Gov. DeSantis: 'There doesn't seem to be anybody held accountable,' describing guardianship oversight

I-Team investigation sparks call for action

SPRING HILL, Fla. — Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is reacting to an ABC Action News I-Team investigation into the state’s troubled guardianship system.

THE PRICE OF PROTECTION

DeSantis oversaw interrogations of terrorism suspects in the Middle East and at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base when he was a military attorney.

Part of his job was making sure everyone played by the rules.

Now, the governor says he intends to hold professional guardians to a similar standard and take action against those who exploit seniors.

“Our seniors, unfortunately, are targets of fraud in a variety of contexts,” DeSantis said. “What troubled me about some of the issues you guys raised was obviously bad things are happening, but there doesn't seem to be anybody held accountable."

Last week, the I-Team reported the state watchdog set up by legislators in 2016 has handed out only 19 warning letters.
 
They cited guardians for taking property, depositing checks made out to people in their care into personal accounts and failing to disclose past criminal histories.

Despite those serious violations, that state watchdog — the Office of Public and Professional Guardians — has never revoked a guardian's registration.

Among the issues reported to the office was a case involving a local realtor who asked a court to put an elderly beach hotel owner she barely knows into guardianship.

She stated in court documents that she felt the senior citizen was being exploited because she sold part of her property to a relative at too low of a price.

In another case, a court-appointed guardian took the wedding ring off an 85-year-old widow's finger.
Alice Yaniscavitch said the thing she feared the most was going to a nursing home, and she planned ahead of time to avoid it.

But under guardianship, she ended up being moved into a home anyway, as her daughter questioned a trust authored and notarized by an attorney.

It's unclear how many of Florida's 550 registered guardians are under investigation by the state's watchdog, but the agency says it has 132 open investigations into alleged wrongdoing.

“I think that you've had over a hundred and thirty some cases and nothing has happened to anybody. That just doesn't strike me as being acceptable,” Gov. DeSantis said.

That's a concern shared by Pinellas County Circuit Judge Linda Allan, who presided over thousands of guardianship cases during six years as a probate court judge.

“I would like to see some type of higher level of governmental oversight,” Allan said.

Governor DeSantis says he plans to provide just that.

“Whether there needs to be new legal authorities, we're looking at that, but at the end of the day, we want to be on the side of Florida seniors,” he said.

If you have a story you’d like the I-Team to investigate, contact us at adam@abcactionnews.com

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Gov. DeSantis: 'There doesn't seem to be anybody held accountable,' describing guardianship oversight

Guardianship oversight in Texas needs to be strengthened

Imagine a family member or friend unable to make decisions about their healthcare, money, living situation and property. After a hearing, a court names you as the guardian, giving you the duty and power to make decisions on their behalf about money, property, living arrangements and medical decisions, among others.

You would have an awesome responsibility, and you would not be alone.

There are approximately 55,000 active guardianships in Texas today, with $5 billion in assets under the control of guardians and the courts. And the numbers are rising.

In the past five years, guardianships cases in Texas have risen by 66 percent. That’s just the beginning. The population of Texans age 65 and older is projected to double by 2030 to almost 6 million. According to the state demographer, our population age 85 and older will increase more than 500 percent between 2010 and 2050 — from 305,000 to 1.6 million.

The vast majority of guardians are selfless people who do very important work, often out of a sense of love, loyalty or duty. Their jobs aren’t easy. For example, in addition to keeping an eagle eye year-round on personal financial affairs, guardians are required by law to file annual reports of their charge’s well-being as well as an accounting of the financial transactions of the guardianship estate.

As with any other arrangement, not all guardians are fully up to the task, and worse, sometimes a guardian misuses or mismanages guardianship assets. To prevent such bad outcomes, the courts need adequate resources to monitor guardianship cases.

And that’s crux of the problem: There are too many guardianship cases throughout Texas today and not enough supervision. Specialized probate courts with trained monitoring staff are located in the largest metro areas, but many of the cases are not. As a matter of fact, about four of every 10 active guardianships in Texas are in counties with insufficient resources to monitor them.

Two years ago, the Texas Legislature set up a pilot program recommended by the Texas Judicial Council, the policymaking body of the judiciary, to improve compliance and to help courts protect the state’s most vulnerable citizens and their assets by reviewing adult guardianship cases, auditing annual accountings and reporting findings to the court.

