A task force appointed by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is recommending that the state spend at least $15 million per year and create state-level oversight to bolster its troubled guardianship system, in which judges assign individuals or organizations to care for some 30,000 residents deemed incapable of looking after their own affairs.
If adopted, the plan would represent a major change in how the state government cares for some of its most vulnerable residents. New York currently budgets just $1 million to fund a guardianship hotline, and the legal arrangements receive little official oversight, with responsibility for people’s wellbeing spread among the courts, nonprofit organizations, private lawyers and companies.
The policy proposal, contained in the state’s Master Plan for Aging, comes three years after Hochul, a Democrat, issued an executive order creating a panel to map out the needs of New York’s aging population and suggest how best to serve older adults.
The plan concludes that improving the guardianship system would offer outsize benefits and would not be overly difficult to achieve.
The recommendations mark the first time Hochul’s administration has addressed problems with the state’s guardianship system since ProPublica investigated it extensively in a series of stories last year. Those stories revealed how some guardians neglected the vulnerable clients entrusted to their care. They also highlighted how few guardians the state has to serve the New Yorkers who require assistance — and how little oversight exists to ensure proper care. The problem is particularly acute for poor people who have no family able or willing to look after them, ProPublica found, a population known in industry circles as the “unbefriended.”
To fill the provider void, New York has long relied on a network of loosely regulated nonprofits and private companies, some of which have racked up hundreds of clients each but provided little or no services. That dynamic, ProPublica found, has resulted in claims of spectacular abuse and neglect, prompting the courts to appoint a special counsel to oversee guardianship reforms and Attorney General Letitia James to launch an investigation into some providers.
Advocates and judicial leaders have been calling for the guardianship system to be overhauled for years, but such an effort has remained elusive. It’s unclear whether Hochul’s task force will change that, even as the group’s report keeps guardianship in the political conversation in Albany.
The Legislature has barely funded guardianship services, allotting just enough in its budget the past two years to maintain a statewide hotline. And even the governor won’t say whether she plans to implement the reforms suggested by her own panel.
“The Governor appreciates the dedicated time and effort that many stakeholders put into producing the proposals included in the Master Plan for Aging and looks forward to working with these stakeholders and the legislature to collectively evaluate how best to utilize them to ensure New York remains a place where older New Yorkers can thrive,” a spokesperson for the governor said in a statement.
The spokesperson, Nicolette Simmonds, didn’t respond to an email and call asking for more specifics, including what Hochul’s position is on guardianship reform.
But Guardianship Access New York, a statewide coalition of nonprofit guardians and elder and disability justice advocates, said that it was encouraged by the governor’s plan since it acknowledged “a long-standing crisis.”
“New York’s guardianship system is past the point of crisis, and the Governor and Legislature must act now before it collapses,” Arthur Diamond, a former supervising judge of guardianship matters in Nassau County and a member of GANY, said in a statement. “We must stop ignoring the most vulnerable of the elder population and protect them now.”
But how, exactly, that will happen remains unclear. GANY has proposed the state fund a network of nonprofits with experience in government contracting and providing guardianship services.
Within the court system, a guardianship advisory committee recommended earlier this year that the state create a taxpayer-funded statewide organization to care for the unbefriended, records obtained by ProPublica show.
And some lawmakers have proposed changes, though none of them seek comprehensive reform.
One bill would require someone petitioning for a guardianship to identify all possible people who could manage the incapacitated person’s affairs, for example, while another would make it harder for a guardian to deny family members the right to visit a loved one under their care and control.
Assemblyman Charles Lavine, who chairs his chamber’s judiciary committee, said he supports a series of public roundtables to be hosted this fall by the courts and advocates “to gather local input and firsthand perspectives on guardianship access challenges” as a means of formulating a more comprehensive solution.
“These discussions will help inform statewide efforts to expand and improve guardianship services, including the creation of a comprehensive public guardianship system,” he said.
Still, any significant reform effort will require buy-in from the Legislature’s top leaders. Neither Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins nor Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie responded to requests for comment on Hochul’s Master Plan for Aging.
