Texas Education Agency moves to appoint conservators for Austin ISD

by Brian Lopez

A third-grade student takes notes at Linder Elementary School in Austin on Jan. 14, 2022. (Miranda Lipton For The Texas Tribune, Miranda Lipton For The Texas Tribune)

The Texas Education Agency on Friday said it will move to appoint conservators to oversee the Austin Independent School District, citing the district’s failings in serving students receiving special education.

The TEA said in a statement that it had been investigating the district’s special education department and found that it had “systemic issues.”

“The Agency has developed a rigorous plan for AISD to implement so it can return to state and federal compliance and begin appropriately serving students in need of special education services as quickly as possible,” the statement said.

Austin ISD's board of trustees said in a statement Friday evening that conservators selected by the TEA would work with the district to provide special education services to students with disabilities. The board also said the district has a right to appeal the conservatorship, but did not state whether it would do so.

"We are focused on our students, and we welcome collaboration with TEA to help us catch up on long-overdue evaluations. We are united in our focus to ensure that all students receive what they need, when they need it," the statement read.

The board plans to hold a public meeting to address the conservatorship and allow for public comment on Monday evening.

The TEA shared with The Texas Tribune the final report of its investigation into Austin ISD. In it, the agency said the district failed to evaluate students in need of special education services and to provide those services to eligible students. The district was placed on an improvement plan but did not make significant fixes, the report said.

The announcement comes two weeks after the TEA announced it would replace the Houston Independent School District's current superintendent and the school board with its own “board of managers” in response to years of poor academic outcomes. Houston ISD had a conservator in place before the TEA moved to take over the district. The agency said one of the reasons it took over the Houston school district was because it had a conservator in place for two school years.

Civil rights organizations on Friday launched a federal complaint against the agency’s takeover of Houston ISD, claiming that move takes away the rights of voters of color to choose their own school officials.

A conservator acts as a manager of the school district, ensuring that the school board and superintendent are taking the necessary steps to solve any issues flagged by the state’s education agency. According to the TEA’s website, a conservator can “direct the action of a campus principal, superintendent, or board of trustees.”

State Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin, said in a press release that she is aware of Austin ISD’s shortcomings regarding special education but believes the district is on the right track after electing four new board members and putting an interim superintendent in place this past November.

“They have briefed me on their plans to turn around the special education department in AISD. I believe that we were finally on track to do right by our kids,” she said. “I am dismayed by [TEA Commissioner Mike] Morath’s decision to install a conservatorship in our school district at this time.”

Hinojosa said there is bipartisan anger at TEA over the way the agency has imposed itself on districts, adding that lawmakers could find ways to scale back the agency’s authority.

“This is a severe intervention,” Hinojosa said. “This is the first step taken against Austin ISD.”

Austin ISD is currently facing a lawsuit over its special education practices. In the suit, Disability Rights Texas, an advocacy organization, alleges that the district had been behind on evaluating more than 800 students who might need special education services.

Texas schools have long been under the microscope when it comes to special education. A 2018 federal investigation found that the state had been effectively denying students with disabilities the tools and services they need in order to learn, in violation of federal law. In 2020, the federal government found that the TEA had not done enough to serve all special education students.

“It's shocking — with both Houston and AISD — that the commissioner, who has failed in the area of special ed, would take over Austin ISD for special education reasons when he is greatly to blame,” said David DeMatthews, an associate professor at the University of Texas Austin's College of Education.

DeMatthews said the issues with special education aren’t unique to Austin, noting that the state doesn’t have sufficient special education teachers, or related service providers, to meet the needs of Texas students.

“We have a broken pipeline. There were 43,000 teachers who left last year and we're not doing a good job replacing those teachers,” he said. “And in special ed, it's worse.”

William Melhado contributed to this story. 

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Texas Education Agency moves to appoint conservators for Austin ISD

Guardianship system in N.M. remains in crisis

By David Heeter, Lorraine Mendiola and Jorja Armijo-Brasher

Despite what the New Mexico judiciary and the Developmental Disabilities Council’s Office of Guardianship have reported to the Legislative Health and Human Services Interim Committee, the guardianship system in New Mexico continues to be in crisis.

