[nfbmi-talk] what has changed w peckham, new horizons, etc?

[joe harcz Comcast]

>From 2007

 

What has changed in relation to New Horizons, Peckham, et al here in Michigan?



The conflicts of interest are clear especially in regards to state actors dealing with the state and federal purse including Gwen McNeal, East Region Supervisor of MCB and the hacks at MRS too for that matter.

 

 

Joe

 

 

 

Source:

http://blog.oregonlive.com/oregonianspecial/2007/01/gao_jobs_act_needs_oversight.html

 

GAO: Jobs act needs oversight | OregonLive.com

 

GAO Jobs act needs oversight

 

Published: Tuesday, January 30, 2007, 12:28 PM     Updated: Wednesday, August 15, 2007, 12:28 PM

Mark Friesen, The Oregonian

By

Mark Friesen, The Oregonian

Follow

 

Disabled workers | The findings include poor monitoring and conflicts of interest

 

By Bryan Denson

The Oregonian

January 30, 2007

 

A federal inspection of the government's biggest work program for Americans with severe disabilities found conflicts of interest, uneven oversight and spotty

documentation of the medical records that qualify workers for the jobs.

 

The report by the Government Accountability Office recommended stronger monitoring and more clarity about the sort of disabilities that qualify for the

Javits-Wagner-O'Day program, which spends $2.3 billion a year to provide federal contracts to charities that are supposed to hire and train people with

severe disabilities.

 

Problems outlined by the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, mirrored those uncovered last year in a series of reports published in The Oregonian.

 

The newspaper investigated consequences of the program's rapid growth --fueled mainly by rising military contracts --and showed that some of the largest

nonprofits involved were boosting executive paychecks while increasingly hiring workers with mild or nonexistent disabilities.

 

The government allowed two nonprofit associations to monitor and enforce the program's key regulation: Three-fourths of the labor must be performed by workers

who are blind or severely disabled.

 

The problem with that arrangement, the newspaper reported and GAO affirmed Monday, is that the same associations also arrange contracts for the 600-plus

charities they represent, earning commissions for their efforts.

 

"It's a conflict of interest in basic internal controls," Shelia D. Drake, an assistant director for GAO, said in an interview.

 

The GAO began looking into the program early last year after The Oregonian reported that average executive pay at the biggest charities had grown more than

30 percent in three years. The U.S. Senate Health Labor and Pensions Committee held a hearing highlighting the issue and other employment problems for

disabled Americans.

 

Sens. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., have said they are looking at possible reforms to the Javits-Wagner-O'Day program and Randolph-Sheppard,

another jobs program for the blind.

 

The 1971 Javits-Wagner-O'Day Act sets aside contracts for a wide variety of government goods and services to nonprofits that predominately employ workers

who are blind or severely disabled.

 

The GAO called for stronger oversight by the tiny government agency, called the Committee for Purchase from People Who Are Blind or Severely Disabled, which

administers the program.

 

Leon A. Wilson, the agency's executive director, said in a Jan. 5 letter responding to the GAO that his committee is moving to eliminate the financial conflict

of interest and recommend an alternative monitoring scheme.

 

The committee is in the final stages of drafting a new manual to give nonprofits more detailed guidance about what constitutes a severe disability and about

how to document it, Wilson said.

 

The issue was central to a scandal last year at an El Paso, Texas, charity that was the program's biggest contractor. The Oregonian reported last March

that the nonprofit had secured more than $1 billion in military apparel contracts while routinely hiring workers whose only listed disability amounted

to poor or nonexistent English.

 

The company's chief executive, Robert E. "Bob" Jones, was dismissed and is now the subject of a federal criminal investigation. Jones last month agreed

to repay $13 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that he defrauded the charity by knowingly hiring thousands of workers who did not qualify as severely

disabled.

 

Auditors last year said less than 8 percent of the charity's labor came from workers with severe disabilities.

 

Investigators from the GAO visited 13 nonprofits affiliated with the program in four states --Arizona, Kansas, New York and North Carolina --as part of

a broader audit of four federal work programs for the disabled.

 

They looked through the medical files of 137 Javits-Wagner-O'Day workers and found that 11 percent lacked enough medical documentation to qualify them for

the taxpayer-financed jobs.

 

Investigators found "instances where it was unclear in the medical documentation that the disability was severe, such as a case in which the individual

was diabetic, with no indicated symptoms, and another in which the individual was diagnosed as having an aggressive personality," the report said.

 

The GAO laid partial blame on the Committee for Purchase, saying the agency hasn't adequately clarified conditions that would allow someone, such as a recovering

alcoholic, to qualify for a job in the program.

 

Bryan Denson: 503.294-7614;

bryandenson at news.oregonian.com