suffers from dementia and requires round the clock care, is a ward of the state.

No Financial Oversight
With Florida’s 3.7 million people over 65 years of age, elder exploitation has become the crime of the 21st century, experts said. The guardianship system is driven by money and entrenched in relationships with all the ward’s assets used to pay the fees of all attorneys, medical experts and the guardian, sometimes exhausting seniors’ savings.

"When you take away someone’s constitutional rights and you put into third party hands – a total of $270 billion in the United States – it is just simply rife for fraud, waste and abuse,” said Sharon Bock, Palm Beach County Clerk and Comptroller.

Charles and Peggy Waldon are among 8,000 guardianship cases in Miami-Dade probate courts system with virtually no financial oversight or a system in place to watch over how the money is spent. Miami-Dade is hardly alone – a few counties in the state have watchdogs looking over the trouble guardianship system.

In recent years, Palm Beach County has stepped into that role by using trained auditors and fraud investigators who work for the clerk and comptroller’s office under the division of the inspector general in charge of investigating fraud, waste and abuse and by performing in-depth audits.

"I think that now the whole United States has seen that a court system without an intermediary, like the clerk, is a conflict of interest. That’s been proven,” Bock said.

To address this issue across the state, Florida Elder Affairs Secretary Sam Verghese and Palm Beach County Clerk Sharon Bock announced Friday a pilot investigative program during Florida State Guardianship Association annual conference held in Fort Lauderdale.

"If you are unscrupulous and you are looking for an easy way to make money or especially targeting the elderly, you are not going to look to guardianships any more. We are closing that hole,” Bock said.

The program will include a hotline where people can file a complaint that would spark an investigation into how senior’s money is being spent by a guardian.

Financial Turmoil
Waldon doesn’t have control over his money, including his firefighter’s pension, since he left Florida. Early this year, the guardian filed a monthly budget with Miami-Dade probate court to cover Waldon’s personal expenses in Georgia like electric, water, health insurance bills and groceries, documents show.

"I’m not getting anything except Social Security and food stamps," Waldon said. "I went to Social Security and they said that my guardian had no right to seize my Social Security. They gave it to me."

In the meantime, their guardian, attorneys and caretakers are racking up bills and will get paid from the Waldons’ money. But how much they are getting paid is a mystery because documentation such as monthly invoices is not part of the public file.

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New Program to Root Out Fraud in Florida's Guardianship Program

MA: Elder Advocates Raise Concerns on Assisted Living

In Stoughton, an elderly woman walked out of a locked dementia unit at an assisted living residence in May, wandered into another room and fell from a second-story window.

That same month, at a Framingham assisted living facility, two staffers were arrested for allegedly slapping and pinching two elderly residents who have Alzheimer’s, and filming a third who was partly undressed.

In July, an 88-year-old man with a history of falling, and who had a tube in his chest for dialysis treatment, apparently tripped in the bathroom of his Revere assisted living residence and bled to death before staffers reached him.

Residents in Massachusetts assisted living facilities are in harm’s way too often, and the Executive Office of Elder Affairs, the state agency charged with overseeing the 224 residences, is ill-equipped to protect these increasingly frail residents, elder advocates say.

Even a key staffer at the agency is worried. Peter Antonellis, compliance officer at Elder Affairs who inspects the facilities, said the agency has just two ombudsmen to handle the thousands of complaints that pour in each year involving assisted living residences.

State data show that Elder Affairs has suspended just three assisted living residences for serious infractions since 2008 — an action that merely prevents the facilities from accepting new residents until they fix identified problems.

“I think most elders and their families think this is a regulated industry, but we don’t have the staff to regulate it,” Antonellis said.

Full Article and Source:
Elder Advocates Raise Concerns on Assisted Living

CA Elder Affairs Committee Holds Hearing Regarding Anti-Psychotic Drugs In Nursing Homes

The state Legislature’s Elder Affair’s Committee holds a hearing Tuesday to discuss the use of anti-psychotic drugs in nursing homes. It is at 10:30 a.m. in Room B-2 at the State House.

“An Act Relative to Psychotropic Medications,” (S. 303) would require long term care facilities in Massachusetts to obtain written consent before administering a psychotropic medication to a resident. Caregivers with the health workers union, 1199SEIU, will testify.

Caregivers will share their experiences with residents with dementia and advocate for alternative treatments to anti-psychotic drugs. The alternatives include person-centered care, consistent assignments and adequate staffing levels. The health care union leadership will explain how it believes the legislation would reduce the rates of anti-psychotic drug administration in elder care facilities.

Full Article and Source:
CA Elder Affairs Committee Holds Hearing Regarding Anti-Psychotic Drugs In Nursing Homes

Tonight on T.S. Radio: Al Katz: Holocaust Survivor Nearly Killed by Florida Public Guardian

Join us Sunday evening November 18th, 2012 at 7:00 CST! 5:00 ...PST ...6:00 MST ... 7:00 CST ... 8:00 EST

Al Katz survived the Holocaust in a Nazi prison camp. As a youth, he spent seven years in forced labor, nearly starved, and saw four Jewish boys shot through the head. Katz survived the Holocaust only to again experience the horrors of imprisonment and torture in the final year of his life. The Manatee County Public Guardian’s abuse of Katz reminded Katz of Nazi cruelty and sadism. For six weeks in 2009, Katz was kept in locked units and denied the companionship of his family and friends and decent medical care. Retreating into teenage memories, Katz believed he was once again a prisoner of the Nazis and subject to their torture. In just two months of guardianship, Katz was nearly dead.

Unlike many victims of Public Guardians, Katz escaped before he died. Katz’s daughter, Dr. Beverly Newman, fought Manatee County’s abuse of her father. With Katz nearly dead and his estate seriously depleted, the Public Guardian was replaced by a professional guardian of the property. Katz’s daughter took him home and cared for him day and night for the last eight months of his life.

Beverly Newman has a Doctor of Education and Child Psychology. She dedicated much of 2010 to caring for her father, after rescuing him from an abusive guardianship. Dr. Newman is now an active advocate for rights of guardianship victims.

LISTEN LIVE tonight or listen to the archive later!
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NASGA: Al Katz, IN/FL Victim