Older legal guardians in Florida have little supervision, says the shocking audit

The supervision carried out by the state agency, which was created for the long-razed professional education by police Florida, is so bad that one of the best auditors in the state compared them to enable the students themselves.

A stinging report by Florida's auditors came last month that the office for public and professional legal guardians of Elder Affairs practically no method to monitor the 566 professional legal guardians between July 2022 and January 2024, the time frame of the audit. The OPPG, as it is mentioned, has also not fulfilled the internal schedule for the initiation of investigations into complaints about legal guardians.

The results, part of a report published last month, reflect the conclusions of a similar examination, which was carried out by the General State Viewer four years earlier. In comments in front of a joint committee of senators and representatives in legislation last week, the deputy auditor General Matthew Tracy said about the report: “To be honest, it was worse in a way the second time.”

Perhaps the damned statement: the OPPG does not make sensible routine. Instead, the supervision “only consisted of a self -awakening questionnaire that private professional legal guardians could fill out when registering the registration.” The questionnaire asked under some other things: “Basic information” by the Guardian, the number of cases of open guardianship, the number of employees and the number of stations.

The form also demanded that Guardians swear that they “carry out the function of a professional legal guardian with appropriate skills” and that the information they provide was truthful.

“Basically, it was like evaluating their own tests in schools,” said Tracy in his comments on February 18.

According to Tracy, the agency's falsification was “thwart the intention of state law and the ability of the public to assess the suitability of a guardian”.

The exam listed the types of misdeeds, which in recent complaints claimed: steal the property of the stations of the state and abuse their funds. Opening of the fraudulent banking and credit card accounts in the names of the stations and “to work with lawyers to benefit from the wealth values ​​of the station”. Wrong legal and medical records. Act against the wishes of stations.

In the report, complaints about legal guardians who “do not meet critical daily needs, removed a station from your house against your wishes and without a court permission and isolate stations from family and friends”.

State Rep. Peggy Gossett-Seidman, a Republican of Boca Raton who sits on the joint legislative examination board and heard Tracy's comments, said the audit and others “cooled me down to the bone”.

“I cannot imagine how the state enables the Guardians to submit their own reviews and not to be accountable to those who are in their care,” she said. Gossett-Seidman said you and other members of the committee, to which members of the house and the Senate also include, said that “these agencies are held accountable and checked our statutes in order to strengthen them. In addition to the waste of money from tax money, we are at risk of population groups. In short, I'm horrified. “

MP Yvonne Hayes Hinson, a Democrat of Gainesville, described Tracy's comments on the committee “almost an indictment against a report”.

Senator Jay Collins, a Republican of Tampa, who is one of two legislators who carried out the common legislative examination board, described the report as “shocking”.

Collins said the report on Guardians was one of several of the committee that the agencies that were repeatedly criticized for the same mistakes. “We have seen many cases of repetition offenders,” said Collins. “People who are doing it this year over the year. This is a problem in which you do not take your trust responsibility seriously. This is money granted by the state. The accountability obligation must go hand in hand with this. “

In a letter to the auditor general, which is included in the report, the secretary of the Ministry for Elder Affairs, Michelle Branham, confirmed many results of the exam and said that most of the improvements were either in the works or would be initiated.

In terms of the poor supervision of the Guardians by the agency, Branham wrote that OPPG “agrees with the determination of the general examiner that a surveillance tool that promotes more robust compliance with compliance evaluation” is called the development of such an instrument as “top priority” and sworn that this would be done before the end of the financial year.

The agency has also sworn to include information about all justified complaints against Guardians on the OPPG website.

Only Maine has a higher percentage than Florida of 65 years or older, from 23 percent to 22 percent of Florida, as can be seen from a report from May 2024, a department of the US Ministry of Health and Human Services.

Anyone can submit a petition to the estate court in Florida to declare an adult incompetent who treats their own affairs. As a rule, such petitions are submitted by family members who are concerned that their older relatives can no longer take care of themselves. If a body of three medical or psychological experts agrees, an adult can put in a guardianship and, if not all of his rights, including the right, to vote, to marry, write or decide where to live.

Stations of the state are usually recorded in guardianships with close relatives. But if no family members live in the state or if there are conflicts among them or in the community, judges can appoint professional legal guardians to monitor the interests of the station.

A history of abuse

For decades, however, Florida has had difficulties in protecting incompetent oldest from its own proclaimed protectors.

A task force that was created in 2021 by Florida Court and Compotroller's clerk in order to recommend reforms to the guardian system of the state, which was heard by numerous abuses, reported the Florida -Bar: A mother who took her disabled daughter money to pay “wasteful” family holidays. A lawyer who works as a guardian who paid for hundreds of thousands in legal costs. A guardian that paid her friends to provide services and collected commissions from the sale of products to their community.

In recent times, the general inspector of Miami-Dade reported that Dade County's guardianship program had enabled several conflicts of interest to sell houses that were explained by the oldest incompetent.

In a sale from 2015, the investigators found an investment company for 125,000 US dollars home and sold them weeks later for 149,000 US dollars to the coordinator of the Guardianship program, which helped to manage the sale. The couple lived there, the Miami Herald reported.

One of the board members of the board of directors was a title representative in four real estate sales with stations of the program, reported WLRN, which the investigation with a series 2023 triggered through alleged self -help among the program.

The report of the general auditor of the state auditor on the OPPG reserved its strongest criticism for the agency's sad supervisory system. The first determination of the exam: “In contrast to state law, the OPPG had not developed and implemented an effective surveillance tool to ensure that private professional legal guardians have met the OPPG practice standards to ensure that stations are given appropriate care and treatment, are secure and are protected.”

During the financial year 2023, the legislator put $ 18.6 million on the OPPG, in which 11 employees of full-time employees and financed public legal guardians for 4,294 stations that were distributed to 16 public guardians across the state-including two in Miami-Dade, the Guardianship Care Group.

Between July 2022 and January 2024, the OPPG received 174 complaints about professional legal guardians, including 138 against Wächter, who do not work for one of the 16 public Guardians, according to the exam.

“As the number and type of complaints against private professional legal guardians, an effective monitoring of private professional guards is necessary in order to promote compliance with the OPPG practice standards and ensure that stations receive adequate care and treatment, are secure and are protected,” says the examination.

However, the audit added that “the OPPG did not effectively observe the OPPG's privately professional legal guardians to comply with the OPPG practice standards”.

The short questionnaire was not only that the OPPG used instead of a “surveillance tool”, and without checking the exam said: “The OPPG has neither compiled the information for the analysis and not analyzed any of the submitted data for information on non -compliance with the standards of practice.”

The audit came to the conclusion that “it is important that the OPPG sets up a robust surveillance tool that effectively assesses the compliance with private professional legal guardians with the practice standards and consequently reduces the risk that stations may not receive adequate care and treatment, and their assets are adequately protected.”

Inaccurate website information

The Auditor General also criticized OPPG for the fact that he had not complied with a state law according to which the agency had to maintain a searchable website, with which consumers were able to assess potential legal guardians, with such data called “critical information to assess the suitability of a legal guardian”. Among other things, the website should indicate whether guardians meet the requirements for education and binding, as well as detailed names and professional discipline.

For the 12 guardians who were disciplined during the time frame of the exam, however, the website showed inaccurate information for seven of them, according to the examination, which only showed seven out of 28 complaints. A guard who was only referred to as “Guardian A” was the subject of 15 founded complaints. The website only showed two.

Among the justified complaints that were not reflected on the website: Sale of the car of a station and donations of the possession of the station of the station without judges without judges and isolating stations of their family and friends.