[nfbmi-talk] peckham mentioned here and still a monolith

[joe harcz Comcast]

The recent Lansing State Journal article on Peckham didn't mention these issues, or the still unresolved RSA monitoring "cash match" agreements with Eaton and Ingham ISDs which eventually went to Peckham.

Oh yes and Beth White regional supervisor who signed those agreements used to work for Peckham.

And all we need to hear is how MCB Commissioner Schuck's daughter was treated in that program and given no Braille or adaptive aids to show the gross violations of everything right in regards to these monstrosities.

Moreover, this again is the so-called non-profit's tail wagging the federally funded VR program dog!

Oh, yes all of these NISH outfits oppose the waivers for minimum wages for severely disabled workers!

It is an outrage when their boards are made up of major corporate folks and their executives still receive with federal subsidies and grants and all sorts of inside wheeling and dealing way more than the average non-disabled person let alone people with disabilities will ever dream of.

These are opportunists of the highest order and have their coherts in the upper echelons of VR agencies including MCB's Cannon and Gwen McNeal.

Joe

Congress aims to fix job program for disabled

 

Published: Friday, November 17, 2006, 12:27 PM     Updated: Wednesday, August 15, 2007, 12:27 PM

Mark Friesen, The Oregonian

By

Mark Friesen, The Oregonian

 

Crackdown | The push for changes comes as violations surface at other nonprofit employers

 

By Bryan Denson, Jeff Kosseff and Les Zaitz

The Oregonian

November 17, 2006

 

Congress is moving to overhaul the nation's leading job program for Americans with severe disabilities amid an investigation of financial fraud at its top

contractor and the discovery of violations at other charities.

 

A U.S. Senate committee is drafting bipartisan legislation to overhaul the $2 billion-a-year Javits-Wagner-O'Day program, while the tiny government agency

that oversees it has already enacted some reforms and intends to propose tougher measures in coming months to protect the program's 48,000 workers and

taxpayers from abuses.

 

The changes follow an investigation by The Oregonian into the program, which was designed to create jobs for blind and severely disabled workers. The newspaper

in March reported skyrocketing executive pay at major charities in the program at the same time they increasingly hired workers with only mild disabilities

or none at all.

 

Since then, the former president of a Texas charity that was the federal program's top contractor is under criminal investigation. His nonprofit has sued

him for $30 million, alleging embezzlement.

 

The presidentially appointed committee that oversees the program has adopted a new strategic plan that calls for accountability in the wake of the problems.

It also launched audits to determine whether other big charity contractors were using enough workers with severe disabilities to qualify for the government

contracts.

 

Under the 35-year-old program, charities can get guaranteed contracts to provide such things as janitorial or food services, military clothing or other

goods to federal agencies. To be eligible, 75 percent of the labor must be performed by people with severe disabilities. More than 600 nonprofits from

Oregon to Maine participate.

 

The oversight panel for the program, now being renamed AbilityOne, elected two people with disabilities to its top leadership slots.

 

"This program is now under public scrutiny," said Jim Omvig, the new vice-chairman, who is blind. "The press is watching. That's going to mean Congress

is watching more closely than it ever has."

 

In Congress, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., the incoming chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said he intends to introduce

reform legislation next year. The bipartisan measure would be an extension of a proposal that the outgoing chairman, Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., has been working

on for more than a year.

 

Series uncovers problems

 

The bulk of changes came after publication of The Oregonian's two-part series showing how surges in military contracts had doubled program sales in recent

years. Chief executives at the top 50 contractors had seen their pay and benefits increase an average 57 percent to $248,287. Yet many workers at their

nonprofits earned less than the minimum wage.

 

The stories also showed how workers with mild or nonexistent disabilities --such as nasal polyps and poor English --got jobs intended for people with severe

disabilities, such as cerebral palsy and mental retardation.

 

The program's two-year strategic plan, adopted in October, cites "increasing emphasis on governance, effective stewardship, and accountability, resulting

from negative media attention and critical scrutiny (to some extent warranted). . . . Both policy change and remedial public relations are necessary."