Abusive guardianships continue to occur, sponsored by predatory attorneys and sanctioned by District Court judges. The guardianship law, 45-5-101 through 45-5-617, was established in 2012 to protect and preserve the well-being and assets of the incapacitated person. However, this is not what we believe is happening.

Unethical professionals continue to abuse the system. The individuals who control the outcome of the guardianship case are the petitioning attorney and the District Court judge. The judge grants the power to the appointed guardian and conservator who control every aspect of the “protected person’s” life, including where the individual lives, what medication is prescribed and is to be taken, what doctors the person may visit, who can visit and speak to the individual, and, of course — their money and assets.

Additionally, some New Mexico courts have disregarded the legitimate written directives, wills and trusts that have been prepared. For true guardianship reform to occur, judges must appoint guardians and conservators who understand, respect and advocate for the wishes and best interests of the “protected person.”

This is exactly why family members and guardianship advocate groups must be recognized as the experts when it comes to hearing and understanding our loved ones. Family members must also have an “equal voice” at the decision-making table. We are the eyes and ears on the ground. We have the day-to-day experiences with our loved ones. We know the individual, his/her likes, dislikes, triggers, medical history, hopes and dreams.

A corporate guardian and conservator are complete strangers who are involved for profit. Our state leaders must address these injustices to ensure our most vulnerable population’s human rights, civil rights and protection of their financial assets are respected and protected. The media must continue to report on these concerns — the public has a right to know.

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Guardianship system in N.M. remains in crisis

Guardianship or Exploitation? How Conservators Abuse the Elderly

by Rachel Jones

Mary Jane Mann and her daughter, Carol Kelly, with friends in Switzerland
Credit: Courtesy of Carol Kelly

Overheard in conversation, Mary Jane Mann’s story might be mistaken for that of an elderly victim of guardian abuse in the recent Netflix film, “I Care a Lot.” But for her, the story was all too real.

Mann was a vibrant, 85-year-old woman living independently in Sacramento, California, when a family disagreement — beginning when one of her daughters allegedly attempted to have Mann change her trust — resulted in someone making an anonymous call to Adult Protective Services. Not long after, a court placed Mann under conservatorship; she wasn’t even present at the hearing. Mann had been a lifelong volunteer and world traveler, and had served as executive director of the Orange County, California YWCA. She’d actively saved for retirement. Multiple doctors reported she was competent. Yet like a concerning number of elders under guardianship or conservatorship around the country, Mann found herself suffering at the hands of the very system designed to protect her.

Suddenly, the conservator had her name on Mann’s bank account and trust, and was spending her money and receiving her mail. Mann’s driver’s license was taken away — though she eventually got it back. “I wake up crying at night,” Mann said of her situation in a 2011 CBS interview. “I just can’t believe this is happening.”

While there is little reliable data, a report that same year from the National Center for State Courts estimated some 1.5 million American adults to be under guardianship nationwide. Many times, guardians and conservators serve an important purpose: They make tough decisions and handle complex affairs for adults who are unable to do so for themselves, and who may otherwise become targets of fraud or be taken advantage of by family members.

But as a number of shocking reports from around the country — and the recent coverage of Britney Spears — has demonstrated, the system is easily abused. And when it is, victims struggle to obtain justice. While Mann — with the help of her daughter, Carol Kelly — was eventually able to prove her competence and get out from under conservatorship, her success was far from common. Mann died in 2012, and Kelly feels certain the situation took years off her mother’s life by escalating her blood pressure and causing panic attacks. Even after it was over, Kelly said, her mother was anxious it could happen again.

“They’re bullies, they’re predators,” Kelly said. “They’re still doing it and getting away with it. That’s what’s criminal.”

Who Are Guardians and Conservators?

In each U.S. state, adult guardians operate under different laws — and different terminology. In some, a guardian or conservator might be appointed for the person — making decisions such as where the ward will live, what medical procedures they need, and who can have contact with them. A separate guardian or conservator might be appointed for the person’s estate, handling financial matters such as paying bills, selling assets and balancing accounts. Sometimes, a guardian or conservator is appointed to just one of these roles, or the same guardian or conservator might be appointed to both. A guardian or conservator can be a family member, a private professional — paid from the individual’s estate — or a public guardian, who is funded by the state or local government when a ward does not have assets.

