The agency that receives funding from the state of Florida to arrange
for and provide guardianship services for the area’s elderly who find
themselves in need is not providing those services in St. Johns County
and at least one other county in the 7th Judicial Circuit.
“I
don’t currently have any cases in St. Johns County,” MaryLou McKeon,
senior vice president for guardianship and client services at the
Volusia County Council on Aging, told The Record on Friday.
That
was much the same thing she told Circuit Judge Michael Traynor during a
guardianship hearing in a St. Johns County courtroom in April.
Traynor
spoke during that hearing with both McKeon, who appeared in person, and
Florida Department of Elder of Affairs Office of Public &
Professional Guardians Deputy Director Amelia Milton, who appeared by
phone.
He started off the hearing by explaining that he had
entered an order for the Volusia County COA to assist as a limited
guardian for the ward in the case.
“And I understand they are
supposed to usually offer to do that,” Traynor said. “However, my
concern is that they are not offering to do things in St. Johns County
and they have made it clear I think in the past they don’t do things in
St. Johns County.”
The OPPG, according to its website, “appoints
local public guardian offices as directed by statute to provide
guardianship services to persons who do not have adequate income or
assets to afford a private guardian and there is no willing family or
friend to serve.”
While agencies in other parts of the state may
differ, the Volusia County COA, McKeon said on Friday, is able to
provide services only for senior citizens and those suffering from
dementia.
The state OPPG website also says that the Volusia County
agency is supposed to serve in that capacity for Volusia, Flagler,
Putnam and St. Johns counties — the four counties of the 7th Circuit.
What Traynor said he was trying to understand through that hearing was
why they don’t seem to be providing any of those services in St. Johns
and Putnam counties and what could be done to fix that.
Milton, who couldn’t be reached before press time for comment, and
McKeon, said essentially that the limited funding they do receive from
the state Legislature doesn’t make it possible to expand their services
beyond Flagler County.
“We are very aware of the limited resources
so we do understand and sympathize with the lack of resources that
might be available in that area,” Milton told Traynor. “It certainly is
something that we are working really hard over here to address.”
“But
unfortunately because our resources are so limited we don’t currently
have the funding to support our public program for taking more cases in
that area at this time.”
For the 2017-18 fiscal year, which ends
June 30, the Volusia COA received about $87,000 in state funds. It
received other funding too, but the bulk of its money for guardianship
services — $126,000 of it — came from Volusia County itself for local
cases.
Historically, that has been the case, McKeon explained.
Until the state, around 2014, bumped up funding to expand the
guardianship program to all 67 counties, all of the Volusia County COA
funding for guardianship was local, for local cases.
When they did
receive that first influx of state cash, McKeon said, it was made clear
to the state that the money would only really allow them to expand into
Flagler County.
She said Friday that she thinks her office is
handling one Flagler case right now. It has handled others, she said,
though the wards have passed away.
But St. Johns County attorney, Tance Roberts, who handles a number of
area probate and guardianship cases and filed a “friend of the court”
notice to appear at the April hearing and speak about both St. Johns and
Putnam counties’ need for the OPPG’s services, said during the hearing
that she couldn’t see where the Volusia County COA had made much of an
effort with its extra money to help.
According to Roberts’ reading
of funding reports, the state spent roughly $3 million in 2014 to fund
what she called the “expansion program.”
“And I would have
thought, the expansion program, that those funds would have been used
for somebody to pick up the phone and call the one sitting judge in the
probate division in St. Johns County and/or the attorneys that have been
practicing in this area — and are well known in the communities by the
judges and the community — to be practicing in this area,” Roberts said.
“But we heard nothing.”
Had they called, Roberts said, she and
others likely would have stepped forward to help, as they often do when
they become aware of local cases.
“But nobody bothered to call,”
she said. “Nobody bothered to say, ‘Oh by the way, we’ve been appointed
to now represent all 67 counties. Or we’ve been now appointed to
represent you St. Johns County, and you Putnam County and you Flagler
County.’”
McKeon said Friday though that nobody has bothered to
call her either and didn’t even know what the needs were in St. Johns or
Putnam counties, though it would be something that she, and perhaps
Milton, would be willing to work with local officials on to try and
figure out.
Which is much what Traynor said he thought should have been done in the first place.
He said in April’s hearing he was concerned that the 7th Circuit as a
whole may not be getting funding comparative to other circuits, but
also that the resources, or even lack of resources, for the program at
the Volusia County COA didn’t seem to have been properly communicated
throughout the circuit so others could try and help locally, as appears
to have been the case with local funding in Volusia County.
Milton,
later in the hearing, pointed out that the state money “was not
specifically allocated by county to serve specific amounts of cases but
rather to assure that there is a public guardian in that area and to try
and fund the public guardians to take on more cases with the limited
dollars that they have.”
Instead, she said, the money was meant to
fund the public guardian office to “administratively serve people at no
cost” to the ward and the people that they serve. That means the money
is meant to fund the building space, case managers and other
administrative costs so that they can take on cases.
“I understand
the limitations on personnel,” Traynor said in response. “But what I
feel is important when you have that is that you use the administrative
dollars that you get to work in each of the areas that you serve, to
develop ... a volunteer network to fill the needs that you have, or
alternate funding sources, if you can find them, among either
governmental or non-profit organizations.”
“And I didn’t see that being done,” he added. “And that’s the issue that I do have with the whole process right now.”
Traynor said he wasn’t faulting anyone for not having enough money.
“But
I do feel that it is our responsibility to people who are in need of
guardians to try to develop a network or program that helps to meet
those needs through other areas if we can’t do it through funding from
the state,” he said. “And I don’t know that we’ve done that and I think
that’s an issue.”
Full Article & Source:
‘Nobody bothered to call’: Local attorney, judge question lack of public guardianship service for county
