[Nfbf-l] Fwd: Advocates Say Senate's VR Bill Needs Rehab!--and New DOL Regs Pass Over Employees with the Most Significant Disabilities

[Carlos Montas]

Good afternoon for your information.

Sent from my iPhone

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "AFB DirectConnect" <MRichert at afb.net>
> Date: August 28, 2013, 5:25:46 PM EDT
> To: "AFB Subscriber" <afbweb at afb.net>
> Subject: Advocates Say Senate's VR Bill Needs Rehab!--and New DOL Regs Pass Over Employees with the Most Significant Disabilities
> 
> 
> 
>  
> Advocates Calling for Senate Workforce Bill's Rehabilitation!
> Proposed Rehab Act Changes Deeply Divide Disability Community;
> And New Labor Department Regulations Ignore Employees with the Most Significant Disabilities
> 
> 
> For further information, contact: 
> 
> Mark Richert, Esq.
> Director, Public Policy, AFB
> (202) 469-6833
> MRichert at afb.net 
> 
> As part of an effort to proceed with congressional review and reapproval of the Rehabilitation Act, reauthorization which has been pending for more than a decade, a U.S. Senate Committee has voted to send a comprehensive workforce investment measure to the Senate floor for consideration which, in the view of many in the disability community, falls well short of the general "do no harm" objective that all such legislation should honor. Specifically, many in the disability community are expressing disbelief that a bipartisan coalition of leading Senators would propose the kind of massive bureaucratic reorganization that the legislation embodies without much evidence of need or future program improvement. Yet, other loud voices in the disability community are herolding the Senate Rehab Act proposal as a long over due shakeup of a system in need of fundamental revitalization and realignment.
> 
> The Senate Rehab Act proposal would essentially strip the U.S. Department of Education of any role in the preparation of adults with disabilities for entry or reentry into the workforce. The entirety of the functions now being managed by the Rehabilitation Services Administration would be uprooted and turned over to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). Additionally, independent living services for people with disabilities would be migrated to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Oddly, however, independent living services for older individuals who are blind would be overseen by DOL and not HHS. Both the name and the residence of the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) would be changed to establish NIDRR's mission within HHS and to broaden, or narrow depending on one's point of view, NIDRR's scope to concern research supporting community inclusion through independent living.
> 
> When pressed for the rationale for these major bureaucratic shifts, the proposals champions have gone on record saying that past performance indicates that the status quo is unacceptable, and yet, the reassignment of these responsibilities is simply proposed in the hope that change will yield future improvement. Certainly those within the larger independent living movement are praising the reorganization inasmuch as they have been seeking exactly this kind of restructuring in the hope of achieving more streamlined control over independent living dollars. Still others, particularly those concerned with services to older individuals who are blind, were able to make the case to the bill's champions that the long bureaucratic association of older blind services with rehabilitative services justifies their continued linkage; this means, rather incongruously, that should the legislation become law, not the Education Department but DOL will have oversight and management responsibilities for a program with an avowedly non-employment-related purpose.
> 
> What is more, advocates for the repeal of section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, provisions which allow the payment of subminimum wages to people with significant disabilities, are outraged by what they see as a betrayal of that worthy cause and an attempt to build even stronger linkages between 14(c) and the rehabilitation system. These advocates point to section 511 of the Senate Rehab Act reauthorization bill as the source of this grave concern, noting that section 511 would, for the first time, articulate Rehab Act conditions which, when met, would permit payment of subminimum wages. The supporters of section 511 counter that, should section 511 become law, it would in fact limit the ability of people with disabilities to be placed in subminimum wage jobs by imposing strict training and evaluation prerequisits that are not currently delineated for state rehabilitation agencies.
> 
> Some advocates fear that one unintended consequence of the Senate proposal to strip the Educaition Department of RSA, NIDRR, and the independent living programs might be that the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) is eventually folded into the Education Department's elementary and secondary education bureaucracy, ultimately removing a Presidentially appointed Assistant Secretary-level guardian of the nation's special education system.
> 
> In addition to these more controversial proposals:
> 
> * Section 7 - clarifies and strengthens the definitions of competitive integrated employment, customized employment, and also revises the definition of supported employment.
> 
> * Section 101 - strengthens Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) reporting requirements so that VR providers must report the number of people provided supported or customized employment services and the amount of time necessary to attain an employment outcome, and requires that VR state plans include strategies to implement pre- employment transition services.
> 
> * Section 102 - presumes that an individual with a significant disability is eligible for and can benefit from VR services, requires that an Individualized Plan for Employment (IPE) have a goal of competitive integrated employment, and requires that an IPE be developed within 90 days.
> 
> * Section 110 - sets aside 15% of a state's vocational rehabilitation funds to serve young people with disabilities who are transitioning from school to competitive integrated employment, and also designates funds to provide technical assistance and to support model demonstration projects on this issue.
> 
> * Section 114 - establishes local and national pre-employment transition coordinators to ensure that VR has an active role in special education services to promote the goal of higher education or competitive integrated employment for transitioning youth.
> 
> * Section 204 - promotes research to convert sheltered workshops into locations for competitive integrated employment for people with disabilities and to provide opportunities for people with significant disabilities to work in integrated settings at competitive wages.
> 
> * Section 303 - authorizes activities to improve the transition of youth with disabilities from school to post-secondary education or competitive integrated employment.
> 
> * Section 621 et seq. - provides grants to assist States in developing programs to provide supported employment services for youth to achieve an employment outcome of competitive integrated employment, and requires states to develop plans to expand supported employment opportunities for youth.
> 
> * Section 801 - permanently establishes the Office of Disability Employment Policy, Services and Supports within the Department of Labor with the goal of increasing competitive integrated employment and training opportunities for people with disabilities.
> 
> * Section 803 - provides for a public education campaign about employment of people with disabilities.
> 
> When the Senate reconvenes in September, it is expected to take up the legislation. Advocates are strongly encouraged to let each of your U.S. Senators know how you feel about the changes being proposed to America's vocational rehabilitation and independent living services systems. What is less certain is the extent to which the Senate's proposed approach, no matter what it may ultimately look like coming out of the Senate, can survive the rest of the legislative process. The House's approach to Rehab Act reauthorization is dramatically different in content but enjoys even less community support.
> 
> In a somewhat related matter, the Labor Department has just announced release of the long-anticipated regulations to update and strengthen implementation of section 503 of the Rehab Act which establishes an affirmative action obligation on federal contractors. Advocates for these new regulations had asked that DOL set two basic benchmarks for federal contractors to meet, a 7% hiring goal for people with all kinds of disabilities, and a 2% hiring goal for those with the most significant, so-called targeted disabilities. Opponents of the new regulations, principally the business community, have consistently maintained that these new rules will not result in significant hiring of people with disabilities but will merely impose vast record keeping and reporting obligations while allowing individuals to game the system. In announcing the new final regulations, DOL explicitly declined to establish a specific hiring goal for those with the most significant disabilities. This failure to retain a distinct priority for employment of the most vulnerable and jobless within the disability community has many advocates worried that these new rules, if they will bear fruit at all, will only likely lead to federal contractors hiring people with legally-recognizable disabilities but who do not require significant accommodation or who have "hidable" disabilities. Clearly DOL and proponents of the final regulations dismiss such fears.
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