Broken Trusts
In January we highlighted a Boston Globe story, "Courts Strip Elders of Their Independence," produced by eight Northeastern University students overseen by journalism professor Walter V. Robinson. Five of Robinson's students have created another excellent Globe report, "Trusts for Mentally Retarded Neglected."
The Client Trust Funds were created in the late 1970s and early 1980s with the best of intentions. At the time, the state's Department of Mental Retardation was shifting patients from state institutions to group homes, making them eligible for Medicaid.
Legislation was enacted to protect the modest assets many of them had accumulated from being used to pay for medical care. The statute created trust funds that were to be spent for their other needs. In each case, a bank trustee oversees the investments and a personal trustee, almost always a relative, is responsible for spending the funds.
The Globe conducted examinations of records in 123 trust funds that had many years of financial filings. Of the 123, there were only 15 cases in which the personal trustee regularly spent funds for the care and comfort of the mentally retarded relative. In 55 cases, there was no evidence that any funds had ever been spent.
In fact, little of the estimated $30 million in the accounts is ever spent on the patients' behalf.
Instead, the money has been siphoned off for bank management charges and legal bills. And for fees charged by the Massachusetts Probate and Family Court system, which has long neglected its obligation to ensure the funds are expended for the benefit of some of the state's most helpless citizens.
boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/08/31/trusts_for_mentally_retarded_neglected