CalSTRS not helpful

If you become the conservator or have (power of attorney) POA for a person who is getting a California Teacher's pension (CalSTRS), you may find them horribly unhelpful.

It Takes A Month Or 3 To Change Direct Deposit

On one level being slow and hard to reach in some way could protect members from abuse. But it made it very difficult when Mike, who became conservator for his mother Carol, was trying to get her pension to go into a conservatorship account, as opposed to a compromised account. Sonya, the daughter who had financially abused the mother Carol, had closed the account Carol had and where her pension was being deposited, and opened a new account. As far as I can tell Sonya did not inform CalSTRS and there was some confusion of where the pension was going. When Mike became conservator there was some problem getting CalSTRS to recognize him as conservator.

Once they finally recognized Mike as the conservator of Carol who was a member of CalSTRS, they told him they needed a whole pay period before they could have the direct deposit going into the new account. Mike turned into the paperwork and waited for a month for the pension payment to appear so he could pay for his mother's care. Unfortunately, CalSTRS did not feel a rush to tell him that there was something missing in his paperwork. So when the date when her pension was to appear passed, he had to inquire with the bank then CalSTRS and discovered that there was missing information and had to wait another month for the pension payment.

CalSTRS Assumes Members Will Always Be Independent

Mike's interactions with CalSTRS when he needed to inquire about something was like pulling teeth. My heart goes out to any caregiver of a CalSTRS member. It seemed CalSTRS only frame of reference might have been the POA. When I inquired on my husband's behalf, because the whole trying to care for his mother thing was overwhelming, I didn't get anything other than an automated response.... if that.

The website is only for members. Not caregivers acting on their behalf. We asked. They will not allow for the conservator to take over.

When you look at the CalSTRS website the only thing they have about abuse, which Carol was a victim of, it is only about members abusing CalSTRS, as if members can only be perpetrators not victims.

So it appears that CalSTRS has the mindset that members will be fully mentally functional and independent. So it becomes part of the nightmare when a child of a member or a caregiver who comes in blind has to try to figure out where to start.

CalSTRS Not Helpful

We found CalSTRS not particularly helpful. Maybe in all the encounters with CalSTRS maybe one person tried to be helpful and understand my husband's situation in trying to care for his mom 3000 miles away. I'm sure if he were in California it would have been a little less stressful.

Lastly, let me end with a positive. Those CalSTRS payments were very generous. Carol's pension was a little less than my take home pay as a full time Federal worker, and more than what my husband makes per month. That amount of money was very helpful in making it possible to stretch out what was left to pay for better end of life care for Carol.

Let's compare Februarys 2016 vs 2017

I know I said I was going to go over August to December 2016 under the conservatorship but I think with this post I will have made my point about the financial abuse and I'll turn to the lies and mistreatment by the abusing adult child towards their mother, brother and step mother. I wrote this blog to vent my frustrations. I know that at some point I will forgive Sonya for what she did to her mother, but I need to work this out of my system.
So let's look at just page 1 from Carol's account when Sonya, her daughter and the one with the POA, in February 2016.

And compare that with page 1 from the Conservatorship under Mike, Sonya's brother, and the son of the victim, Carol.

Mike did not use his mother's account to fix his 2001 car. Mike did not use it to let me ride around in Ubers. There were eight withdrawals. One and two were on Feb 6th for Dr. Wong, Carol's doctor. That check was for $361.00 but the total charge was $368.50, so $7.50 for a cashier's check? Man, that is cheap for a cashier's check, Wells Fargo charged me something like $20 for a cashier's check. Three and four were the charges of $23.75 from the Riverdale, MD post office, to FedEx something to Kirkwood Villa on the 26th and 28th. This is where I will criticize Mike. He doesn't think holistically or look too far ahead, which is where there will be inefficiencies in his dealings. A mailing that late in the month is probably for rent for Kirkwood Villa and maybe reimbursement for medications. To be fair, he found communicating with Rose, the woman who ran Kirkwood, difficult to understand and everything was a crisis that had to be dealt with, with a grand gesture. For some odd reason it did not occur to him to have automatic payments...... He just doesn't think that way, that's why I am in charge of the finances in our house.

I digressed.

I accounted for 4 of the 8 withdrawals. Four checks were written. One was for $3,300, that was for Kirkwood Villa. I'd have to hunt down Mike's register but I'd bet they were for medicines and services for Carol. I can't remember if this was another period where Carol lost her Medicare part whatever because the Medicare people weren't sending anything to Mike. It will take me a while to get that memory from Mike because it was so frustrating and traumatizing to him. Let's just say he knows the 1-800 number for Social Security by heart. ...digressed again... So Mike was using CVS's scripts service to get medications mailed to his mother and would pay by check. Okay another complaint about my beloved, if there is a quick and easy way, or a hard and complicated way, he'd pick hard and complicated.

