[nfbmi-talk] Fw: even congress doesn't comply with ADA

[joe harcz Comcast]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: joe harcz Comcast 
To: blind democracy List 
Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2013 6:21 PM
Subject: even congress doesn't comply with ADA


>From Roll Call at:

http://www.rollcall.com/news/report_reveals_stretched_resources_in_the_office_of_compliance-227582-1.html?pos=hln

 

Report Reveals Stretched Resources in the Office of Compliance

• By

Hannah Hess

• Roll Call Staff

• Sept. 12, 2013, 4:21 p.m.

list end

 

Capitol Hill employees and visitors with disabilities face severe challenges when they need physical access to Library of Congress buildings, according

to the Office of Compliance’s annual report on the “State of the Congressional Workplace.”

 

None of the curb ramps on sidewalks surrounding the Madison, Jefferson and Adams buildings complied with American With Disabilities Act accessibility standards

during fiscal 2012 exterior inspections. Bringing them up to code would cost approximately $1.7 million.

 

But the steep slopes and wide joint spaces between squares of sidewalk outside the LOC only scratch the surface of the many structural barriers that exist

on Capitol Hill for people with disabilities. Other barriers include “manually-operated doors that require too great a force to open” and “doorways too

narrow to enable wheelchair access,” according to the report released Thursday.

 

The OOC is charged with enforcing a dozen workplace laws, including the ADA, on all legislative branch properties — 18 million square feet in the D.C. metro

area alone. Created when Congress passed the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995, the OOC ensures that the 30,000 legislative branch employees receive

many of the same rights and protections as employees in the private sector and the federal executive branch.

 

“The OOC has a broad mandate — advancing workplace rights, safety, health and public access in the legislative branch of the federal government — and minimal

resources,” Executive Director Barbara Sapin wrote in a statement included in the report.

 

With deficit cutting in mind, appropriators slashed the OOC budget by 6.7 percent in fiscal 2011 and 6.4 percent in fiscal 2012, leaving the agency with

limited inspection resources during the 112th Congress. As a result, the OOC’s Office of General Counsel “focused its ADA inspections on the areas that

would be of most concern to the public,” the authors explain. For the period of Oct. 1, 2011 through Sept. 30, 2012, that target was the LOC.

 

The reduced operating budget also forced the OOC to retool its Occupational Safety and Health Act inspections, shifting from a comprehensive check-up on

the Capitol campus to a “risk-based” survey of congressional workplaces focused on “hazards that pose the greatest risk of fatalities and injuries to workers

and building occupants,” including high-voltage areas, machine shops and boiler rooms.

 

Budget cuts forced the agency to reduce the number of days spent inspecting the landscaping operations of the Architect of the Capitol’s Capitol Grounds

Division. Those workers prune and trim a variety of plants across the AOC’s 30 acres of landscape beds and use equipment to mow, seed, fertilize, lime

and spray more than 90 acres of Capitol Hill turf-grass.

 

The OOC also had to scrap plans to inspect divisions of the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms and plans to perform a progress review of the Hazard Communication Programs

at the Library of Congress’ Packard Campus. Additionally, the OOC reports it was “unable to inspect Member offices or administrative spaces across the

campus.”

 

“At a certain point, you can’t do more with less,” OOC Deputy Director Scott Mulligan said Thursday.

 

Mulligan told CQ Roll Call that completing inspections to the standard of the federal executive branch and private industry is incredibly labor intensive

and has become cost-prohibitive for the OOC.

 

“What we’d really like to do and what serves the public best and the Capitol employees best is the more comprehensive wall-to-wall inspections, where you

are able to go from one side of the building to the other side of the building and look at many different program areas,” Mulligan said. “However, from

budget constraints, it’s not a fiscally-appropriate way to go about it now.”



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