Pamela Teaster, a professor of human development and family science at Virginia Tech and director of the Virginia Tech Center for Gerontology, said that while there’s little to no official data on adult guardianships, the majority of guardians around the country are likely family members. Still, there is no guarantee that family guardians will act appropriately. There have been numerous accounts of family members stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from elders, pressuring them to sign over assets or engaging in other forms of abuse or neglect. Often, a court-appointed guardian or conservator is seen as a way to protect elders from unscrupulous family members, and to ensure that someone is acting in their best interests.

Yet this doesn’t always happen. Sometimes, professional conservators or guardians may even seek to create rifts among family members — especially those who are already in disagreement — in order to gain control over a ward and their assets. Once they’ve done so, they’re free to bill the ward’s estate for their time and legal fees, and to continue doing so until those elders’ homes have been sold, their accounts have been emptied and they’ve been confined to a nursing home — possibly with very limited access to family.

In Mann’s case, a California conservator — the subject of a chilling, year-long ABC10 investigation, which delved into Kelly’s story as well as that of others — filed a petition for temporary conservatorship of Mann, claiming that she “appears to be suffering from cognitive impairment and moderate to severe short term memory loss.” The petition also alleged that Kelly had been attempting to isolate her mother and gain control of her assets — charges Kelly said were flat-out lies. Kelly said that she had wanted to work things out with her sister, but that the conservator and attorney had actively prevented that from happening. “It is not in their interests to have families get along,” Kelly said. “They tear families apart.”

Pamela Teaster is one of the few
academics studying professional
guardianships and
conservatorships.

Teaster said that ideally, paid guardians should be certified or licensed by some professional body, and should be appointed only when there’s no other choice. “Families get fractured, because either the guardian is justified in separating the family — because they just agitate and upset the person — or they really are preventing them from seeing how the older person is,” Teaster said. Of unscrupulous guardians, she said “there’s probably one in every state,” and that “there’s a pocket of corruption everywhere.” Yet more often, Teaster said, the issue is that private guardians and conservators have so many wards that they simply can’t provide them with the care and attention they require.

Teaster — who has herself acted as a guardian twice for wards who were not relatives, mostly to learn from the experience — said that it’s not an easy job. She said that the ideal relationship of guardian to ward would be 1:1, and that the highest she recommends for professional guardians is 1:20, the rate mandated in Virginia. Many states have higher caps — such as Florida, where it’s 1:40 — while others don’t have caps at all, leaving guardians and conservators with as many as 100 wards apiece. These wards all too often end up warehoused in nursing homes, neglected and forgotten. “The problem is that if you put a cap on it, you don’t have enough slots for people,” Teaster said. “But I still, 20 years later, would not lift that cap because when you do these problems begin to happen.”

Ideally, Teaster said, a reliable family member should be enlisted to care for an incompetent loved one. “When we do the right things, we preserve the remaining rights people have,” she said. “I have to believe it’s most of the time. But when [guardian abuse] does happen — a percentage of that — it’s terrible. And you might not even know about it because the person under guardianship has lost the rights they have.”

How Guardians and Conservators Abuse Elderly Wards

What makes guardianships and conservatorships so ripe for abuse is the extensive power that is typically granted. A professional guardian of a person and their estate is able to directly bill their estate (sometimes, for outrageously large amounts or unnecessary services), sell their home and assets, and decide where they’ll live and who’s allowed to see them. And all of this is executed with very little oversight.  (Click to continue reading)

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Guardianship or Exploitation? How Conservators Abuse the Elderly

Retired Orange County Judge Betty Lou Lamoreaux dies, but probate fight persists for her estate

Trailblazer was 'persecuted by the very judicial system she served so well,' said a nephew.

