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.

May 2016- The end of Sonya's spending party

It wasn't until June 1st when the bank, credit union actually, finally, finally, cut Sonya off from her mother's accounts. The conservatorship wasn't wine and roses for Mike, the brother of Sonya and the son of Carol. But what it did do was end Sonya's POA over Carol, allow Mike to talk to the bank, and in the beginning get some limited access to the money in those accounts. There was a lot of back and forth with the bank in June and it was all painfully slow, and add the fact that this (finances, Medicare, elder care, the legal stuff) was not in Mike's wheelhouse.

Despite knowing the end was near, Sonya kept spending the money, her mother's money as if it were hers, which it was not, all though May 2016.

To see a better image, click the individual picture.

December 2015 - The party is almost over

December 2015 was the last month Carol (the victim/ retiree)  lived with her daughter Sonya. Either in November or December Carol called Mike, her son on the other side of the country in Washington, DC and asked to be taken out of there. Unfortunately, Mike had no clue what to do and believed his sister Sonya's side of the story. In November Sonya began (or I just started noticing) using her mother's money to by 'medicinal' weed. If that wasn't bad enough she moved in a loser boyfriend into the home Sonya rented (with Carol's money) who as far I we know did not contribute anything to the household. So now Carol was supporting two parasites.

At the end of the month, around Christmas, Carol escaped. For a while I imagined Carol out there with her walker slowly moving away from the suburban area out to the main road and flagging down help. But it seems she may have called 911 and got a ride to a Kaiser hospital. And it was there at the hospital she gave the staff a clue that she was being abused. That's when Santa Clara County Adult Protective Services people got involved. Another thing happened at the end of the month, Sonya closed this bank account and started a new account. There is a December 28th withdrawal of $68,166.79, and that went into a new account under Carol's last name. Why? Tis a mystery.

So below are parts of the December 2015 band statement. If you want to see a clearer picture, click on the images. After each section I will write about a few particular purchases that I've highlighted. In December it becomes clearer that Sonya was just spending her mother's money like she won the lottery. She's spending money on pot, cash withdrawals and trips.

 

So we get a regular deposit from Carol's teacher's pension on the 1st of $3084. For most of this saga, it's been Carol's money, Carol's pension, Carol's retirement fund that has been fueling the party Sonya has been attending and orchestrating. Of all the purchases on this page, I just highlighted the one thing that was definitely for Carol, the December 2nd charge from the Kaiser Pharmacy.

 

On the 4th Sonya takes out $300. Why? Who knows. Also that same day there is a charge from Guitar Wars, a musical instrument store in San Jose. Carol does not play an instrument. Carol has Parkinson's. I will guess that it was for one of Sonya's kids Mike1 or N Kim.

 

Sonya was supposed to be the caretaker of Carol. Instead she abused her mother. Carol had to stop smoking, sometime in the 90s because she had to have some sort of heart surgery... because of smoking. Apparently she and her 1st husband smoked like chimneys. Mike, their son, has this huge hatred for smoking because of it. Their daughter, obviously, not so much. On the 8th, Sonya got something from Discount Cigarettes. I can only hope she did not smoke in the house or around Carol or either of the minor children.

 

Once again, on the 8th, she buying more from s cigarette shop, this time it's at Up In Smoke.

 

It looks like somebody has taken up the guitar or some musical instrument. I wonder which kid? Mike1 or N Kim? Well one thing I know, that $542.16 to Guitar Center on the 10th, was not for Carol's care. This is followed with another charge to a music place, The Starving Musician, on the 11th.

 

December 13th, Sonya buys more cigarettes, I guess.

 

Seriously, this woman, Sonya, seems to have a smoking problem. How many days have passed since she was last at someplace that sold cigarettes? Or is she buying smokes for her loser boyfriend too?

 

Okay, I highlighted a lot here. On the 16th there is a purchase from a beauty supply store. I will have to guess that's Sonya buying for work, as she's a hair stylist. Nothing to do with Carol's care. Then that same day there are other purchases from Amazon. I love Amazon. We've bought things for Carol from Amazon, but they were purchased with our own money. That we earned. From working. I have my doubts that the December 17th purchase from iTunes was for Carol.

