Friday, September 18, 2009

Public Guardianship Program Saves FL Taxpayers $1.9 Billion

A new study shows that Florida’s public guardian programs saved the State of Florida almost $1.9 million last year, mostly by helping incapacitated persons move from costly hospitals to more affordable living options, such as assisted living facilities. Public guardians serve as legal representatives for indigent elders and others who cannot make their own decisions and have no one else to assist them.

The cost-savings determination is part of a University of Kentucky study conducted at the request of Florida’s Statewide Public Guardianship Office, which is a unit of the Department of Elder Affairs.

The research team examined the 15 public guardianship programs that serve 20 Florida counties, reviewing the period from June to December 2008 and then calculating full-year savings. The researchers found that the program served 1,916 incapacitated persons at a savings of $3,940,456. Once the statewide program’s operating expenses were subtracted, the annual savings was $1,883,043, according to the independent researchers.

The researchers also concluded that Florida’s public guardian programs produce “significant quality of life savings” for incapacitated persons, ranging from emotional support and improved socialization to reconnecting with family, friends and religious institutions.

“It’s gratifying to know that independent experts recognize the value public guardianship provides, both financially and socially,” said Michelle Hollister, executive director of the Statewide Public Guardianship Office. “We are proud of the way public guardians help those who have nowhere else to turn.”

Full Article and Source:
Study: Public Guardianship Program Save Florida Taxpayers $1.9 million

University of KY study

9 comments:

fritz said...

THOSE WHO PROTECT MAY ALSO BE GOVERNMENT THUGS: Public Guardianship is a potential scandal that is bigger and more hideous than the housing scandal.
I am a 64-year-old disabled veteran
who is fighting laws that are made to allow landlords to steal social security benefits from elderly persons and to arbitrarily deprive such persons of every fundamental right that they have (including the right to life). As a model HPD HCV sect. 8 residential tenant (voucher #: 102241, Case Manager Ali Stokes: 1-212-863-8113), I did pay all of my share of the rent on time and in the full amount during the six years of my tenancy. Nevertheless, my landlord (Oshun Management)made the patently illegal demand for additional rent. The landlord, Sarah Dademade, filed a flagrantly fraudulent petition in the Brooklyn Housing Court (Index #: 100928/2008, Non-Payment Part).See,sect. 175.35, N.Y.S. Penal Law,"Offering a False Instrument for Filing in the First Degree". I did immediately conclusively demonstrate that I did pay all of my rent. Nevertheless, the only concern of Judge Cheryl J. Gonzales and other judges and court officers was that the landlord be obeyed. Constant threats of years of illegal indefinite incarceration in an insane asylum and the unlawful deprivations of fundamental rights were uttered by all judges. Moreover, the court had no subject-matter jurisdiction while it used more than five months of hateful threats in order to support the landlord's flagrant felony.
Judge Gonzales and others threatened a summary eviction and jailtime if I refused to allow the Adult Protective Service to evaluate me. See, sect. 473 of the NYS Social Service Law. Nothing on record suggested my consent nor a need for such a program. From that point forward, all decisions were made off-the-record and as furtively as lawlessness would allow. The forced psychiatric evaluation and the forced evaluation for admission were great monuments of easily proven lies.
However, as Judge Gonzales proceeded to have the aforesaid public guardians systematically use lies that could not be properly challenged to deprive me of literally all of my rights (as well as control of my money), the petition was suddenly and furtively withdrawn. No decision could lawfully be made. The feloneous petition disappeared from the court records. I am, therefore, lucky in the present time.
Indeed, the aforesaid Social Service Law would have been used to steal my money. My complaints would have caused the Public Guardians to use their stated plan: Article 81 Guardianship (NYS Mental Hygiene Law (the total deprivation of all of my fundmental rights and constant thorough supervision). All that was or will be required is a routine grossly mendacious distorted misrepresentation of me and a participating court appointed lawyer. The issue is, of course, my failure to make flagrantly illegal payments to my landlord. But, after a single hearing, my right to make complaints can still be disposed of.
Client Number 82093-03/05/2009-1 of the Adult Protective Service of the NYC Human Resources Department may still become a mere thing, one of countless victims of the Public Guardian.
WHEN THERE IS ACTUALLY NO GUARANTEE OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHT OF PUBLIC SCRUTINY NOR A SIMILAR GUARANTEE OF APPROPRIATE PROCEDURAL PROTECTIONS, THE ELDERLY WILL BE THE FIRST PREY OF THE DESPICABLE GOVERNMENT THUGS, INCLUDING THE PUBLIC GUARDIANS.
Grandma must, therefore, be extremely vigilant when the government isolates her. She should literally watch the plug, when she tries to inform the police.

Anonymous said...

Thank you Fritz. Your point is well taken.

The guaridanship program may save FL taxpayers, but there's another side to this coin and it's you.

Anonymous said...

How much has the FL Public Guardianship system taken from vulnerable elderly and disabled in exorbitant fee billings?

How many estates have been depleted to achieve that $1.9 billion?

Anonymous said...

WHAT? I can't believe my eyes.

Let me read this again -- the FL guardianship bragging that they're doing a fine job?

Ask guardianship victims if they agree, OK?

Anyone who believes this should look at the NASGA site -- the victims page.

Anonymous said...

Those who protect are often government thugs, Fritz.

Guardianship has its place but it's being used to harm the very people it claims to be protecting.

You are an example. There are many, many others.

Anonymous said...

No -- I know of several people who lost their loved ones to the FL guardianship program.

These are sons and daughters of elderly people. In other words, the FL guardianship program doesn't just deal with people who don't have family.

They take over people with family - against their will. And they deplete their estates. They force people into nursing homes against their will and even prevent family and friends from visiting.

The article is baloney.

Anonymous said...

How many people are pauperized by the FL guardianship program and thrust on the Medicaid rolls as a result?

If you "save" $1.9 billion but add people to Medicaid who would have been able to pay their way had they not been captured by the FL guardianship program, is the program saving Taxpayers or is it costing Taxpayers?

Sue said...

Dear fritz:

Thank you for your service and sacrifices for our country - Viet Nam?

Reading how these thugs were bullying and threatening you, marking you a target so they could fill their pockets, from a disabled a veteran really fires me up! Case after case, this cannot be in our country the USA - can it?

Thank you for taking the to tell us your experiences, exposing these low life thugs and their M.O.

You wrote: "The feloneous petition disappeared from the court records."

Do you have a copy of this feloneous petition?

Your warning: beware of Adult Protective Service's headhunters / scouts for the guardianship system of which you were a target.

Anonymous said...

Amazing how you can turn a "study" into propaganda.