New York’s top judicial leaders are moving to reform the state’s troubled guardianship system after a ProPublica investigation found lax monitoring is allowing judicial appointees to abuse and neglect the elderly and sick New Yorkers they were supposed to protect.
The new focus will come from two newly created positions in the state judiciary: the special counsel for elder care and justice, who the spokesman said will focus on “efforts to reform the statewide adult welfare system”; and the so-called state-wide coordinating judge.
More than 28,000 New Yorkers are under the care of court-appointed guardians, who are charged with managing the affairs of people who are deemed incapable of caring for themselves. Under state law, guardians can control the finances and health care of their wards and are paid for their services out of their wards’ funds. But as ProPublica reported this year, judicial oversight of those officials is harsh. In New York, for example, there are just over a dozen judges and 157 forensic examiners responsible for overseeing guardianships and ensuring the welfare of 17,411 people.
Human rights activists say that the most vulnerable to abuse and neglect are the so-called bereft of friends — New Yorkers who don’t have friends or family to care for them. According to an internal court estimate obtained by ProPublica, they make up 20% of all chambers statewide. No government agency provides their care. Courts have long relied on a small network of nonprofit organizations and professional guardians for these low- and no-fee cases.
A small number of service providers, combined with too few forensic experts to monitor the work of guardians, has led to neglect, exploitation and abuse. The woman featured in the ProPublica report lived for years in a house with no heat and was infested with bugs and rats — conditions that her legally appointed guardian did not correct and her examiner did not question. Another carer spent more than half of her carer’s savings on care provided by her own private business – a blatant conflict of interest that the judge has allowed for years.
After ProPublica referred questions about that guardian’s conduct to the court system, a court spokesman said the inspector general had opened an investigation into the allegations. The press secretary did not provide more details.
The court action comes as advocates press local and state officials to shore up a foster care system they say can’t keep up with demand for services, especially among seniors, the state’s fastest-growing age group. Advocates told lawmakers at a New York City Council hearing on senior citizen fraud last week that the current arrangement is unsustainable.
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“The chronic shortage of available guardians has created an intolerable situation,” said Jean Callahan, who chairs a group of judges, lawyers and others involved in the guardianship system called Working Interdisciplinary Networks of Guardianship Stakeholders, or WINGS. “We created an unfunded mandate in New York.”
Callahan was among a half-dozen professionals who urged the City Council to pass a resolution calling on state leaders to create a state-funded system. The bill’s author, City Councilwoman Crystal Hudson, drafted the measure in response to ProPublica’s reports. “Now is the time for Gov. (Kathy) Hachul to take action to strengthen our foster care system by establishing a state guardianship compensation fund to protect vulnerable New Yorkers in need,” Hudson said during the hearing.
Her bill authorizes $15 million in annual appropriations to support a network of nonprofits that serve the poorest. Guardianship Access New York, the nonprofit coalition that developed the proposal, sent a letter last week to Hochul and other top state officials urging them to fund the initiative, which is backed by about two dozen community groups, including AARP New York.
Another plan, proposed by a state judiciary advisory committee, goes much further. It proposes creating an independent, statewide agency to serve as a guardian for those who have no one else, a job the group estimates will cost staff $72 million annually.
State Sen. Cordell Clear, who chairs her House Committee on Aging, said in an interview that she supports overhauling the care system, and she supported a more modest proposal to help nonprofits care for foster care across the state. “From everything I’ve looked at and weighed, I think it’s the right thing to do,” she said.
But it’s unclear whether Hochul and state legislative leaders agree. While they acknowledged the need to care for the state’s aging population, none specifically commented on the caregiving challenges highlighted by ProPublica or the advocates’ proposed solutions. Any reform efforts would go through the Senate and Assembly Judiciary committees, but neither responded to requests for comment for this story.
In a statement, the governor’s spokesman said Khachul would review the budget proposals “in January, as required by law.”