 

Superior Court Judge Betty Lou Lamoreaux in 1988. (File Photo by Ana Venegas, Orange County Register/SCNG)

She was an accomplished opera singer, a film casting agent, an office secretary for Coca-Cola and, finally, Orange County’s first female Superior Court judge.

Appointed to the municipal bench in 1974 and then later to the superior court bench, Betty Lou Lamoreaux fought so fervently for children’s rights that the county’s seven-story family court in Orange is named after her: the Lamoreaux Justice Center.

Feisty to the core, Lamoreaux once commented to a reporter in a published report that she sometimes wanted to put parents in jail instead of their children, who had been scarred by broken homes and a lack of family morals.

Lamoreaux died Nov. 30 after a years-long struggle with Alzheimer’s. She was 94.

Born April 22, 1924, in Twin Falls, Idaho, Lamoreaux was raised by her aunt and uncle in North Ogden, Utah, upon her mother’s death. She was known to family and friends as “Lou.”

Lamoreaux obtained her bachelor’s degree in political science from UCLA and then her law degree from San Francisco Law School. She was admitted to the California Bar in 1957.

Probate tug-of-war persists

In the last years of her life, Lamoreaux was caught in a tug-of-war between relatives and probate court attorneys over how best to take care of her.

Despite her death, the probate court battle is far from over. Feuding family members and nearly 10 attorneys and conservators are angling for a piece of what’s left of her estate, a Newport Beach house valued at an estimated $1.5 million.

The probate professionals likely will be submitting bills worth hundreds of thousands of dollars for a judge to consider. Then there is the battle between two factions of Lamoreaux’s family for whatever is left.

Nephew Duff McGrath, Lamoreaux’s trustee, says he is trying to preserve her legacy and fulfill her wishes. And he regrets taking the case to probate court in an attempt to shield Lamoreaux and her estate from an in-law described in court documents as a “con man.”

What McGrath found was that by going to court, he opened the door for attorneys to be hired as well as conservators and beneficiaries and forensic accountants, each commanding high salaries. At one point, the court-appointed experts drove up Lamoreaux’s cost of care to $40,000 a month.

‘Persecuted’ by judicial system

“In the last remaining years of her brilliant life, ironically, she was persecuted by the very judicial system she served so well. Complacent judges and greedy, court-appointed officers began to drain her life savings on frivolous court filings during the time she needed protection,” McGrath said.

It is problem replayed throughout the nation. Probate judges take the power from family members and give it to strangers with big salaries, isolating the client and creating dispute. The longer the dispute, the longer the fees accrue for court hearings, motions and other legal proceedings. By keeping the case open, the experts keep the money flowing.

Not all probate cases end badly and expensively. But many do, to the point that reformers describe the attorney-driven system as: “isolate, medicate, steal the estate.”

“It’s happening again and again. It’s like a plague on our senior citizens,” Berkeley Vice Mayor Ben Bartlett, who is among those calling for state reform, said in a previous interview.

“We need to turn the operation upside down. What you see is an incentive to work up attorney fees,” Bartlett said. “There is no incentive to preserve the liberty of the person. We need greater oversight with more opportunity to challenge.”

Much of the McGraths’ criticism is aimed at Laguna Hills conservator Sally Cicerone — one of the more active conservators in Orange County. State records show she managed $26.7 million in assets in 2017.

After her first year with Lamoreaux, she billed the estate $42,210, according to records.

Among the family’s complaints: Cicerone waited four months to get a replacement for Lamoreaux’s broken wheelchair. And even then, the new chair didn’t fit and quickly broke. Cicerone billed $700 for her time. Cicerone declined comment Friday when reached by phone.

McGrath is staging a “reverent walk” for probate awareness at 10 a.m. Jan. 3 from the Lamoreaux Justice Center in Orange to the Superior Court in Santa Ana. For more information and to RSVP, contact jdnduffy@aol.com. On Jan. 4, McGrath said he will screen a full-length documentary free of charge on the probate scandal called “The Guardians” at the 800-seat Performing Arts Center in Laguna Woods.