 

For years, the agency has shared oversight with two nonprofit trade associations, one for blind workshops and a far larger group called NISH, formerly known

as the National Industries for the Severely Handicapped. The groups take a commission on contracts and monitor disability compliance, a potential conflict

of interest.

 

Recently, the program's board voted to reduce maximum commissions paid to the groups. And NISH adopted new compliance practices, saying it would visit the

top 25 producing nonprofits annually instead of every three years and will increase the volume of records it reviews to verify the percentage of workers

who have severe disabilities.

 

After problems with disability ratios emerged at the biggest contractor in El Paso, the program dispatched auditors to other top contractors.

 

A Kentucky nonprofit was for a time the program's second largest contractor with $100 million in business last year. In April, officials suspended Southeastern

Kentucky Rehabilitation Industries after company officials acknowledged that only 54 percent of its federal contract work was performed by people with

severe disabilities.

 

Tom Fields, the charity's chief executive, said last week that his company has quit making chemical protective suits for the military under the program

because the job proved "too complex for our work force."

 

Fields' board of directors voted in recent months to reorganize the charity into two nonprofits and hired consultants to help document the disabilities

of its workers. The company's current work force of nearly 600 people with severe disabilities performs 78 percent of the work on federal contracts, Fields

said.

 

Fields said he recently imposed a companywide salary cap of $125,000. Many in Southeastern Kentucky criticized the charity after The Oregonian reported

Fields' pay and benefits in 2004 totaled nearly $500,000.

 

Michigan charity broke rules

 

The program also sanctioned another of its leading nonprofits, Peckham Vocational Industries, a Lansing, Mich., charity that projects $57 million in apparel

revenues this year.

 

Peckham acknowledged violating rules in recent years by subcontracting production of military underwear. The move took 146,588 labor hours away from workers

with severe disabilities, program officials calculated. Peckham has since ended the subcontract, instituted in-house training and hired a corporate lawyer

to assist in contract reviews.

 

This summer, Advocacy and Resources Corporation, a Tennessee charity that packaged cooking oil and other food for the government, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Its former chief executive, Terri McRae, partly blamed ARC's collapse on The Oregonian's reports that she and Chief Operating Officer Tim Durm had together

earned pay and benefits totaling more than $1 million in 2004.

 

McRae contends that news of their pay, which included retirement bonuses, prompted Department of Agriculture officials to contest the charity's bid for

a higher cooking oil price. She said an impasse in negotiations caused credit problems, layoffs and the forced resignations of her and Durm.

 

A group of investors recently put down $1 million in hopes of keeping ARC afloat, according to Michael E. Collins, a Nashville lawyer who is the nonprofit's

federal bankruptcy trustee. The nonprofit has put more than a dozen people back to work in hopes of regaining some of its former food contracts.

 

"It will be a leaner, meaner ARC," said Michael Barrett, a businessman helping to restore the nonprofit. Barrett, who uses a wheelchair, said he hopes to

provide others with severe disabilities a chance to work.

 

Monitoring stepped up

 

For the first time in five years, the program's oversight committee requested a budget increase from the Bush administration and received approval for $372,000

to hire compliance staff. The agency also drafted a guidebook that instructs charities how to document the disabling conditions that make them eligible

for the program.

 

"We're really going to tighten that up and have a much closer monitoring mechanism," said Omvig, the committee's vice-chairman.

 

In January, the agency plans to issue new nonprofit governance rules based on findings of coast-to-coast hearings held earlier this year that focused on

executive compensation limits, accuracy of their financial reports, board of director membership and conflict of interest policy.

 

The timetable for congressional action is unclear. The Senate committee last held a hearing about the program in October 2005 under Enzi's chairmanship.

With Democrats taking over control of the Senate, Kennedy will be in charge.

 

Earlier, his staff issued a statement saying there is "a bipartisan agreement, that is supported by the advocacy community, that this program needs to be

revamped and updated."

 

On Thursday, Kennedy reiterated in an interview that he remains committed to reforms.

 

"We'll get to it," he said.

 

Bryan Denson: 503-294-7614;

bryandenson at news.oregonian.com