Protecting the elderly

IN A FRIGHTENING SERIES OF articles last fall, The Times documented abuses in the state’s growing and largely unregulated conservatorship industry, which is meant to protect the elderly and infirm but often exploits them. A legislative effort to reform this deplorable system deserves more serious consideration than it’s getting.

Conservators are engaged in necessary and important work. Courts take basic freedoms from elderly men and women if it can be shown that they can’t take care of themselves and that family members are unable to provide care. Conservators are then given sweeping power over their wards’ lives and possessions.

But many of the 500 professional firms that have entered this lucrative field often neglect the people they promise to help. One unscrupulous conservator took an 88-year-old’s life savings to pay his taxes and invest in a friend’s restaurant. Another secretly bought her ward’s home -- at a steep discount.

What are the requirements necessary for this work? A quick application and a $385 license fee.

The Assembly has passed legislation to reform this corrupt system. The bill, AB 1363, would set up a board under the Department of Consumer Affairs to approve licenses and mete out discipline when necessary. The reforms would cost about $20 million a year, including money for more probate judges and staff.

Although Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger supports the reforms in the bill, which is likely to win state Senate approval, he didn’t fund the legislation in his proposed budget earlier this year. Since then, state tax revenues have come in about $4.5 billion higher than projected. The governor can take some of that windfall to fund the bill or, at the very least, to pay for a trial of some of the reforms it includes. His annual budget revision is due next week. His staff will say only that he is studying the issue.

Study time is over. The state has known about these abuses for years; conservatorship reform bills have been introduced regularly for more than two decades. The governor’s fiscal prudence is admirable, but he should find room in the budget for modest protections for some of the state’s most vulnerable citizens.