I find the two purchases from Spy-Fly and Been Verified funny. Who is she looking for or in on? Is Sonya (with Parkinson's and other health issues, Carol is not doing this) trying to find something on her ex/ baby daddy? Maybe Sonya was looking up dirt on her loser boyfriend, to see how much of a loser he was?

 

On the 17th, a refund from Amazon. Don't know what Sonya is playing at, what's the scam? On that same date a $204.19 charge from T-Mobile for a phone Carol does not use. On the 18th there is a strange charge from Snapraise, some fund raising site. What's the scam?

 

December 19th we've got several charges. The Amazon charge, I don't remember why I highlighted that. South Bay Healing is for pot, mary jane, weed. On her mamma's dime. This is followed by a purchase from Up In Smoke on the 21st.

 

Ah the end. But before that, let's look at some end of the month purchases. December 23rd is for a Hotel booking. Sometime in 2016 Sonya runs off to Hawaii, maybe she was booking her hotel. Who knows? What I do know, this hotel was not for Carol. Anyway, that hotel booking is cancelled, so no more harm? I also doubt those withdrawals of $232.40, $500 and $380 were for Carol either.

Please point your attention to the big withdrawal on the 28th of $68166.79. Sonya moved that money to a brand new account. In that account we'll see more of the same crazy spending. But this time there is no pretense, no pretending that she's doing this for Carol, because in 2016 Carol doesn't live with Sonya anymore. We know that she isn't driving around in that vehicle she's leasing taking Carol to doctor's appointments. We know she isn't taking Carol to fast food joints, or buying groceries for Carol, because Carol doesn't live with Sonya anymore. In 2016 whatever is spent from the account, short of the $3300 a month to the old folks' boarding house, where Kaiser dumps Carol, that money is being spent on Sonya for Sonya.

PITA factor

I was listening to a podcast and the speaker was a woman who was/is a foster & adopting mom and she was reflecting on one of her special needs kids. The school system was supposed to have all these programs for kids like hers however she said had to aggressively advocate for her kid to get those programs and helpers and whatnot.

Yeah.

Ditto for old people in your care.

So quick recap. Sister in law (SIL) Sonya stole money from my mother in law (MIL/ mom) Carole, gutted the investment accounts and almost wiped the checking accounts clean for her own use leaving just enough to cover 1 month of residential care for mom. My DH has been going from crisis to crisis trying to care for his mom from 3000 miles away.

DH has had to try to advocate for his mom from institutions that are supposed to help her on her behalf, but those institutions have been less than helpful in some ways. We suspect SIL sucked up mom’s monthly pension payment and the pension people have been mind-numbingly stupid, unhelpful, slow, difficult to reach, and somewhat unresponsive. He’s been trying to work with the bank and the contacts he’s had seem to have made him a low priority so are slow to respond. Kaiser Permanente, normally they are super awesome with their service, have proven themselves woefully incompetent in certain other areas.

My DH default is to believe that everything will work out, sadly that’s been his undoing, because it doesn’t work out and creates a new mess that he is not skilled to deal with. The situation is forcing him to be the advocate for his mother and well he sucks at it. Not because he is a bad person, he is a very good person. He is a sweet man. But he is horrible at being his mother’s advocate because he expects Kaiser and the pension people and the bank people to be her advocate too.

Seeking help from my elders

My mother is one of 1/2 a dozen kids my grandparents had.
Grandpa died early, before I was born.
Grandma lived into her 90s.
My grandparents were black Carolina sharecroppers.

My mother in law (MIL) who we are trying to help and care for is none of these, a white woman with a teacher's pension, and two dead husbands.

Grandma's daughters got the hell away from her because Grandma was a difficult woman. Her sons, after doing the war (Vietnam) came back to the area and helped watch over her after her second husband died. Growing up I knew Uncle G and Uncle W handled her day to day affairs and took care of their mother, my grandmother. For 20 years she lived in subsidized senior housing and then after a fall and other health problems went into rehab and died.

Telling Uncle G of our situation and asking how he cared for "Mother" it seems they kept it simple. He had no idea if one of the other kids had a Power of Attorney. He assumed Aunt J had it, no when I called her to confirm what Uncle G said. He handled "Mother's" bills from an account that was in his name only and it helped that grandma had no money as a poor retired sharecropper. He and his brother got her to the doctor and checked in on her. Despite grandma being a difficult person who I don't think was all there..... but then I am probably being classist and an educated snob against her, getting things done was a matter of just getting her to agree. How did she get out of the apartment and into rehab? Uncle G claims grandma was talked into it and one of the aunts handled the paperwork. I just have to figure out which aunt because Aunt J says she didn't have POA or was that involved, but then again Aunt J has a selective memory.  I'm discovering all the girls have "selective memories" even my mother.