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Retired Orange County Judge Betty Lou Lamoreaux dies, but probate fight persists for her estate

Reforms starting for guardianship system

More than 100 adults, including incapacitated and disabled people, are alleged to have suffered combined losses of at least $8 million at the hands of New Mexico guardians and a trust company that were supposed to be watching over their finances.

So far, there is little indication these people will recover their money because of weaknesses in the safety net designed to protect them.

Yet, some changes are in the works.

For instance, judges assigned to the civil bench in Bernalillo County have agreed to require conservators to post bonds when appointed to manage funds of an incapacitated person with assets over $30,000, said civil division chief Judge Shannon Bacon and chief Judge Nan Nash. Currently, state law gives judges the option to do so, but it’s not mandatory.

Meanwhile, Bacon has asked the state Supreme Court to support legislation that would make the bond posting requirement mandatory.

Bacon said in a July 18 letter to Chief Justice Judith Nakamura that while judges can currently require bond, “In our experience, this statutory provision is rarely if ever employed by courts in Conservator cases.” Bacon wrote that the bond would be paid for out of the assets of the estate, “as it protects the value of the estate and inures to the benefit of the protected person.”

Changing the law to require bond would “provide additional protection for the estates of incapacitated adults,” Bacon wrote.

Bacon has also asked State Auditor Tim Keller to audit all commercial guardianship companies on contract with the state Office of Guardianship.

System rocked

While some judges and others have publicly defended the commercial guardianship industry in New Mexico, the system has been rocked by two recent cases.

In one case, the FBI and state agencies are investigating the alleged embezzlement of at least $4 million from an estimated 70 clients of the Desert State Life Management trust company. In the other, federal prosecutors have filed a 28-count indictment against two top managers of the Ayudando Guardians Inc. guardian/conservatorship company – president Susan Harris and chief financial officer Sharon Moore. The company itself is also a defendant.

Federal documents allege that more than 40 clients’ Ayudando accounts were siphoned over a period of years. Client funds were allegedly used to pay off more than $4 million in charges on a company credit card account used by Harris, Moore and their families for personal purchases.

Court records show that Ayudando was appointed as conservator, or guardian/conservator in more than 40 court cases since 2010.

Desert State served as court-appointed conservator in about seven cases in recent years, but the company’s focus was primarily on managing private trust accounts for special needs clients, the elderly and others. In some cases, family members were guardians in charge of care, but relied on Desert State for money management.

One of Desert State’s conservatorship cases involved the loss of as much as $600,000 intended to help care for four developmentally disabled adults, according to one recent lawsuit pending against Desert State.

In that case, Desert State filed the required annual reports with District Court and noted that an accounting was attached. But an attorney in the case says there was no accounting in the court file.

As a trust company, Desert State falls under oversight of the state Financial Institutions Division. But the company is designated as nonprofit and wasn’t required to post a bond when Paul Donisthorpe took over as CEO in 2006. The state also hadn’t conducted a financial examination of Desert State’s books since 2008.

New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Superintendent Mike Unthank said his agency is proposing legislative changes to ensure clients of nonprofit trust companies, like Desert State, are better protected.

“We believe moving forward with reforms for non-profit trust companies will be crucial to ensuring this type of victimization cannot happen again. My plan is to put forward a straightforward, common sense approach with backing from the industry and with the good of all New Mexicans in mind,” Unthank told the Journal on Friday.

Ayudando is also a nonprofit corporation, but is not a trust company. In addition to reporting to the courts, Ayudando was subject to oversight for the state Office of Guardianship for about 166 indigent or low income clients who receive guardianship services.

Under its most recent state contract, Ayudando posted a $1.5 million “fidelity” bond, said John Block III, executive director of the Developmental Disabilities Planning Council. He said the bond would cover expenses incurred by the guardianship office in finding new guardians for Ayudando clients in light of the recent federal indictment.

But Block said it hasn’t been determined whether that fidelity bond could be used to reimburse Ayudando clients for their losses.

More info required

Bernalillo County District Court, which has been working on guardianship/conservatorship issues for more than two years, has substantially increased the amount of information conservators are required to provide in their annual reports to the court. Those reports are confidential under state law, but are designed to help judges oversee the incapacitated people whose finances are managed by conservators – private or professional.