In this year’s State of the Judiciary, Chief Justice Nathan Hecht noted that the pilot project has reviewed more than 10,000 cases in 18 courts and 11 counties. In almost half of the reviewed cases, guardians had not complied with the law and the courts did not have the resources to monitor the cases. The Texas Judicial Council, which Hecht chairs, is recommending that the compliance project be extended statewide.

State Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, filed Senate Bill 667 to do just that, and Rep. John Smithee, R-Amarillo and chair of the House Committee on Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence, filed a companion, House Bill 3631. AARP fully supports their efforts, which would expand the pilot project throughout Texas, including hiring 28 new guardianship compliance specialists/auditors. The project would cost the state $3.2 million a year, a small investment in a high-quality program that oversees $5 billion of Texans’ assets. After stripping the funding for the pilot program from the introduced budget, the Texas Senate fully funded the program’s expansion in its version of the budget; the Texas House has yet to include funding for the program, but may consider it during budget deliberations.

Guardians are essentially financial caregivers. As with other caregivers, they play a critical role in our society, helping preserve individual assets and human dignity while saving taxpayers billions. Just recently, AARP partnered with Texas Appleseed to release five “Managing Someone Else’s Money” guides, a toolkit for financial caregivers in Texas who manage money or property for those unable to do so for themselves. This interactive series of guides, in English and Spanish, is available in print and online.

Texas needs a protective umbrella to ensure proper oversight of guardianships. Today, the system is overwhelmed and needs to be strengthened. SB 667 and HB 3631 would extend a lifeline to some of our most vulnerable citizens — at a very modest cost to our state.

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Guardianship oversight in Texas needs to be strengthened

Layer of oversight added for adult wards

Judge Charles Williams & Dana Yawn

SARASOTA COUNTY - As legislatures across the country tackle reforms of a fragmented system designed to protect vulnerable adults who can no longer make their own decisions, Sarasota County's state court has embarked on its own homegrown improvement project.

This new court monitor program joins a handful of such efforts in the nation. An ambitious commitment to improve oversight and public access, it comes a year after a Herald-Tribune series questioned the legal process that removes some or all of an elder's civil rights.

For the first time, the county's adult wards and their families have a number to call and a designated person to talk to about problems they encounter in the guardianship system. The newly hired monitor will serve as the “eyes and ears” for the court, investigating complaints and concerns.

“The articles that the Sarasota Herald-Tribune brought forth — which were important — pointed out that there are some cases that we do need to pay a little more attention to,” said 12th Judicial Circuit Court Chief Judge Charles Williams. “So the guardianship monitor, in my opinion, is basically not going to do anything other than make certain, as best we can with our limited resources, that not one person slips through the cracks.”

Adult guardianship places elders struggling with frailty or dementia under court protection, and assigns to someone else sweeping powers to make legal, financial and health care decisions for that person. Florida law gives preference to family members, but courts often appoint paid guardians when relatives are in conflict or appear unsuitable. As pointed out in the series, “The Kindness of Strangers: Inside Elder Guardianship in Florida,” once a court rules and the case is closed, wards and their families can find themselves with little recourse.

Brenda K. Uekert, principal research consultant for the National Center for State Courts and an advocate for guardianship reform, has called the monitoring of existing wards' cases “the hottest issue the courts face. Nationally, if I had to grade it, I would give the courts an 'F.'” She said the news of Sarasota County's startup program is “very encouraging.”

“I would say that puts the court in a very good light,” Uekert said. “Most courts don't have the resources to do this, or depend on volunteers. The California Superior Courts have court investigators who are supposed to visit persons under guardianship, though I know the degree to which this happens varies from county to county. But most courts do not have court staff to do so.”

A full-time position
Williams and court administrator Walt Smith asked the Sarasota County Commission to fund the full-time position, and in December hired Dana Yawn, who holds a master's degree in social work and has experience with the court's family division.

Together, Williams and Yawn designed a process that allows for follow-up on some 130 existing wards, as well as 60-day and one-year reviews for new cases.

“This is sort of modeled on what they do in dependency court for children and families,” Williams said. “Usually within a year you'll know whether or not the person's getting better, whether or not everything's running smoothly. We never had a requirement to actually bring a case back into court, so we're going to start doing that.”

At least two other circuits in Florida have guardianship monitors, but the structure of Sarasota County's program appears to be unique.

“Because we've never had a monitor before, we sort of had to figure out on the run how to put this thing together,” Williams said. This required an analysis, he said, of what happens “when a guardianship doesn't go the way it's intended to.