So the first with the charges for Ubers and Wal-mart is NOT how to care for an elderly family member's accounts. The second IS reflective of how you care for them and their finances. You use their money to help them, to make sure their rent shows up by the 1st so they don't get kicked out. So you use their money for postage.

The world ending option- making your parent a ward of the state

I'm going to take a break from proving what Sonya did was a horrible thing and give some advice.

The option of making your elderly parent a ward of the state is always an option, an option of last resort.

It was first presented when Adult Protective Services (APS) were asking Mike, Carol's son, my husband, to get more involved. Mike was annoyed with APS because, the way he saw it, this government agency was trying to drive a wedge between him and his sister. He didn't trust them. So their suggestion that they become the conservator of Carol was one way for Mike to step away and let the state take over. That would have been easier. That would have saved us lots of money in legal fees and bonds, stupid $1,000 and $1,500 a year, non-refunded bonds. But if this route was taken, the state would have charged Sonya (yay) for what she did but Mike would not have any input in her care and whatever assets she still had would have been seized by the state. Our concern was that APS seemed more interested in prosecuting Sonya (a good thing) than helping Carol get out of the situation she was in. So we were concerned that Carol's care would fall through the cracks, and that she would remain in the poor living conditions of Kirkwood Villa with no change.

Thankfully, Mike did not need to travel to San Jose to appear before a judge to become the conservator of his mother's person and estate. He was on a conference call sort of thing. Because of the nature of the call Mike could hear other cases. There was another case before his where the family came before the judge to explain they could no longer care for an adult relative, and wanted the state to take over. So we were very aware that if it became too much or too hard, this was an option. And it did get too hard, it damaged our marriage (has since been repaired) and it put our adoption plans on hold (we now have an adopted son), but we did not pull that trigger. There was a moment, when Carol was feeling horribly low and she suggested that Mike give up on her and let the state take over. We knew she was speaking from a place of depression. Kirkwood was just a place to watch TV and wait for the end.

Mike made many mistakes in Carol's care, mainly due to the overly complicated nature of conservatorships and being on the other side of the country... most of it being on the other side of the country. We do not regret not making Carol a ward of California. Once we got her on the east coast it got easier. There were still health crises but it was comparatively easier in Maryland compared to when these things happened in California.

The state will take whatever assets are in the person's estate and there is no inheritance for the remaining family members. Now whether those assets will be used to better the situation of the depends. In Carol's case the cost of her care was more than what she was getting from her remaining investments that Sonya didn't steal, and her pension. If she didn't die, she was going to run out of money to cover the cost of her care by this summer, and we were going to have to figure out how to cover the costs. So it is hard to imagine that the state would put her in a better facility.

The state would have also put Sonya in prison if Carol became their ward. At the time, we didn't know, what we now know, and Mike is unreasonably loyal. This whole blog is a reminder of why he should press charges against his sister. But at the time we thought she had custody of her minor children and we were concerned about what would happen with them if she was put away. The kids were already traumatized by the separation of their parents, we didn't want to add to the sorrow. Now one kid is going to college and I think the other would be better off with her biological father.

Useful Links:
 Having an Adult Made Ward of the State-  ExpertLaw.com
Guardianship of Incapacitated or Disabled Persons- FindLaw.com
How to Make an Adult a Ward of the State-  LegalBeagle.com

Excerpt from the Court Investigator's Report

So instead of trying to show copies of the Court Investigator's Report on this blog, I'll have a link and anyone can see the redacted copy.

So if you know this site, and have read what is here, this is the story. Mom in law- Carol or Carole was in an assisted living facility in San Jose in 2015. Earlier that year her daughter, Sonya, decided that she could do a better job and with her mom's money got a 3/4 bedroom house in the Branham or Cambrian neighborhood*.  As far as we could tell Sonya then went to fund the life she couldn't afford with her own funds. In 2016 Mike, the son, my husband was pressured into becoming the conservator of his mother, because of his sister's misdeeds.

A Court Investigator was a needed neutral third party who came out to check out what Adult Protective Services was claiming, that there was abuse and that Mike should become the conservator of Carol (Carole). Here are some excerpts from the report with surnames removed.

Case History-Purpose of Report

An ex pane temporary conservatorship of the person and estate of Carol (“Carole”) was approved on May 24, 2016 and letters were issued to her son, Michael (“Michael”),on June 1,2016. According to the petition,a bank made a report to Adult Protective Services (APS) with concerns that Carole’s daughter, Sonya (“Sonya”),had taken approximately $100K out of Carol’s retirement accounts and comingled the money with her personal bank account. APS had concerns that some of the money had been spent in ways that did not benefit Carole. Furthermore, there were concerns that Carole had missed in excess of 20 doctor appointments which were not rescheduled Therefore,conservatorship was needed to provide the protection of Carole’s health and safety as well as her estate.

