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Estate Planning: On being a representative payee


Dennis Fordham. Courtesy photo.

An incapacitated adult or minor person who is unable to manage their bill paying often has a representative payee appointed by the Social Security Administration to manage their receipt of Supplemental Security Income or Social Security Disability Income, as relevant.

Each year, the representative payee must report to and account to the Social Security Administration for the use of the Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, and Social Security Disability Income, or SSDI, monies. 

An SSI recipient may sometimes also be a beneficiary of a special needs trust established, with inheritance or settlement proceeds, to preserve their SSI and other needs-based government benefits, such as food stamps. 

It is important that the representative payee and the SNT trustee, if not the same person, coordinate their separate spending of monies for the beneficiary.

The representative payee of a SSI recipient must use SSI monies to pay for the recipient’s basic living expenses — food, shelter, utilities and medical expenses not covered by Medi-Cal. 

If any SSI money remains, which is unlikely, it must be kept for future expenses, less perhaps a possible discretionary spending allowance. 

Typically, the representative payee is a close family member or friend with close contact to the SSI beneficiary. One reason for this is that, except for certain approved organizations, a representative payee is not entitled to any compensation. 

Nevertheless, an uncompensated representative payee is still subject to duties and to liabilities imposed by the Social Security Administration, or SSA.

Specifically, the representative payee has a duty to report any changes in circumstances (such as changes in the recipient’s assets and in income) that would affect the SSI recipient’s eligibility to receive, or the amount of, their SSI benefits. 

If the SSA makes an overpayment in SSI benefits that should have been avoided had the personal representative reported relevant changes, then the SSA may proceed against the personal representative personally.

In addition, if the representative payee misuses the SSI recipient’s SSI money or, even worse yet embezzles the SSI money, then not only may the SSA go after the representative for reimbursement but any embezzlement is a felony that can result in incarceration. 

The trustee of a special needs trust, on the other hand, is typically compensated (by the trust) and may be a professional (such as a private fiduciary or a pooled special needs trust). Such trustees are much better equipped to deal with government regulations and oversight. 

Given that distributions from special needs trusts for the basic necessities of life count against the beneficiary’s right to receive SSI, it is important that the representative payee and the trustee work closely together and keep each other informed. 

Otherwise, the SSA may make SSI overpayments that have negative consequences to the recipient’s right to additional SSI benefits and to the representative payee in terms of his liability for SSI overpayments (which do accumulate).

Typically, the trustee of the special needs trust first makes distributions for the benefit of the beneficiary to improve the quality (comforts) of the SSI beneficiary by purchasing items that are not covered by SSI benefits. That is, the trust monies may be used to purchase travel, entertainment, and services excluding food, shelter, and utilities that are first paid with SSI monies. 

Nonetheless, given the high cost of basic living and the small amount of SSI checks, special needs trusts often authorize payments for such necessities. 

Such direct payments by anyone other than the SSI recipient from their SSI income is treated as “in kind, support and maintenance,” or ISM, and counts as unearned income to the SSI recipient. This negatively affects his or her right to receive SSI.  

Fortunately, ISM payments reduce but do not usually wholly eliminate a recipient’s right to receive SSI entirely. That is, ISM payments reduce the SSI check up to a presumed maximum value and no more (currently around $264). 

So long as at least $1 of SSI remains after subtracting for the ISM, the SSI beneficiary also remains categorically eligible to receive Medi-Cal health care benefits, sometimes more important than the SSI benefits.  

In sum, being a representative payee on behalf of an SSI or SSDI recipient is serious business. Know SSA’s rules, keep good book keeping, keep the money in a bank account in the recipient’s name, and, if the recipient receives other sources of income and assets make sure to notify SSA and know how such income and assets affects eligibility, as relevant.

The foregoing is not legal advice. Consult a qualified estate planning attorney for guidance. 

Dennis A. Fordham, attorney, is a State Bar-Certified Specialist in estate planning, probate and trust law. His office is at 870 S. Main St., Lakeport, Calif. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and 707-263-3235.  
Written by: Dennis Fordham

Space News: A decade after the release of ‘The Martian’ and a decade out from the world it envisions, a planetary scientist checks in on real-life Mars exploration

 

‘The Martian’ protagonist Mark Watney contemplates his ordeal. 20th Century Fox

Andy Weir’s bestselling story “The Martian” predicts that by 2035 NASA will have landed humans on Mars three times, perfected return-to-Earth flight systems and collaborated with the China National Space Administration. We are now 10 years past the Hollywood adaptation’s 2015 release and 10 years shy of its fictional timeline. At this midpoint, Mars exploration looks a bit different than how it was portrayed in “The Martian,” with both more discoveries and more controversy.