If I were to use my Uncle's way of care as a model my DH would have to believe his mother could do more. Yes there is plenty she can't do with her various conditions but she can technically still sign things.  However we have the problem of her being on the other side of the country. We might have to talk about bringing her here.

Your Long Term Care Insurance will not protect you from elder abuse

When mentioning our woes to friends someone or two, usually a single childless adult, mentions having or planning on long term care insurance. Well there are things Long Term Care (LTC) insurance does and does not.

SNAFUs- Because of a series of things-- Medicare not recording a move, several address changes in one year, changes with banking; Mom briefly lost her Medicare. DH has spent about 1.5 months dealing with Social Security and Kaiser (her healthcare provider) to get it reinstated.  It was not a simple matter of writing a check. It was trying to explain to people what happened, while trying to make sure Mom never was without the meds that keep her alive. There are several moving parts and when a wrench has been thrown in, who handles that?

Stopping the Fraud- Elder abuse can come from anywhere. I've been reading about grown children trying to protect their parents from con artists, opportunistic neighbors, gold digging "lovers" and other siblings, as is our case. LTC insurance kicks in a person needs help with daily activities or have 'severe' impaired mental cognition. Someone has to be proactive in claiming the parent's mental state is impaired, until then the elderly person can get sucked dry of their assets and placed into deep debt.

Who is going to negotiate with the LTC company? The body that is supposed to pay out a large sum for your care gets to be in the position to determine when, where and how they pay it. Who holds them accountable? Not the elderly person who is too easily confused.

This experience is making me very doubtful about my own care when I reach that age and time in my life when my mind isn't as sharp as it is now. Considering the cost of LTC premiums, and the criteria required for it to kick in, I don't think it is worth it.

The Fantasy vs The Nightmare

Here was the fantasy:

Sister in law Sonya (SIL) would care for Mom (my mother in law) over in California and DH would offer moral support back on the east coast. Mom was living in a care facility, her 3rd one since she and her 2nd husband (not SIL or DH's dad) sold the house where DH & SIL grew up. By this last care facility, her husband died and SIL was complaining the facility nickeled and dimed Mom and she could care for Mom better and cheaper.

We were in CA to see Mom and SIL had us as witnesses as she became the Power of Attorney and other things for Mom. We all thought the general idea was great, it would be an opportunity for for SIL and Mom to reconnect (2nd hubby made their relationship difficult, he'd threatened to shoot her) and maybe save some money. Because of the 2 minor grandkids SIL used Mom's money to rent a 3bdrm house in a nice neighborhood. SIL's plan was to take care of all of Mom's needs, raise the kids, and maybe set up a small business to help support Mom.

The fantasy lasted, oh six months. Then about 3 months later became a nightmare, and Mom despite mobility issues, ran away. No one knows how she managed that.

Between the fantasy and the nightmare:

Caring for old people is hard. Being in the middle of child care and senior care is harder. Throw on trying to start up a business and apparently not having a single brain cell for legit business is another thing altogether. Add to it self control issues on the part of the care taker and there is a disaster waiting to happen.
I'm going to try to be nice, but this is the view from the east coast. SIL did not have the personality, nor the head to care for Mom or her finances for any length of time. If SIL did manage to start a business I doubt it would have lasted very long before declaring bankruptcy. Her work life were a lot of side gigs and working for someone for a year or less. The medical marijuana probably didn't help, well it helped confirm my belief it is a drug for people who don't plan on accomplishing anything. Oh and then there was the new boyfriend who moved in. Yeah.
Oh and then there was the incident involving SIL and her son. Let's just say the home care aide for Mom ran away and never returned.

By December full nightmare was reached. SIL completely failed with her brick & mortar business idea. SIL has no job. SIL has a deadbeat live in boyfriend in the same house as Mom and maybe the kids. There is some child custody something or other going on between SIL and her ex. Mom has called DH to ask him to get her out of there. Probably knowing DH is not going to anything, Mom runs away, enter Adult Protective Services.  Oh, and SIL boyfriend punches her in the face.