Living Conditions

Carole was admitted to her current placement from Kaiser Hospital on December 31, 2015. She requires assistance with bathing and shampooing. Her exercise is limited to walking in the backyard with a staff member. Carole ambulates with a wheeled walker. Carole said she received an allowance from Michael, but staff have been unavailable to bring her shopping because of conflict between 2 other residents. Carole said she is in need of shampoo, soap, toothpaste and some summer clothes.
Carole said she asks every day to go out but staff cannot take her. She wants to move and return to Atria,where she had lived previously. Carole called her current placement “the pits,” and said there is nothing to do but watch television.

Involvement of Proposed Conservator

Michael reported that his mother’s financial situation is even more dire than previously thought. He discovered that $10K was withdrawn in April to pay for his sister’s overdue child support. Assets include $20K in one investment account and anon-qualified annuity valued at $158,250. Carole’s teacher retirement is about 3K a month while her board and care is currently costing $3,300. Additionally,Michael is discovering credit card debts.
Just days after the temporary conservatorship was initiated, he also discovered that his mother’s Part D coverage was cancelled on June 1 due to lack of payment. According to Michael,he and his wife paid out-of-pocket to have that coverage reinstated. He has been in contact with his mother’s physician and has scheduled a podiatry appointment for her.

I don't think I need to add more to this post. The Court Investigator pretty much summed up what Sonya did wrong and what Mike has tried to do right.


*I live in DC, I don't know San Jose neighborhoods. I plugged in the address on Calle de Lucia using Google maps and Redfin.

Conservatorship is too hard

So my spouse is on the other side of the country to retrieve his mother and bring her to the East Coast to live near us. The place is no Riderwood, but it is better than where she is now. Riderwood is a $7K plus a month retirement home, it is beautiful and we know a couple who live there. Where mom is going is 1/2 the price and a little shabbier, older, and smaller.

After attempting to care for his mother long distance for a little over a year, we decided to engage in the nuclear option of bringing her closer to us because the power of conservatorship is mixed and sometimes a weakness.

In order to legally take her out of California we had to go through the courts. If it weren't for the conservatorship we would have had her on a plane earlier. Yes, you have to ask the state permission to relocate your relative if you are their conservator.

The other problem was that some places did not really acknowledge the conservatorship, like Medicare and Social Security. The conservatorship was issued by the state, Medicare and SS are federal programs and they have their own forms, which seem to require an elderly person to sign....WTF?

The bank also was no help. Supposedly my husband was made temporary conservator in May but could not stop his sister from continuing to drain their mother's accounts, including $20K that we were hoping to use to move her to better care facilities. The bank dragged their feet, and she had enough time to inflict more damage. Why? Because he had to spend time proving to the bank that he had the legal authority to do so.

The pension also dragged on too.

Conservatorship is not a magic wand.

Nope not done

Despite being approved by the court as my mother in law's (MIL) conservator, my dear husband (DH) her son, does not have the paper work for all the organizations that DH needs to talk to on my MILs behalf. Someone, either at the court or the law office failed to check another one of those pesky boxes and so more delays.

In the meantime......
Kaiser Permanente Central Cali customer service and billing continues to suck. They keep sending bills to my MIL when my DH has told them over, and over, and over again that he should get them. The bills upset her. As they should because her thieving daughter my sister in law (SIL) decided to put MIL's medical bills on a spending plan that was secondary to her own spend like a crazy person plan. Last I heard the bills were about $2000. In January 2016, my SIL managed to spend $16,736.48 of my MIL's money, about $4000 of that on my MIL. In February, she spent $15,288.90 of my MIL's (her mother's) money with about $4000 going to the care of my MIL. In March it was $16,216.12 and April it was $23,359.03, with about $4000 each month to cover the cost of housing and care for MIL, because in January16/ December15, my MIL ran away from my SIL and was placed in what I'll call old people prison where all she does is watch TV and wait for G-d. So my MIL's money was used to support my SIL in the 3 bedroom $3,800 a month house designed by the Sopranos. In all that between the many trips to 7-11 and the Uber rides, my SIL seemed to be unable to do the main thing she was given access to MIL's money to do, PAY THE OLD LADY'S MEDICAL BILLS!
So, we will be paying some of my MIL's current medical bills from the money we earn from the jobs we have. Sadly, what my SIL did not syphon out of my MIL's retirement will be eaten by legal fees (getting the conservatorship) and other bills that sadly my MIL is on the hook for. My MIL's current care is $200-$300 more than her pension and that does not cover medications, medicare, and other sundry needs. That, along with some of the money to pay the lawyer, will be coming out of our savings, and that is why I'm pissed.

So we wait for the updated conservatorship forms and paperwork. In the meantime my DH tries to figure out how to get MIL's medications to her, and how to get her transportation so she can get some clothes and a haircut. It doesn't help matters when the locals still use my SIL as the contact person regarding MIL's care. This mess was allowed due to signing some papers with a notary. We have to go through a whole court system with expensive lawyers (never gonna see that $5000 again) and DH still isn't recognized.