The surveillance carried out by state agencies created to police large professional parents for a long time in Florida is so poor that one of the state’s top auditors compared them to allowing students to grade themselves.
A stab reports from Florida auditors concluded last month that the Department of Elders Affairs’ Public and Professional Parent Office had virtually no way to oversee the way in which the 566 professional parents registered with the state between July 2022 and January 2024. The OPP was also unable to meet an internal timeline to begin investigating parent complaints, as it was called.
The findings, part of a report released last month, also reflect the conclusions of a similar audit conducted four years ago by the state audit general. In comments before a joint committee of Senators and Representatives in Congress last week, Deputy Auditor Matthew Tracy said of the report:
Perhaps the worst finding: OPP does not perform meaningful, everyday surveillance. Instead, the surveillance “consisted only of self-monitoring surveys that private professional parents had the option to complete upon registration renewal.” The survey asked about the Guardian’s “basic identification information”, the number of open guardianship cases, number of employees, and number of wards, among several other things.
This form required the Guardians to “perform the functions of professional guardians with reasonable skills” and to swear that the information they provided was true.
“It was basically like scoring your own test at school,” Tracy said in his Feb. 18th.
The agency’s lapse “abusing the public’s ability to assess the intent of state law and the fitness of its guardians.”
The audit listed the types of misdeeds alleged in recent complaints: stealing property in state wards and misfinding their funds. They opened fraudulent banks and credit card accounts in the ward’s name, and “conspired with lawyers to profit from ward assets.” Introducing legal and medical records. Act against the ward’s wishes.
The report also cited complaints about parents. He cited the complaint, “We will not provide important daily needs, remove the ward from our home without court approval against their wishes and isolate the ward from family and friends.”
State Sen. Peggy Gossett Saidman, a Republican Boca Raton who sat on the Joint Legislative Audit Committee and heard Tracy say the audit and other words “chilled me to the bone.”
“I can’t imagine how the state would allow parents to submit their assessments and not be held responsible for those who care for them,” she said. Gossett-Seidman said she and other members of the committee, including both the House and Senate, “We intend to hold these agencies accountable and review and strengthen our laws. In addition to wasting taxpayer money, we put vulnerable groups at risk. In short, I am all-out.”
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Rep. Yvonne Hayes Hinson, a Democrat from Gainesville, called Tracy’s comments to the committee “a nearly indictment of the report.”
Sen. Jay Collins, a Republican Tampa, is one of two lawmakers who chair the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, calling the report “shocking.”
Collins said the report on the Guardian was one of several reviews by the committee, and involved an agency that was criticised over and over again for the same mistake. “We’ve seen many examples of criminals repeatedly,” Collins said. “They’re just doing it this year. It’s an issue they don’t take the fiduciary responsibility to taxpayers seriously. This is money given by the state. Accountability has to work with it.”
In a letter to the auditor included in the report, Elders Affairs Secretary Michelle Branham acknowledged many of the audit findings and said most of the improvements were in work or would be launched.
Regarding the agency’s Guardian’s poor surveillance, Branham wrote that the OPP “consents the Audit General’s recognition that there is a need for monitoring tools that promote more robust compliance assessments.”
The agency also vowed to include information on the OPPG website regarding all proven complaints against the Guardian.
According to a May 2024 report by a department of the US Department of Health and Human Services, Florida residents are over 65 years old, with only 23% of Florida’s 22% having a higher percentage.
Anyone can file a petition with the Florida probate court. Although it is possible for an adult incompetent person to declare that he will handle his duties, such petitions are usually submitted by families who are concerned that their elderly relatives are no longer able to care for themselves. If a panel of three medical professionals or psychological experts agrees, they can disown the adults with many, if not all, of the right to guardianship, vote, marry, write a check, and decide where to live.
State wards are usually placed in guardianship along with relatives. However, if the family does not live in the state, or there is a dispute between them, or there is a dispute with the ward, the judge may appoint a professional guardian to oversee the interests of the ward.
History of abuse
But for decades, Florida had difficulty protecting an incompetent elder from his appointed guardians.
A task force, created by Florida court clerks and directors in 2021, recommended hearing of numerous abuses to encourage reforms to the state’s guardianship system, Florida bar reported a mother who received money from her disabled daughter to pay for “luxurious” family vacations. A lawyer who works as a parent who has paid hundreds of thousands of legal fees. Parents who paid her friends to serve her friends and collected fees from selling the products.
More recently, Miami-Dade inspectors reported that the Dade County Guardianship Program has allowed multiple conflicts of interest in the sale of homes owned by elders.
On a 2015 sale, investigators discovered that the investment company had purchased a ward home for $125,000, and sold it for $149,000 a few weeks later to the girlfriend of the Guardianship Program Property Coordinator, who helped manage the sale. The couple lived there, the Miami Herald reported.
One of the board members of the Guardianship programme was the title agent for four real estate sales involving the programme’s wards, WLRN reported.
The state auditor’s report on the OPP reserved the strongest criticism of the agency’s disastrous surveillance system. The first finding of the audit: “Contrary to state law, the OPP had not developed and implemented effective monitoring tools to ensure that private professional parents were safe with proper care and treatment and adhered to OPP’s standards of practice designed to protect their assets.”
Lawmakers secured $18.6 million for the OPP in the 2023 budget year. It pays for staff of 11 full-time employees, funds public guardians in 4,294 wards, and spreads to 16 public guard offices throughout the state.
Between July 2022 and January 2024, the OPP received 174 complaints against professional parents, including 138 for parents who do not work for any of the 16 public parents.
“As evidenced by the number and nature of complaints against professional private parents, effective monitoring of professional private parents is necessary to promote compliance with OPP practice standards and ensure that wards are received appropriate care and treatment, are safe and protect their assets,” the audit said.
However, the audit added that “OPP did not effectively monitor professional private parents due to compliance with OPP standards of practice.”
Not only did the simple questionnaire used by OPP in place of a “monitoring tools,” but without verification, the OPP stated that “includes compiling self-report information for analysis, nor did any of the submitted data for non-compliance adaptation with standards of practice.”
The audit states, “It is important for OPP to establish a robust monitoring tool that effectively assesses the compliance of individual guardians of practice standards, thus reducing the risk that wards do not receive proper care and treatment, are safe to care and properly protect their assets.”
Inaccurate website information
The Auditor also criticized the OPP for failing to comply with state laws requiring agencies to maintain searchable websites, allowing consumers to evaluate future parents and calling such data “critical information necessary to assess parental suitability.” The site was specifically to specify whether parents met education and bonding requirements and specify details of proven complaints and professional discipline.
However, for the 12 parents who were disciplined during the audit time frame, the website said it would display seven inaccurate information, with only seven of the 28 demonstrated complaints. One Guardian, known only as “Guardian A,” was the subject of 15 demonstrated complaints. Only two were shown on the website.
Among the demonstrated complaints not reflected on the website are selling ward cars, donating ward property to charities without the judge’s order, and isolating the ward from family and friends.
