by: Susan Samples
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — The prosecutor who heads up Michigan’s Elder Abuse Task Force says he won’t stop fighting to reform the state’s system for appointing guardians and conservators.
“You can take control over another human being’s life and their property and not have anything regarding certification or licensure,” said Scott Teter, chief of the Financial Crimes Division within the Office of the Michigan Attorney General. “That’s insane. … That system’s broken.”
Target 8 first sat down with Teter in 2020 after a Grand Rapids woman was charged in Muskegon County with embezzling from the vulnerable adults whose money she controlled as their guardian.
Teter heads up the state’s Elder Abuse Task Force, which was launched by the attorney general’s office in 2019.
“You could be stocking the shelves at Walmart yesterday — no offense to those folks — but today, you could be a guardian if the judge appoints you,” Teter said in 2020. “That’s it. There’s no training required. There’s no certification. There’s nothing.”
At the time, Teter touted efforts underway to reform the state’s system for appointing guardians and conservators by plugging loopholes and beefing up safeguards.
Four years later, after Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker filed a criminal enterprise charge against public guardian Kimberley St. Onge, accusing her of embezzling from two of her wards, Target 8 checked back in with Teter to see if the Elder Abuse Task Force had succeeded in its mission.
“No. We’re not done yet,” said Teter in a Friday morning interview with Target 8 via Zoom. “We’ve presented legislation. I can’t pass legislation. I can draft it. I can consult with the 110 members of that task force to make sure we’ve looked at every possible angle to come up with the best system we can present.”
One such proposal would have required training and certification for guardians and conservators.
Right now, the rules vary from county to county, and the state dedicates no public funding for guardian and conservator programs.
“It’s pretty much been left up to the probate judges to sort of figure that out,” said Teter on Friday. “We proposed the Office of State Guardian (in 2023) that would step into this space and provide certification, oversight of public guardians and public funding at a cost of $10 million and could not get support for that.”
Teter says reform advocates encountered pushback from the guardian and conservator industry, the probate section of the Michigan Bar and probate court judges.
Judge David Murkowski, chief judge of the Kent County Probate Court, was among those who criticized some proposed reforms.
“The current legislation I do not believe, in its current form, provides meaningful, widespread protection to guarded individuals,” Murkowski testified in June 2023 before the Senate Committee on Civil Rights, Judiciary and Public Safety. “It overregulates professional guardians, and the legislation, in essence I think, is going to reduce the number of available fiduciaries to serve as guardians.”
Murkowski argued that reform advocates failed to present “empirical evidence to support the premise in the legislation that professional fiduciaries are responsible for — or are the perpetrators of — the lion’s share of exploitation and require additional regulation.”
Murkowski pointed to published statistics showing family members are responsible for substantially more financial exploitation of elders than professional guardians.
“So, when I consider who is committing financial exploitation and review the proposed legislation, things seem a little upside down,” Murkowski testified. “Because the legislation is not focused on who’s committing the lion’s share of the exploitation, which is regrettably family members.”
Murkowski said he fears proposed reforms will make it even harder to recruit public guardians, a task that’s already difficult.
“The need for both family and professional guardians is great, and this need is not going to diminish,” Murkowski told the committee. “Almost every probate court has a waiting list to look for a guardian. … What will be the result if guardianship is more difficult to secure? One, we’re going to have an increase in homelessness. Two, we’re going to have a flooding of missions and shelters.”
There has been some progress made in the reform effort, according to Teter.
“In those five years, we’ve made banks and credit unions mandatory reporters for financial exploitation,” Teter told Target 8. “We redid the entire power of attorney bill. … We also just this past spring got adopted the bill to make financial advisors and security brokers mandatory reporters to try to figure out: Where are the piles of cash, and how do we get alerted if somebody tries to steal it? So those things were big wins.“
Teter says reform advocates plan to reintroduce proposed reforms this legislative session, including the creation of the Office of the State Guardian.
The AG’s office reports that more than 73,000 older adults
in Michigan are victims of elder abuse. If you’re seeking resources or
if you’ve experienced or witnessed elder abuse, you’re urged to call
800.242.2873 or 855.444.3911.
Full Article & Source:
‘Broken system’: AG’s office still pushing for guardianship reform
