Who's watching guardians?

An audit finds the county isn't monitoring guardians for the elderly and infirm.

By CANDACE RONDEAUX
© St. Petersburg Times
published July 10, 2002

Officials failed to carefully monitor guardianships set up for the elderly and infirm, leaving some of the Pinellas County's most vulnerable citizens at risk of being defrauded, an audit has found.

The audit found that guardians didn't file reports on time, that the Clerk of the Circuit Court didn't monitor attorney and guardian fees, and that the clerk's office does not consistently review documents filed by the guardians.

The late filings and lack of county oversight provide a breeding ground for hucksters looking to bilk elderly and mentally disabled wards out of money.

"There needs to be a better level of protection provided to the wards," said Robert Melton, deputy director of the clerk's Internal Audit Division.

Karleen De Blaker, the county's longtime clerk of the circuit court, acknowledged the audit's findings and said the "cursory checks" her office conducts of guardians' reports aren't enough.

De Blaker said the six county employees assigned to review guardians' records are not sufficiently trained to identify errors or irregularities in reports submitted by attorneys and guardians.

"They're clerical employees. They're not auditors trained in accounting. There were definitely some cases where they hadn't always checked accounts with reports from the year before," De Blaker said.

De Blaker, first elected in 1980, said the county plans to provide additional training in basic auditing techniques for clerks who review guardianships before the year is out.

The St. Petersburg Times won a Pulitzer Prize in 1995 for a series of articles that examined Florida's probate system and guardianship administration.

Guardians are appointed to oversee the financial affairs of elderly, infirm and otherwise incapacitated people who can't take care of themselves. Sometimes the guardians are family members; sometimes they are professionals appointed by a judge. They are supposed to file regular records and inventories of their clients' assets.

According to the report, Pinellas oversees an estimated 8,500 guardianships, open estates and incapacity cases.

The recent audit, dated June 20, examined 42 cases. Among the findings:

In 57 percent of the cases reviewed, auditors found that guardians and personal representatives had not filed state-mandated initial inventories of their clients' assets and accounts on time. In at least two cases, initial accounting reports were filed seven months late.

In 39 percent of the cases, auditors found that guardians filed incomplete annual reports for their clients, leaving out key details that could alert the county to fraud or financial mismanagement.

In roughly one third of the cases, guardians did not provide itemized billing detailing separate fees for attorney and paralegal services.

The auditors' report includes 15 recommendations to improve the county's oversight of guardians, including the introduction of a tracking system for late and incomplete reports.

De Blaker said the two judges assigned to monitor guardian and attorney fees in Pinellas County need to take a closer look at the annual reports. "The judges are just signing off on it, but they're not looking to see whether the attorney is charging the right amount or what it's for," De Blaker said.

One of the two judges, Circuit Court Judge David Seth Walker, said he questioned the audit's findings.

Walker said he was "astounded" that the county's internal auditors did not contact the court to ask for more information about the way attorneys' fees for guardianships are handled.

"I am deeply disturbed by the fact that they've written this report without any judicial input whatsoever," he added.

Walker and others who work with the probate division say that much of the confusion and opportunities for financial misdeeds occur when family members become legal guardians for elderly parents or mentally disabled children.

Bryan Albers, chief counsel for the Guardianship Association of Pinellas County, said professional guardians and probate attorneys receive routine training from his organization about new rules for guardianship accounts.

Albers said family members who become guardians are frequently overwhelmed by the mass of paperwork for simple tasks like home repairs for an elderly parent's home.

"They're trying to take care of their loved ones as much as possible and on some of these things it's easy to slip up," Albers said.

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