In January DH starts getting calls from Adult Protective Services (APS), asking questions at first. Later they began making accusations against SIL, saying she was spending all of Mom's money and wasn't helping their mom. In the new year, there was still 3-4 months left on the lease on the house where SIL was to care for Mom. SIL was living in the house, Mom wasn't. By late March APS were calling DH every other day with accusations and demands that he do something. And thus began our nightmare of trying to care for Mom, on the other side of the country with little or no legal recognition or real assistance to do the things that need to be done.

Spend it down & mental support

I attended church with DH this past weekend, we belong to two different denominations, so once a month I attend his church. I'd been pressuring him to talk to an elder or the pastor, particularly one elder who is professionally knowledgeable. But, for obvious reasons he's put it on the backburner, and so I took it upon myself to talk to two deacons who also happened to be friends, and tell them what is going on.

Prior to service, friend deacon, let's call him D1/. Deacon#1, was supposed to be greeting. My DH was teaching Sunday School and so left me in the foyer with D1 and coffee/tea. D1 is a bachelor with parents in their 80s and so he also talked about the challenges  to attempting to look out for his independent living parents. As people milled through, heading either to snag a seat in the sanctuary or arrive late to Sunday School, Deacon #2 (D2) arrived and joined us. D2 is also a bachelor but his parents are deceased and he had to take over and care for his father before he passed.

D2 told me that with his father the nursing home his father was supposed to go to from the hospital approached him regarding a long-term financial plan. We sorta, kinda have a place in mind for Mom, but since DH hasn't signed or committed to anything, this was the first of us hearing such a thing. Our concern was that there wasn't enough money left for years of care (and we would like her to live as long as possible). D2 told us with his father the nursing home talked about a spend down program. The idea is that you spend down all the money that is left, down to the last $1,000 and then Medicare takes over.

I'll have to research this, but it gave me a sense of relief.

Yes, Mom won't have anything left to pass on to her kids or grandkids. But that's okay, the main point is that she will be cared for and that's all we care about.

After service, I kept an eye out for an elder, not the financially savvy one, but the one DH loves best. DH joined D1 & D2 in chatting as I scolded crazy kids who were running around like chickens with their heads cut off. We talked some more about our situation with Mom and D1 & D2 provided more advice and emotional support. When I saw that the elder I was looking for disengage from another post-service conversation and walk over to his wife, I signaled to DH that he should go to that elder. DH was able to make an appointment for later this month to talk to the elder.

My beloved DH tends to keep things close to the vest, not saying anything till it is complete or he has all the information, which could be never. So without prodding, he probably would not let on to anyone at his church that anything was going wrong. Which is absurd, because he knows how the church supports its members who are going through challenging things, with assistance, counseling, and sometimes money from the Deacon's Fund. It was good just to talk to D1 & D2, they were very helpful and supportive and I think we are in a better place because of them. 

Someone Needs to Write an Eldercare Advice Book for Disfunctional Families

When I started looking for how to help DH for dealing with his mother's finances I looked on line searching for how to locate an elderly parent's accounts and assets, I found nothing helpful for us. The advice given on the eldercare, retirement, and authoritative sites was to talk to the elderly parent and make a plan with them.

That's great if you have one of those Hallmark Card families where everyone is open and honest and not suffering from dementia.  It is even better if you 're not dealing with step-parents who don't trust you or even like you and think it's none of your damned business. It is horrible to say, but thankfully that step-parent is dead. But that step-parent is the reason why we could have never ever had a nice little heart to heart sit down to "make a plan" regarding their finances and the future of my mother in law's care. It was never going to happen. My mother in law (MIL) has since had a stroke since her 2nd husband's death and among her other health problems her memory is not so great, so even approaching MIL about her finances since the death of hubby #2 (aka the step-parent) is a no go, 'cause she doesn't remember jack.

So MIL can't remember what accounts she has or had, or what accounts she and her 2nd husband had... I should note 2nd husband was a paranoid nut, so he probably hid money somewhere. So now what? I starting looking at divorce websites. Now Google probably thinks I want to leave my husband, I don't. But I thought, okay who would be looking for hidden assets? Divorced/divorcing women. I learned something, those sites saying they can find accounts may not be all that they are cracked up to be. It will cost some real money to locate assets and I don't think MIL or 2nd husband had that much hidden away.

