[Nfbmt] Fwd: Public Hearing Announcement - Order of Selection

[Jim Marks]

Hi All,

The public hearing announcement is a public document and may be 
forwarded to anyone.  The confidentiality warning at the bottom of the 
announcement is a mistake and should not have been included.

The NFB-MT probably will want to pay more attention to the annual spring 
public hearing.  Thats when BLVS asks for public input about our state 
plans and services.  That hearing will occur in April.

The January public hearing on order of selection gives the public an 
opportunity to comment on Vocational Rehabilitation and Blind Services 
intent to implement an order of selection.  An Order involves putting 
new applicants for vocational rehabilitation programs on a waiting list. 
  It does not affect those already being served, only new applicants 
after the Order is officially implemented.

New applicants to BLVS may end up on a waiting list depending on how 
expansive the waiting list is.  When someone applies for vocational 
rehabilitation services, the Counselor makes a professional judgement 
based on the functional limitations to employment encountered by the 
client.  We have three categories:  Most significant, significant, and 
disability.  An Order deals with resource shortages, that is, when voc 
rehab doesn't have enough money or staff to serve everyone, those 
resources are to go to those with the most significant disabilities 
first.  It is possible to close all three categores, but this is 
unlikely in Montana because our resource shortages are not that severe. 
  We may, however, close two of the three categories, although closing 
one is the most likely.  All depends on our resource situation.

The Order could affect blind people who are applying for vocational 
rehabilitation services depending on their circumstances.  Most BLVS 
clients are placed in the most significant or signficant categories, but 
some also go into the disability category.  Those on the Order's waiting 
lists will be reopened for services when the resource situation improves.

The causes of the resource sshortage are many.  Post-secondary education 
costs are on the rise, as are medical costs for assessment and 
treatment.  Truth is, VRB Services ends up acting like an insurance 
company because many of our clients have no health insurance coverage. 
We've also experienced increased personnel costs due to raises and 
addition of staff members.  And the cost of everything is on the rise 
from information technology to everyday expenses.  Lastly, we are 
serving more people than ever before.  The end result is that we just 
don't have enough funding to do it all, and the law requires us to 
implement an Order to deal with it.

One last point is that those not on the waiting list may expect and get 
the same quality and quantity of services.  We will not become overly 
fiscally conservative because the Order answers the resource problems. 
Independent Living for the Older Blind and Visual Services Medical, two 
other BLVS programs, are not affected by the Order.  The Order applies 
only to vocational rehabilitation.  However, those two programs do not 
have enough resources all the time, and waiting for services for Older 
Blind and Visual Services Medical is nothing new.

Hope this gives everyone more context.  I am writing this e-mail in my 
role as the Administrator of the Disability Employment and Transitions 
Division of the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services. 
  BLVS is one of the programs in the Division.

Best!


Jim Marks
blind.grizzly at gmail.com