Deaths during elder abuse investigations rose in Pa.’s largest city as state regulators took no punitive action

Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to account and drives positive change in Pennsylvania. Sign up for our free newsletters.

HARRISBURG — The Pennsylvania Department of Aging oversees 52 county agencies across the commonwealth, assessing them every year to ensure they comply with state regulations for keeping older adults safe from abuse or neglect.

But in 2021, it directed its small cadre of protective services specialists to drop everything and focus on just one agency: the Philadelphia Corporation for Aging (PCA).

The extraordinary step was triggered by deep concerns among the department’s top officials over PCA’s staffing shortages and delays in investigating cases.

For the next nine months, state specialists worked around the clock to help PCA handle investigations, including speeding up the timeline for making contact with potential victims and providing them services to minimize their risk of injury — or worse.

“It was an absolute mess,” said Peter Hans, a former protective services specialist at the Department of Aging who was assigned to assist Philadelphia. “It was so distressing.”

Hans said he encountered cases that had remained unresolved for over a year and ones in which an older adult had died during an active investigation — yet PCA was unaware of the death.

Though aging officials say the agency has made improvements since then, PCA continues to have the worst track record in the state for complying with strict regulations meant to keep older adults safe from harm, according to data obtained through public records requests.

Many of its cases, the data show, aren’t investigated within the 20-day state deadline. It has also failed annual compliance assessments by state officials in five of seven recent years examined by Spotlight PA. In the remaining two years, it wasn’t monitored at all.

Records obtained by Spotlight PA through sources show problems ranging from poor paperwork to failures to contact medical professionals to delays in investigating cases.

In the meantime, deaths during open investigations have steeply risen in recent years, and Philadelphia has been particularly affected. In 2019, 2020, and 2021, nearly a third of older adults who died statewide during open investigations lived in the city and were being served by PCA.

Despite the help from state protective services workers, PCA again failed its annual assessment in 2022. That year, the agency handled the case of Luen Ng, an ailing 75-year-old woman who died after her daughter spent months pleading for assistance.

Officials, including those in Gov. Josh Shapiro’s office, have not publicly acknowledged failures within the state’s tattered system for keeping older adults safe. The state Department of Aging can take punitive action against agencies when they fail to meet safety standards, but has never done so.

“That is too bad because this is solvable,” said Mark Zecca, a Philadelphia lawyer who worked for years on federal social services programs, and later for the city of Philadelphia. “It needs leadership.”

Asked if Shapiro was aware of the problems, a spokesperson said in an email: “Will keep you posted on anything to add from our end.”

A PCA spokesperson declined requests for comment for this story, referring all questions to state aging officials. The chair of PCA’s board of directors, Glenn Bryan, also declined to be interviewed.

Karen Gray, spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of Aging, said in an email that the agency is currently overseeing a corrective action plan for PCA. She did not describe the plan — which generally requires a county aging agency to list specific actions it will take to fix problems — but said that protective services staffers at the agency are receiving extended training.

The state, said Gray, has also provided technical assistance that “has allowed PCA to hire more investigators, doubling the number of investigators from as few as 26 to nearly 60, resulting in reduced caseloads.”

PCA, a nonprofit that receives tens of millions of taxpayer dollars every year, has also hired a private contractor to help it with its caseload, according to sources with direct knowledge who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The contractor, Service Access & Management, Inc., declined to comment about its contract with PCA, saying it does not discuss its work with “stakeholders.”

Because PCA is not a government-run agency, it is not subject to the state’s public records law, and Spotlight PA could not obtain a copy of the contract.

Though the Department of Aging funds PCA, it said it could not provide information about the contract with Service Access & Management, Inc. For instance, state officials could not say whether they require PCA to pay for the contract out of its annual state funding; or whether they provide PCA with additional dollars to pay the private company — without reducing PCA’s overall funding by that amount. If the latter, the state would effectively be paying PCA twice for the same service.

Pressed to explain why the department could not comment, Gray would only say: “We do not have information pertaining to AAA subcontractors, nor can we comment on actions taken regarding the reasons for their hiring, or contract termination.”

The state allocated $343 million for the 52 county aging agencies this fiscal year; PCA received $65 million of that total.

In its last federal tax filing, which covers 2022, PCA reported $76.8 million in revenue from grants and contributions, the majority of it from federal, state, and local sources. State-specific funding largely comes from Pennsylvania lottery earnings.

During its last annual audit, from June 2023, auditors found “significant deficiencies” in certain internal controls and financial reporting requirements.

Zecca said there is little incentive for PCA or any county aging agency to change if the Department of Aging just hands over money on “a silver platter,” with no accountability. State officials could provide that incentive by allocating a portion of PCA’s funding to another social services entity that could do a better job.

“They have to say, ‘If you are not in compliance, you will lose a part of your funding, and we will give it to another entity who can provide that service,’” said Zecca. “You don’t want to lose another part of your funding? Be compliant.”

Hans, the former state protective services specialist, said he made that exact recommendation to his superiors after working with PCA in 2021 and 2022. The agency’s caseload, he said, was alarmingly high, as was the number of open cases of abuse and neglect — PCA was simply unable to deal with it, leaving older adults at risk.

In 2021, when the Department of Aging swooped in to help PCA, nearly 40% of older Philadelphians who died that year had cases open for six months or longer — more than three times the limit imposed by state rules — without a determination by PCA about whether they were being neglected or abused.

“I told them I would divide Philly up by ZIP code, and then I would number those zones, and I would reduce PCA’s block grant by giving those zones to a surrounding county or a private entity,” said Hans.

His plea, he said, was ignored.

Hans retired from his state position last summer. Since then, he has contacted legislators, the Pennsylvania offices of inspector general, attorney general, and auditor general, and Shapiro’s office, among others, to sound the alarm.

He said he has been exasperated by the inaction.

“People are dying,” he said. “What else is it going to take?”

BEFORE YOU GO… If you learned something from this article, pay it forward and contribute to Spotlight PA at spotlightpa.org/donate. Spotlight PA is funded by foundations and readers like you who are committed to accountability journalism that gets results.