All this has me worried about taking care of an aunt who is the same age as MIL. Auntie is relatively healthy, active and fiercely independent. I have dropped hints that she should have a plan for when it is time for me to care for her. I've gotten the 'none of your damned business' vibe from her. She is of the belief that one day she'll be active and running around and then the next day dead, no nursing home, just in her condo with stairs and then in the ground dead. She's fine with being dead, she's not too keen on being frail and having to have long term care.

I am still looking for advice for dealing with our situation for something that looks like our family.

Kaiser Permanente's phone people need training

We are Kaiser members.
DH's Mom has been a Kaiser member for decades and decades.
So silly us thought Kaiser, which is normally awesome and forward thinking and convenient would be all those things and a bag of Xanax.
Nope, nope, nopey, nope. Well at least on the phone.
DH has seemed to fix for now the problem of the dropped Medicare Part D (thought it was part B) that was due to sister in law not paying the bill back in January of this year. Because he is the conservator he is trying to get electronic access to her Kaiser account so he can make her appointments, check on her meds, see test results, all the normally cool stuff you can see on KP.org .
Well yesterday DH discovered that:
1) West Coast Kaiser computer systems don't talk to East Coast Kaiser computers
2) The people on customer service phone lines give contradictory information and need more training

DH has been on the phone with West Coast Kaiser (California Northern) asking how to get online access so he can manage Mom's health care from the Mid-Atlantic region. First encounter, the computers were down or the system was down and they couldn't make it happen. Fine, we understand as we've experienced computer problems in our own work. Call again, then they discover we're all members so he is told all he needs to do is go to a local Kaiser facility and talk to the in person customer service. So DH takes his forms proving he has conservatorship and his ID to his local Kaiser, and the customer service is not open. So then he went to the one downtown, because there are several Kaisers in the DC metro area. They are open, but the Mid-Atlantic Kaiser computers don't talk to the Northern California systems. This was discovered when they looked for Mom's patient ID number in the system and could not find it in the system. So he was told to get a form we saw online to request access and mail that in. *Sigh*

When DH came home he was upset and frustrated. Part of it relates to other things he's trying to do, part of it Kaiser related. Regarding getting Mom's meds for her Parkinsons and diabetes and getting access to all of her current and past medical information he has been told conflicting information. He believes the people who do customer service via the phone should have more training.

As I wrote, normally Kaiser is really good and this has been terribly disappointing.

Caretakers should not combine bank accounts

I'm under no illusion that we could have stopped or prevented the mess we are in now.

SIL (Sonya) was going to get the Power of Attorney with or without us. SIL was going to rent the big house designed by the mafia don, using Mom's money with or without us. And she was going to "combine" her income and Mom's income regardless of if we said anything about it. I put "combine" in quotes because when I looked at the bank statements I saw very little of anything they may have come from unemployed unmarried SIL.

Supposedly SIL as handling the affairs of Mom, taking her out of the adult care facility to a SFH in the burbs that she rented with Mom's money. SIL put her name on Mom's accounts, and that's where the problem started.

My DH and my SIL both suck at money.

If SIL actually had an income, she should have had a separate account for her own expenses. Then maybe she wouldn't have attracted the attention of Adult Protective Services. So when SIL decided to take a vacation to a vacation spot, it wouldn't look like she was stealing money if it came from her own account. But because she used Mom's account it looked like she was stealing money.

DH and I are keeping our accounts separate from Mom's.

It helps that we are both year round employed people who have been working full time at places we've been at for more than a decade, so we don't need to use Mom's money except to care for Mom. We will however need to be reimbursed for the trip DH took out to the West Coast and for the $5000 we took out of our emergency savings for the lawyer. The $500 for the Medicare that we paid from our funds, we'll eat that.

DH name is on the new account to serve Mom. He will not be funding his trips to Panda Express from her account, because trips to Panda Express do not help Mom. He has paid rent money from Mom's account, because it went to pay for Mom's rent. In the place where she is currently living. It does not pay for our mortgage.

Simple lesson for honest caretakers, keep your spending and the person you are caring for's spending separate. Otherwise, it looks like you are stealing.