“The most common issue, usually, that we're very concerned about is making certain that it is the least restrictive alternative,” he said, referring to the legal requirement that elders retain as much independence as possible. “Certainly we don't want anyone to have rights taken away from them, or be subjected to a guardian, who didn't need it.”

Clerk of Court Karen Rushing's office will make its financial auditors available to investigate cases flagged by the monitor. And the clerk's existing hotline for people to report waste, fraud and abuse is available for anyone with concerns about a ward's welfare. Calls can be anonymous, Williams said, and can come from the ward, a relative, a neighbor — even a sharp-eyed stranger.

Until now, generally the only way to intervene in an existing guardianship has been the costly step of hiring an attorney to re-open the case.

“What we think is the biggest void is to be able to handle situations that aren't in the regular legal proceedings,” Williams said. “Members of the public really don't know how to deal with that effectively, because we had no real mechanism of doing it, other than going through the legal process, so we wanted to make it consumer-friendly.”

A unique perspective
This is Williams' third rotation through the probate and guardianship section, and he said his personal experience caring for his own parents made him sensitive to what people go through when a loved one has cognitive decline. And he knows that thorny family dynamics can get in the way of legal fact-finding.

“We thought it would be great if we could have someone that can basically be an extension of the court system and go out and take a look at these cases,” he explained. “We're going to be eyes-on. If there's something going on — bedsores, swollen feet or something — she's going to come back and tell me.”

Ira Wiesner, a local elder law pioneer who entered the field in 1989, called the hiring of a monitor “a wonderful enhancement.”

The program, he said, “gives families an opportunity to know that their concerns about the status of a guardianship of a loved one will get attention. Going forward, the annual reviews for new guardianships are going to be very positive. I just don't know how one person is going to be able to handle what I anticipate to be the volume — and we may find that the needs are far greater than what we were led to believe, and need a second one.”

Williams said he is “very, very pleased” with the local attorneys who handle guardianship cases, and he has met with them to outline the new system. If it succeeds, he said, he will ask to expand the monitoring program in Sarasota County and perhaps add one in Manatee.

“It's baby steps, I admit, but it's a start,” he said. “I think by this time next year we'll have a better idea of how effective we are. But really, I think right now if there's anyone who has an issue with a guardianship, and they bring it to our attention, we have the ability to immediately take care of it. And that's important.”

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Layer of oversight added for adult wards

More staff means more oversight in guardianship system

A major lack of oversight in Clark County courts has torn families apart and victimized the vulnerable people it was supposed to protect.

That's what Darcy Spears found in her year-long Contact 13 Investigation of the guardianship system.

Now many changes are underway to fix the problems.

Clark County District Court is adding staff to better supervise guardianship cases in response to what they call a clear need for compliance oversight.  This after Contact 13 revealed double billing and questionable charges.  Even cases where people's entire life savings went missing and their homes were sold without court approval.

Today the court announced that they've hired a new Guardianship Compliance Administrator.  He will watch over the adult guardianship program, create a citizen complaint process and investigate cases for discrepancies and fraud. Click here to see the full job description.

The court is also taking action on a number of other problems directly related to our investigation, including more transparency and additional scrutiny of how private professional guardians handle an individual's money.  (Continue Reading)

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More staff means more oversight in guardianship system

Guardianship court fills new compliance officer job

By Colton Lochhead
Las Vegas Review-Journal

 

Things continue to change inside the guardianship court of Clark County.

The court on Monday announced the hiring of South Dakota attorney Riley Wilson for a newly formed guardianship compliance officer position that was created "in response to a clear need for compliance oversight," according to a press release.

In the days after a series of Las Vegas Review-Journal articles in April, which highlighted the shortcomings and lack of oversight in the county's guardianship system that left thousands of elderly and incapacitated people vulnerable to financial exploitation, District Court Chief Judge David Barker requested additional funding from the county for the position.

Wilson's job will be to make sure guardians comply with proper guardianship procedures, such as ensuring that guardians' billings match actual costs and that guardians file annual financial statements, a rule that was rarely enforced in the past.

Wilson earned his law degree from the University of Idaho and a masters in law from the University of Denver, the release states.

Wilson specialized in several family law areas while practicing in South Dakota, including estate planning, trusts, guardianship and probate, the release said.

"Having someone with a strong depth of auditing and financial experience working on compliance along with the other measures taken by the court gets us on track to meet our goal of compliance with national best practices," Barker said.

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Guardianship court fills new compliance officer job

Nevada's top judge wants permanent oversight of guardianship system

Chief Justice James Hardesty

 

By Colton Lochhead
Las Vegas Review-Journal

 

Nevada's top justice wants to form a permanent Supreme Court committee that would monitor and analyze the state's troubled guardianship system.