Instead of relying solely on a two-page form in use by courts elsewhere in New Mexico, Albuquerque judges are also requiring detailed conservator reports to show the protected person’s income sources. Expenses are to be itemized, down to the amount spent for clothing and entertainment each year.

The new accounting measures adopted in Bernaillo County District Court don’t require documentation, such as bank statements.

Full Article & Source:
Reforms starting for guardianship system

Editorial: J.W.’s missing money a guardianship travesty

“Guardians and conservators provide consistent beneficial results for families. They are responsible for … managing the incapacitated person’s assets so that they have enough to see them through their life.” – Chief District Judge Nash

Except when they don’t.

Journal investigative reporter Colleen Heild’s shocking July 9 story shows just how wrong things can go in this system set up to protect some of our most vulnerable people.

Heild reported on a lawsuit that alleges $600,000 in a trust account set up for a 65-year-old developmentally disabled woman referred to as “J.W.,” her brother and two others had been drained while under the management of Desert State Life Management – which was the court-appointed conservator in the case. Yes, the same conservator that is supposed to manage the incapacitated person’s assets “so that they have enough to see them through life.”

How this could have happened with both a court-appointed conservator and guardian is a mystery – as are many things in this secrecy-shrouded system.

As part of the court oversight, conservators and guardians are supposed to file annual reports with the court – presumably so the judge can review them. Desert State, a nonprofit trust company, was appointed conservator by Judge Valerie Huling in 2014. A District Court docket sheet says the annual reports were, in fact, filed by Desert State. An attorney who filed the lawsuit says the reports didn’t indicate how much money was in the account, but had a notation that an accounting “was attached.” However, the lawyer said there was no such accounting in the court file.

That would seem to be important.

Did Desert State, which was allowed to serve without posting bond, perpetrate an active fraud on the court via presumably false accountings that showed both expenses and, more importantly, how much money was left? Or did it manage to skate by without filing that accounting and nobody in the court system challenged the company? A court official refused to answer that question, saying she couldn’t comment because it would violate state law making guardianship/conservatorship cases confidential.

And speaking of guardians, what role did the separate court-appointed guardian play – or should have played – in this case?

Nash penned the words at the top of this editorial in an op-ed to the Journal last year in defense of the system designed to protect the incapacitated who are declared to be wards of the court. Critics contend the system lacks protections for wards and families, and doesn’t have sufficient public accountability. Defenders attribute many criticisms to “high family conflict” and emotion, and say the secrecy mandated both by statute and promoted by court practice is essential to protect the privacy of the wards.

Those arguments don’t work very well in the case of J.W. and the others. Their money, it appears, is gone. J.W., her brother and two other disabled women were beneficiaries of a trust set up by a Sandia Laboratory engineer who died in 2008. No “high family conflict” here. And it doesn’t work for Joseph A. Perez, who has cerebral palsy as the result of a medical malpractice incident in the 1980s. He also had Desert State as his conservator. His checks stopped coming six months ago. There are no families raising a ruckus. No money left for the wards. If secrecy is protecting anyone in these cases, it’s the court system and the industry.

Meanwhile, regulators believe Desert State burned through an estimated $4 million in trust funds affecting 70 or more clients, with the money drained off to businesses controlled by CEO Paul Donisthorpe. In the case of J.W. and Perez, Desert State controlled their trust accounts before being appointed as conservator.

A commission established by the State Supreme Court is holding hearings on the system and is set to make recommendations in October.

It would do well to consider the case of J.W.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.

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Editorial: J.W.’s missing money a guardianship travesty

High court names guardianship panel

The New Mexico Supreme Court on Thursday appointed a 16-member commission to study the system in which guardians and conservators are appointed in hundreds of cases each year to handle the affairs of incapacitated adults.

The commission includes judges, current and former lawmakers, governor’s representatives, industry officials and family members.

The Supreme Court also directed the commission to hold hearings to gather public input. Retired state District Judge Wendy York of Albuquerque will chair the commission, which is charged with recommending system improvements if needed.