As a planetary geologist who works with NASA missions to study Mars, I follow exploration science and policy closely. In 2010, the U.S. National Space Policy set goals for human missions to Mars in the 2030s. But in 2017, the White House Space Policy Directive 1 shifted NASA’s focus toward returning first to the Moon under what would become the Artemis program.

Although concepts for crewed missions to Mars have gained popularity, NASA’s actual plans for landing humans on Mars remain fragile. Notably, over the last 10 years, it has been robotic, rather than crewed, missions that have propelled discovery and the human imagination forward.

A diagram showing the steps from lunar missions to Mars missions. The steps in the current scope are labeled 'Human presence on Moon,' 'Practice for Mars Exploration Demo' and 'Demo exploration framework on Mars.' The partial scope step is labeled 'Human presence on Mars.'
NASA’s 2023 Moon to Mars Strategy and Objectives Development document lays out the steps the agency was shooting for at the time, to go first to the Moon, and from there to Mars. NASA

Robotic discoveries

Since 2015, satellites and rovers have reshaped scientists’ understanding of Mars. They have revealed countless insights into how its climate has changed over time.

As Earth’s neighbor, climate shifts on Mars also reflect solar system processes affecting Earth at a time when life was first taking hold. Thus, Mars has become a focal point for investigating the age old questions of “where do we come from?” and “are we alone?”

The Opportunity, Curiosity and Perseverance rovers have driven dozens of miles studying layered rock formations that serve as a record of Mars’ past. By studying sedimentary layers – rock formations stacked like layers of a cake – planetary geologists have pieced together a vivid tale of environmental change that dwarfs what Earth is currently experiencing.

Mars was once a world of erupting volcanoes, glaciers, lakes and flowing rivers – an environment not unlike early Earth. Then its core cooled, its magnetic field faltered and its atmosphere drifted away. The planet’s exposed surface has retained signs of those processes ever since in the form of landscape patterns, sequences of layered sediment and mineral mixtures.

Rock shelves layered on top of each other, shown from above.
Layered sedimentary rocks exposed within the craters of Arabia Terra, Mars, recording ancient surface processes. Photo from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment. NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Arabia Terra

One focus of scientific investigation over the last 10 years is particularly relevant to the setting of “The Martian” but fails to receive mention in the story. To reach his best chance of survival, protagonist Mark Watney, played by Matt Damon, must cross a vast, dusty and crater-pocked region of Mars known as Arabia Terra.

In 2022 and 2023, I, along with colleagues at Northern Arizona University and Johns Hopkins University, published detailed analyses of the layered materials there using imagery from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey satellites.

By using infrared imagery and measuring the dimensions of surface features, we linked multiple layered deposits to the same episodes of formation and learned more about the widespread crumbling nature of the terrain seen there today. Because water tends to cement rock tightly together, that loose material indicates that around 3.5 billion years ago, that area had a drying climate.

To make the discussions about this area easier, we even worked with the International Astronomical Union to name a few previously unnamed craters that were mentioned in the story. For example, one that Watney would have driven right by is now named Kozova Crater, after a town in Ukraine.

More to explore

Despite rapid advances in Mars science, many unknowns remain. Scientists still aren’t sure of the precise ages, atmospheric conditions and possible signatures of life associated with each of the different rock types observed on the surface.

For instance, the Perseverance rover recently drilled into and analyzed a unique set of rocks hosting organic – that is, carbon-based – compounds. Organic compounds serve as the building blocks of life, but more detailed analysis is required to determine whether these specific rocks once hosted microbial life.

The in-development Mars Sample Return mission aims to address these basic outstanding questions by delivering the first-ever unaltered fragments of another world to Earth. The Perseverance rover is already caching rock and soil samples, including ones hosting organic compounds, in sealed tubes. A future lander will then need to pick up and launch the caches back to Earth.

Sampling Mars rocks could tell scientists more about the red planet’s past, and whether it could have hosted life.

Once home, researchers can examine these materials with instruments orders of magnitude more sensitive than anything that could be flown on a spacecraft. Scientists stand to learn far more about the habitability, geologic history and presence of any signs of life on Mars through the sample return campaign than by sending humans to the surface.

This perspective is why NASA, the European Space Agency and others have invested some US$30 billion in robotic Mars exploration since the 1960s. The payoff has been staggering: That work has triggered rapid technological advances in robotics, telecommunications and materials science. For example, Mars mission technology has led to better sutures for heart surgery and cars that can drive themselves.