Chief Justice James Hardesty made the recommendation during Monday's meeting of the state's commission analyzing the administration of guardianships.

"This is a very complex matter that has a lot of moving parts," Hardesty told the Review-Journal after the meeting. "We're talking about making some significant reforms to the process."

The panel was formed after longstanding problems with the system -- which handles thousands of guardianship cases in Clark County each year -- were exposed in a series of Las Vegas Review-Journal articles published in April. Highlighted cases showed a lack of oversight by the courts that left infirm and incapacitated people vulnerable to financial abuse.

The permanent committee would act in similar fashion to the current panel, Hardesty said, and would help ensure the effectiveness of the recommended changes.

"We need to be sure that the reforms that are implemented work the way that they were intended and are modified where appropriate," he said.

Most of the rest of Monday's discussion centered around the idea of ensuring legal representation for those faced with guardianship, or wards.

Oftentimes the potential wards aren't mentally competent to understand the court proceedings, either due to age or a mental disability.

Barbara Buckley, executive director of the nonprofit law firm Legal Aid of Southern Nevada, recommended a system similar to what is used in criminal courts. Under that model, potential wards who can't afford a private attorney would be provided with one before the guardianship could be approved.

The panel worried about the cost providing legal representation for every ward could present for the counties.

But Hardesty dismissed that argument, saying funding issues shouldn't prevent wards from being represented fairly in court and having their rights preserved.

"If the governments of Clark County consider this important, then they better put their resources behind it," he said.

Hardesty also said during the meeting he would like to ask the Supreme Court to extend the panel's time frame another six months. The panel was originally scheduled to form a set of recommended changes to the guardianship system by Dec. 31, but meetings dominated by public comment have left little time for the panel to discuss the issues at hand.

The next public meeting for the panel is scheduled for Dec. 15 at the Las Vegas office of the State Bar of Nevada, 3100 W. Charleston Blvd. A time has not been set for that meeting.

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Nevada's top judge wants permanent oversight of guardianship system

Florida clerks’ budget reductions could affect guardianship oversight

                                                                        Photo via Flickr

Like pretty much every hotel conference, the most interesting part of the Florida State Guardianship Association conference Friday was probably the mixed drinks at the pool bar. Still, we found some interesting tidbits at a presentation by four Florida county court clerks.

For those who don’t know, a guardian is a decision-maker, either a family member or a professional, appointed by the court who can make personal and/or financial choices for a minor or adult with mental or physical disabilities (also known as a ward). The Miami New Times reported last year that although the state's guardianship program was initiated to help the elderly and people who are incapacitated, the system actually leaves these people open to exploitation.

“Few of the roughly 50,000 Floridians inside the state's guardianship system ever escape,” New Times says. “And for some, losing their rights is just the beginning. In cases of abuse, they are isolated from families, overmedicated and physically neglected while guardians bleed their accounts.”

County clerk offices around the state are in charge of auditing a ward’s financial records, which are filed by guardians. During the audit, clerk employees check for irregular financial activity, which could indicate abuse.

Statewide, clerks’ offices are facing a five percent reduction in their overall budgets, creating a $22.4 million shortfall this year with a greater shortfall predicted next year, said Polk County Clerk of Courts Stacy Butterfield. The clerks office generated less revenue from court fees and fines than expected, and had to slash their budgets because state lawmakers would not give them additional aid.

Many offices have already experienced layoffs, furloughs and a reduction in office hours.

"Next year, we're potentially looking at a 7 to 8 percent reduction," Butterfield told the crowd Friday. “If we don’t have relief from the Legislature, we will experience very drastic cuts."

It was only last year that legislators passed a bill allowing county clerks to aggressively audit guardianship cases, but the mandate was ineffective because the state didn't put money into it, New Times reports.

Despite bills introduced by the Florida Legislature to reform the guardianship program, it looks like clerks will have even less money to go around, there's little chance clerks will be able to devote resources to the cases.  (Continue Reading)

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Florida clerks’ budget reductions could affect guardianship oversight

Clark County judges take guardianship oversight away from embattled judge, hearing master

By COLTON LOCHHEAD
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

The judge and hearing master who presided over the troubled Clark County guardianship court will no longer hear those cases, the court announced Thursday.

