Public Guardianship Legislation Enacted

Peter Greenfield, Columbia Legal Services

A bill creating an office of public guardianship was signed by Governor Gregoire on May 8, 2007. When fully implemented, the new law should make high-quality guardianship services available to individuals who need them and who currently can’t get them because they are alone and poor.  

Today many people can’t get guardianship services they need. They can’t get services because they don’t have family members or friends to serve as guardians without pay and they don’t have sufficient funds to pay for the services and still meet other basic needs. Without needed guardianship services, vulnerable individuals are likely to lose housing, to go without needed medical care, to experience exploitation or to face institutionalization that would be avoidable with appropriate help. 

The Advisory Council on Aging & Disability Services, with the assistance of lawyers from Columbia Legal Services, played a leadership role in promoting the public guardianship legislation. Advisory Council Chair Don Moreland testified in support of the legislation in both House and Senate judiciary committees and met with individual legislators to explain the need it responds to. The legislation was supported by a broad spectrum of organizations, including the Alzheimer’s Association of Western and Central Washington, AARP of Washington, the National Association of Social Workers Washington State Chapter, the Washington Adult Day Services Association, the W4A, the Washington State Bar Association, Washington State Medical Association, the Washington State Catholic Conference, the Washington State Long-Term Care Ombudsman and the Senior Citizens’ Lobby.

The new law creates a state office of public guardianship in the judicial branch, with an administrator to be appointed by the Supreme Court. The office is to contract with certified professional guardians, or with entities employing them, to serve as public guardians. Public guardians would be available for appointment by courts, under defined circumstances. As in the case of any guardianship appointment, a court must first determine that appointment of a guardian is needed. 

The legislation makes no changes in the criteria for determining that a guardianship is needed. It does include new provisions designed to assure that guardianship services provided are of high quality. These include caseload limits and monitoring requirements. Initially, services will be offered on a pilot basis in two regions of the state, one urban and one rural. (The specific regions remain to be defined.) The cost of the services and the savings associated with them will be the subject of a study and report by the Washington State Institute for Public Policy.  For the 2007-09 biennium, the Legislature appropriated $1.483 million to implement the new law. 

The provision of appropriate guardianship services on a timely basis is consistent with the Advisory Council’s mission to promote a higher quality of life for individuals with cognitive disabilities by creating “a [more] complete and responsive system of services” and “a [more] comprehensive long-term care system.”