The mostly secret court process of appointing guardians and conservators – who are family members in some cases and for-profit companies in others – has moved into the public arena in recent months with an ongoing investigation by the Journal and a two-hour town hall in Albuquerque last month that drew a capacity live audience of about 90 people with the discussion broadcast live over KANW-FM, 89.1.

An estimated 6,000 guardianship or conservatorship cases, some decades old, are pending in Bernalillo County District Court alone. Statewide, there are no firm totals of the number of pending cases, but some court officials have estimated there could be another 6,000 people under a guardianship or conservatorship around the state.

Critics say the system is excessively secretive and there are inadequate checks on potential abuse by guardians and conservators, some of whom are for-profit companies appointed by the court. The guardian industry generally attributes those complaints to disgruntled family members.

After an initial hearing, judges who appoint guardians or conservators at the request of a petitioner rely mostly on annual reports from the guardians and conservators themselves to decide whether the arrangement is still needed and to ensure abuses aren’t occurring. The public isn’t allowed to view those reports.

The Supreme Court, in its order signed Thursday, tasked the commission with studying the “operation and structure” of the adult guardianship system,” while gathering information from the public “as it determines helpful.” The group is also to review the facts and law relating to the operation of the current system.

The commission has until Oct. 1 to make an initial status report to the Supreme Court and submit other interim and final reports as needed.

But the order says the commission shall submit its findings and recommendations to the Supreme Court “without undue delay,” including any recommendations for changes in court rules, statutes, administrative practices, additional resources “or any other proposals that may reasonably improve the guardianship system in New Mexico.”

Commission members are:

• York, who served as a state district judge in Albuquerque from 1997 to 2005 and has worked for the past 12 years as a mediator in cases that include disputes involving family members, protected persons and guardianship organizations.
• State Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino, D-Albuquerque, a longtime advocate of guardianship reform.
• Former state Rep. Conrad James, R-Albuquerque, who sponsored legislation last year for changes in the guardianship system.
• Second Judicial District Judge Nancy J. Franchini, who has participated in the Bernalillo County-based court’s elder and disability initiative, which for the past two years has been performing spot checks to ensure the welfare of those under guardianships in the county.
• Patricia Galindo, commission vice chairwoman, a staff attorney for the state Administrative Office of the Courts, specializing in issues involving guardians and conservators.
• District Judge Dustin Hunter of Roswell, who before joining the court in 2016 had a law practice that involved guardianship and domestic relations cases.
• District Judge Jarod Hofacket of Deming, who previously had a law practice in which he represented family members who have petitioned courts to become guardians or conservators. He has also served as a guardian ad litem in such cases.
• Attorneys Jill Johnson Vigil of Las Cruces and Gaelle McConnell of Albuquerque, who have law practices that include guardianship and guardian ad litem representation.
• Patricia Stelzner, a retired attorney who co-founded the Senior Citizens’ Law Office, and who has represented clients in guardianship cases.
• Tim Gardner, legal director of Disability Rights New Mexico, a nonprofit group that promotes and protects the rights of people with disabilities.
• Dr. Samuel Roll, professor emeritus at the University of New Mexico, who has been a professor of psychiatry off and on since 1980.
• Jorja Armijo-Brasher, director of the city of Albuquerque’s Department of Senior Affairs.
• Leslie Porter, deputy director of policy for Gov. Susana Martinez who oversees legislation and policy issues involving the state Aging and Long-Term Services Department.
• Stephen Clampett, assistant general counsel to Martinez who works on legal issues and legislation affecting the state aging department.
• Emily Darnell-Nuñez, a Corrales early childhood education training and development consultant whose mother was involved in a contested guardianship.

Full Article & Source:
High court names guardianship panel

Cottage industry of guardians, conservators and caretakers can quickly drain estates

Editor’s note: Investigative journalist Diane Dimond, whose weekly syndicated column on crime and justice appears in the Journal, is preparing a book on the nation’s elder guardianship system. It’s a system designed to protect the elderly from the unscrupulous. But as Dimond discovered, it can be dominated by a core group of court-appointed, for-profit professionals who are accused of isolating family members and draining the elders’ estates. New Mexico is no exception.