It has also bolstered the status of NASA and the U.S. as bastions of modern exploration and technology; and it has inspired millions of students to take an interest in scientific fields.

The Perseverance rover and the Ingenuity helicopter on the Martian surface, with the rover's camera moving to look down at Ingenuity.
A selfie from NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover with the Ingenuity helicopter, taken with the rover’s extendable arm on April 6, 2021. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Calling the red planet home?

Colonizing Mars has a seductive appeal. It’s hard not to cheer for the indomitable human spirit while watching Watney battle dust storms, oxygen shortages and food scarcity over 140 million miles from rescue.

Much of the momentum toward colonizing Mars is now tied to SpaceX and its CEO Elon Musk, whose stated mission to make humanity a “multi-planetary species” has become a sort of rallying cry. But while Mars colonization is romantic on paper, it is extremely difficult to actually carry out, and many critics have questioned the viability of a Mars habitation as a refuge far from Earth.

Now, with NASA potentially facing a nearly 50% reduction to its science budget, the U.S. risks dissolving its planetary science and robotic operations portfolio altogether, including sample return.

Nonetheless, President Donald Trump and Musk have pushed for human space exploration to somehow continue to progress, despite those proposed cuts – effectively sidelining the robotic, science-driven programs that have underpinned all of Mars exploration to date.

Yet, it is these programs that have yielded humanity’s richest insights into the red planet and given both scientists and storytellers like Andy Weir the foundation to imagine what it must be like to stand on Mars’ surface at all.The Conversation

Ari Koeppel, Postdoctoral Scientist in Earth and Planetary Science, Dartmouth College

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Written by: Ari Koeppel, Dartmouth College

Sheriff’s office investigates death of kayaker

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Lake County Sheriff’s Office said it is investigating the death of a kayaker.

On Thursday at 9 a.m., sheriff’s deputies, including Marine Patrol units, responded to a report of an overturned kayak off the shore in Clearlake Oaks, the agency said.

With support from the North Shore Dive Team, they located the body of a 63-year-old man in the water, the sheriff’s office said.

The sheriff’s office report said the man found dead in the water was not wearing a life vest.

On Thursday, the sheriff’s office said it was still making notifications to the man’s family. At that point, the man’s name wasn’t being released publicly.

The sheriff’s office said a determination regarding the man’s cause of death is pending an autopsy.
Written by: LAKE COUNTY NEWS REPORTS

CHP unleashes six new K-9 teams to fight crime, including five trained to detect fentanyl

The California Highway Patrol’s newest class of K-9 teams that graduated on Thursday, May 22, 2025. Photo courtesy of the CHP.

The California Highway Patrol graduated six newly trained K-9 teams Thursday at its West Sacramento K-9 training facility, marking a significant step in bolstering public safety across the state.

After months of intensive training, five Belgian Malinois and one German Shepherd join their human partners on a mission to detect narcotics, explosives and criminal suspects.

This graduating class is the first to include canines trained to detect the scent of fentanyl from the beginning of their instruction — a proactive move to combat California’s opioid and fentanyl crisis.

“These new K-9 teams have demonstrated incredible dedication and skill throughout their training,” said CHP Commissioner Sean Duryee. “They’re not just protecting our communities—they’re enhancing our department’s ability to fight crime and save lives.

The new teams represent various regions across the state, with officers from the CHP’s Coastal, Golden Gate, Valley, Border, and Inland field divisions. These handlers bring between six and 17 years of departmental experience, ensuring seasoned leadership behind each K-9.

The class includes:

• Three Patrol and Narcotics Detection Canine, or PNDC, teams.
• One Patrol and Explosives Detection Canine, or PEDC, team.
• Two Narcotics Detection Canine, or NDC, teams.

The PNDC teams completed at least 440 hours of criminal apprehension and narcotics detection training, while the PEDC team completed 600 hours focused on criminal apprehension and explosives detection. The NDC teams completed a minimum of 240 hours of training.

All teams adhered to the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, or POST, guidelines and will continue to train at least eight hours each week to maintain peak readiness.

The CHP’s K-9 program now includes 50 active teams statewide:

• 34 PNDC teams.
• Nine PEDC teams.
• Five Explosives Detection K-9 teams.
• Two Narcotics Detection K-9 teams.

In 2024 alone, CHP K-9s helped seize nearly 823 pounds of fentanyl, showcasing their critical role in the fight against illegal drugs.

The CHP invites dedicated law enforcement professionals to explore a career as a K-9 handler. Learn more and apply at www.CHPMadeForMore.com to become part of an elite team serving and protecting California — four paws at a time.
Written by: CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROL

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