For over a decade, guardianship cases were heard by Commissioner Jon Norheim. District Court Judge Charles Hoskin handled any appeals or disputes between parties. Those cases will be transferred to Judge Dianne Steel, District Court’s longest-serving judge, effective June 1, according to a statement released Thursday.

The changes at the court coincided with the filing of a petition with the Nevada Supreme Court Thursday to create a commission to review the process and examine the creation of guardianships, monitoring of cases, court documentation and judicial training.

Long-running problems with the system that handles about 8,500 adult guardianship cases each year were exposed in a series of Review-Journal articles published in April. Cases highlighted by the newspaper showed a lack of oversight by the courts, such as failing to require guardians to file annual accounts of a ward’s finances even though it is required by state law.

Swift changes have come since.

After hearing concerns raised by the newspaper and from dozens of people who felt wronged by the system, County Commissioners began discussing the problems last month.

Chief Judge David Barker has asked the commissioners to approve funding for two court investigators and two compliance officers that he hopes will increase the level of monitoring of guardianship cases and protect wards, who are people under guardianship. Barker also help set up a hotline for people to lodge guardianship complaints by calling 702-671-4614 or sending an email to guardianshipcompliance@clarkcountycourts.us.

Clark County commissioners quickly moved to establish a Blue Ribbon Panel to analyze and recommend fixes to the court. But when Chief Justice James Hardesty of the Nevada Supreme Court expressed interest in creating a larger, state-wide panel, the commissioners gladly obliged.

Hardesty, along with Barker and Washoe County Chief Judge David Hardy, filed the motion to create the commission Thursday afternoon.

“There are several critical problems facing Nevada’s courts as a result of an increase in the number of elderly and vulnerable persons who require guardianships or conservatorships,” said Hardesty said. “We recognize the need to address these problems statewide and identify the resources necessary to assist the court system to meet Nevada’s needs.”

Handling guardianship cases will not exactly be foreign to Steel, who has been a judge since 1997. She heard minor guardianship cases from 2007 to 2011.

“I am committed to the court’s goal to protect those impacted by intellectual disabilities and diseases associated with aging,” Steel said in the release. “Through experience, I know how difficult these cases are for families, and I will work hard to ensure that the court is handling these cases in a manner in accordance with the laws established to protect families dealing with guardianship.”

The court did not specify any exact reasons for the change, saying only that the change comes after talks with “state and nationally respected judicial experts.” The court did not say what Norheim would be reassigned to after the changes become official next month.

Contact reporter Colton Lochhead at clochhead@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4638. Find him on Twitter: @ColtonLochhead.

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Clark County judges take guardianship oversight away from embattled judge, hearing master

Probate Court names 3 to oversee guardianships

Franklin County Probate Judge Robert G. Montgomery

The Franklin County Probate Court has named three people to oversee guardianships, making Franklin County the first in the state with such a program.

Probate Judge Robert G. Montgomery said in an email that he will work closely with the group to make sure that the county’s most-vulnerable residents are not exploited, abused or neglected by the people entrusted with their care.

He is referring to the thousands of county residents deemed by the court unable to care for themselves and who have court-appointed guardians.

A yearlong Dispatch investigation revealed that the patchwork system of rules for guardianship in Ohio is ripe for abuse, and that a lack of oversight has allowed some attorneys and family members to steal the dignity, money and freedom of those they promised to protect.

Montgomery, who has long known there were problems with the guardianship system in Ohio, set out more than a year ago to create the Franklin County Guardianship Service Board. The nonprofit board will be managed by three members appointed by him and by the board members of the county’s Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Board and Board of Developmental Disabilities.

He announced local lawyer Larry H. James as his appointee to the board.

The ADAMH board appointed Jane Higgins Marx, another Columbus lawyer with a long history of work in probate and elder law.

The developmental disabilities board named William W. Wilkins as its appointee. Wilkins is a health-care consultant with a long history in state government.

In announcing the board’s charter members yesterday, Montgomery said that they will ensure the safety of county residents.

“I believe that this new board will elevate the level of service delivery to those citizens unable to protect themselves,” he said.

The board members will now hire an executive director to serve as guardian for the county’s hardest-to-serve residents, typically those with a mental illness who don’t live in a nursing home or other group setting.

The new agency is expected to hire social workers to serve the most-difficult people, while Montgomery’s vision is to deploy volunteers and interns to work with others and visit them to check on their welfare.

To create the board, Montgomery had to seek changes to Ohio law to allow social-services agencies and charities to donate to a fund to start and operate the agency.

To continue reading click here.

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Probate Court names 3 to oversee guardianships