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This is the second installment of a five-part Albuquerque Journal series - Who Guards the Guardians?

When a family dispute over what to do with an elderly parent winds up in a New Mexico court, the lives of all involved can change dramatically.

It begins when a lawyer representing a family member, often a son or daughter, who is seeking the court’s involvement files a petition asking a district judge to appoint a guardian and a conservator to take over the elder person’s affairs.

What many families don’t initially realize is just how much power these court appointees have over the elderly “wards of the court.”

During a 10-month investigation of elder guardianship cases in New Mexico, the Journal heard consistent complaints.

Family members who did not initiate the proceeding said they were shut out of the process and their loved one was almost immediately isolated by court-appointed strangers. These adult children of wards were stunned to learn their parent’s hard-earned estate was used to bankroll the entire process, a cottage industry of for-profit elder care service providers.

Fee after fee

Among the first bills paid for by the incapacitated elder is the hourly fee for those newly appointed to run his or her life. It is routine for a New Mexico attorney associated with this type of case to earn $300 an hour or more, a guardian and conservator about $200 an hour each.

According to lawyers familiar with the system, the elder – frequently pre-diagnosed with some sort of diminished mental capacity – also must pay for his or her own neuropsychological exam by what’s called a qualified health care professional. That routinely costs close to $1,000.

The costs for a court visitor, the court appointee who helps investigate the family dynamic, can run about $2,000 a month. Payments to one court visitor reviewed by the Journal topped more than $14,400. Initial costs for all these professionals add up quickly, and the appointees become inexorably enmeshed in the elder’s care.

Once those for-profit professionals are in place, they communicate with the judge about their findings and ask permission to take certain major actions, such as liquidating the senior’s stocks or moving the ward to a different living arrangement.

In some cases, the elder’s house is sold and the person is moved to a care facility, chosen by the court appointees. If they are allowed to stay in their home, they then must pay the cadre of support personnel the guardian and conservator are allowed to hire: in-home caretakers, personal shoppers, dog walkers, landscapers, pool maintenance companies and messenger or delivery services.

In one case reviewed by the Journal, a daughter of a now-deceased elderly man who became a ward of the court says her father was charged for both a dog walker for his tiny Yorkie and a separate service that picked up the dog’s waste. She says he also paid for pool maintenance for a backyard pool no one used and a messenger service to pick up his prescriptions at a nearby pharmacy that offered free delivery.

Several family members say supervision of the extra personnel is lacking.

“My mother was routinely fed a diet of McDonald’s and Taco Bell,” one woman said about her now-deceased mother. “Where the hundreds of dollars in groceries we paid for went is anyone’s guess.” She also complained that of the dozens of caretakers in and out of her mother’s home, “some fell asleep on the job, items disappeared from the home and some even wore Mom’s clothes. There was no one to complain to because the guardian and the conservator wouldn’t talk to me.”

The conservator handling the estate of a 78-year-old woman who lived on a ranch in Albuquerque’s bosque used her money to install satellite TV after caretakers complained the elderly woman’s television didn’t get enough channels. Conservator records reflect the monthly charge of nearly $90.

Nancy Oriola is the CEO of Decades LLC, an elder care agency that accepts court appointments to act as elder guardians and/or conservators and handled that case. She told the Journal that Decades hires various outside caretaker agencies and admitted that “from time to time, we may encounter a problem with an employee from an agency. But when those problems occur, we try diligently to rectify the issues.”

It is not unusual for in-home care to drain an estate of more than $120,000 a year. One attorney claimed the cost of care for his client’s wealthy parent who had been declared incapacitated topped $600,000 in one calendar year.

“The home care costs were absolutely unconscionable, insane,” according to this Albuquerque lawyer, who is familiar with the process. “The annual cost was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for this woman to stay in her own home,” he said. An example he offered were the supermarket bills – “$400 worth of groceries a week … for a 98-pound lady,” he said. “That’s $1,600 a month!” (Click to Continue)

Full Article & Source:
Cottage industry of guardians, conservators and caretakers can quickly drain estates

See Also:
Who Guards the Guardians, Part One