[NFBMT] From the Disability Rights Newsletter

Tue Jun 5 21:08:40 UTC 2018

I am in agreement with you. We need to be supportive of the agency and
increasing expectations for blind people in our state while realizing that
services will be different at least in the near future.

-----Original Message-----
From: NFBMT <nfbmt-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Jim Marks via NFBMT
Sent: Monday, June 04, 2018 12:37 PM
To: 'NFB of Montana Discussion List' <nfbmt at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Jim Marks <blind.grizzly at gmail.com>
Subject: [NFBMT] From the Disability Rights Newsletter

Hi All,

Joy gave me permission to share the following.  What you find below are my
thoughts in response to a Disability Rights Montana newsletter article
regarding the budget crisis of Montana Vocational Rehabilitation and Blind
Services.  My response comes first followed by the original DRM article.
Here you go.

The public vocational rehabilitation program includes a mandate on how to
handle resource problems.  It's called the Order of Selection.  It means
that, when funding or human resources are insufficient to keep up with
demand, state VR agencies must serve those with the most significant
disabilities first.  The Order is a value statement, that is, those with the
most significant disabilities get the priority.  Congress put the Order into
law to keep state VR agencies from shifting their resources to clients with
disabilities that have relatively less affect on getting, keeping, and
advancing in employment.  That's because one of the longest-lived criticisms
of state VR agencies is that they tend to ignore those with the most
significant disabilities because they cost more and are harder to assist.
You may have heard of "creaming," which is when state VR agencies put their
primary efforts into easy, quick VR plans in order to boost the employment
outcome statistics.  National public VR policy over the decades has always
tried to emphasize serving those with the greatest impediments to
employment, and state VR agencies have always drifted towards grabbing the
low-hanging fruit.

When Congress updated national public VR policy in the adoption of the
Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014 (WIOA), it re-emphasized
the value of serving those with the most significant disabilities first.
Actually, the WIOA brought 100 changes to VR, and the bulk of those changes
are revolutionary.  For example, the souped-up emphasis on competitive
integrated employment, that is, work in the community for comparable wages
and opportunities, is all about serving those with the most significant
disabilities better than in the past.  That's because the former national
pattern was to place those with the most significant disabilities into
sheltered workshops, crews, and sub-minimum wages.  The WIOA raised
expectations, and those expectations come with a cost because, as already
mentioned, it costs more to serve those with the most significant
disabilities well.

Montana had no choice other than to implement its Order.  For one thing,
Montana experienced a huge leap in the numbers of clients with the most
significant disabilities.  Montana also did extraordinarily well with
improving services to youth.  The Order is lasting longer than expected
because Montana should have implemented the Order sooner than it did.
Montana did not put the Order into place soon enough because it was trying
to serve everyone and because the full fiscal cost of implementing the WIOA
changes was far greater than anyone predicted.  Nonetheless, it's a sad
situation.  Bottom line is that Montana does not have enough money to do its
job for everyone under the WIOA mandates.  The staff at MT Vocational
Rehabilitation and Blind Services are doing the best they can with a lousy
situation.  They are very good people, and the NFB-MT should extend all the
support we can to help them weather the storm of not having enough money to
do everything they used to do.  At the same time, the NFB-MT should also
endorse the WIOA changes for they will make a huge difference for many
individuals formerly served very poorly.  It's good that Disability Rights
Montana is watchdogging the state agency, but it's very important to realize
there are no bad guys here.  What is going on involves raising expectations
for those with the most significant disabilities, and that's not only a
solid value; it's a legal requirement.  I just wish the agony and pain of so
much change was not so hard to bear.  That's why I think the NFB-MT should
ally with VR professionals and with the modern values in national public VR
policies.  It's going to get better, but future VR services will be
remarkably different from earlier times.  

Jim Marks

 <mailto:Blind.grizzly at gmail.com> Blind.grizzly at gmail.com

(406) 438-1421

From: BRESLAUERS [mailto:breslauerj at gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, June 01, 2018 12:02 PM
To: marks <blind.grizzly at gmail.com <mailto:blind.grizzly at gmail.com> >
Subject: From the Disability Rights Newsletter

The Montana Vocational Rehabilitation Council now has 9 new members. Our
staff conducted a training of these new members about the work that
Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) staff performs, as well as the duties of the
Council. This training was just prior to the Council's May 2018 meeting. At
this meeting, the Council members asked probing questions about the budget
situation, the supplemental appropriation authority for vocational
rehabilitation that the Governor requested, waiting lists, client
satisfaction surveys and staff issues. We learned that even with the
supplemental appropriation authority, VR does not know when they will be
able to reopen any categories of eligibility for services. VR has not taken
any new clients since March of 2017 when it closed all of its categories.
We continue to be quite concerned about this situation as well as the list
of people with disabilities who have been waiting for more than a year for
services to help them obtain, retain or regain employment.

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