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Committee greenlights study of community guardianship boards after legislators cite gaps in care
Summary
Lawmakers asked OPE to study boards of community guardians, citing outdated manuals, inconsistent local capacity and cases where guardianship prevented repeated hospitalizations; the proposal was one of four projects the committee assigned to OPE.
Representative Clay Handy told the committee his experience volunteering on a local Board of Guardians motivated the request for a study to identify successful models, increase participation and reduce county burdens. "We passed a bill so that guardians would be responsible for their ward until internment," Handy said, describing how the board's work reduced hospital readmissions for a ward placed on hospice.
Handy said local boards often operate with small volunteer rosters (he described a board of 12 people serving two counties) and sometimes turn away one or two requests a month. He asked OPE to study how to expand participation, share best practices across counties, and identify implementation options so counties without boards are not left to absorb the workload. The committee later included the guardianship boards study among the four projects approved for OPE to scope and schedule.
