[nfbwatlk] Report on Yesterday's Meeting with Staff of GovernorGregoire

[Robert Sellers]

Thanks, Mike.

Some things never seem to change. The attitude and thinking of the Govenor's
office and the arguments for the benefits of a separate agency providing
services to the blind are like echos from the 1970's. 

If we lose this fight it will be a long time before we  have another
separate agency serving the blind. 

Was there any discussion about the status or future of WSSB? 

Bob Sellers
Message-----
From: nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Mike Freeman
Sent: Tuesday, January 05, 2010 7:38 PM
To: NFB of Washington Talk Mailing List
Subject: [nfbwatlk] Report on Yesterday's Meeting with Staff of
GovernorGregoire

Fellow Federationists:

Yesterday, Cindy van Winkle, President of the State Rehabilitation Council
(SRC) for the Department of Services for the Blind (DSB), Denise Colley,
President of the Washington Council of the Blind (WCB) and I met with three
members of Governor Gregoire's staff involved in efforts to streamline state
government and more efficiently spend the state's money. The staff present
were: Kathleen Drew, Executive Policy Advisor, Sustainability, State
Government, Reform, Kelly Wicker, Policy Analyst, Government Reform & Kari
Burrell, Executive Policy Advisor, Human Services. The meeting lasted about
an hour.

It was obvious throughout the meeting that the "bean-counter" mentality
holds sway in the Governor's office. The staff apparently views all human
services as interchangeable widgets that can be mixed and matched with no
diminution of the level or quality of services to those being served by
agency reorganization. Put another way, it was clear that the Governor's
staff had virtually no concept that rehabilitating the blind is a
specialized endeavor involving a unique mix of instruction in the skills of
blindness both to clients and their famlies and teaching the clients to cope
with the attitudes, erroneous stereotypes and misconceptions about blindness
held by society. In the view of the staff, since the umbrella agency of the
Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) provides human services to
many Washingtonians (including those provided by the general rehabilitation
agency, the Department of Vocational Rehabilitation, DVR), it would be a
good fit for DSB. It had not occurred to the staff that DSB might have
special accounting expertise in making best use of vocational rehabilitation
funds from the Federal Government (Section 110 moneys) and Social Security
reimbursements. In fact, the staff maintained that even were the blindness
groups successful in protecting the separate agency status of DSB,
accounting functions would undoubtedly be ordered to be done by the general
accounting agency for the state.

In investigating what organizational structure might be contemplated for
DSB, the staff looked at states similar in size/population to Washington but
admitted that it had not considered how well services for the blind were
rendered by these other states with combined services nor were the consumer
groups of the blind in those states consulted to ascertain what the blind
themselves thought of their vocational rehabilitation services.

Staff would be interested in statistics re level of services ans
satisfaction of clients with such services. I told them that we (both
consumer organizations) had a wealth of anecdotal evidence that conglomerate
agencies did not serve the blind adequately but that meaningful statistics
might be hard to come by because (1) we, the blind, are a small minority and
coming up with statistically valid conclusions is thus problematic and (2)
how could one easily quantify "good services". (Yes, one can use closures as
a measure but this does not always accurately reflect good service.) I did
not mention this but, to some degree, efining "good services" is sort of
like the late Justice Potter Stuart's definition of pornography: "I can't
define it but I know it when I see it!"

Staff asked the three of us if we would meet with the head of DSHS to
strategize how to meet our objections while going ahead with the
reorganization. I said that we would always talk but that we would be
extraordinarily difficult to convince and that we would see everyone in the
legislative arena.

It boggles my mind that it never occured to staff to actually ask the blind
themselves whether a reorganization was or could be made to work. It is
obvious to me that appearances (that is, the structure of government on an
agency organization chart) matters to staff almost more than functionality
of said agencies. Although I did not state it this baldly, it would appear
that in approaching the state legislature, the form of government matters
almost more than the substance. I hate to make such a harsh judgment but it
is hard not to come to such a conclusion.

So where to we go from here? WE can try to come up with anecdotal
information regarding poor VR services under conglomerate agencies. Barring
a miracle, however, I believe that we must now mobilize ourselves for the
legislative session. I suspect that any reorganization will go through the
"Government Operations" committees in the Senate and House. I will ascertain
who chairs these committees in the next day or two and we should start
making contacts. WE should also begin to contact our local legislators,
making it clear that while DSB is not perfect, its current structure and
placement within state government should not be altered and that the blind
of Washington are united in this view.

Stay tuned.

Michael Freeman, President
National Federation of the Blind of Washington
_______________________________________________
nfbwatlk mailing list
nfbwatlk at nfbnet.org
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfbwatlk_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
nfbwatlk:
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nfbwatlk_nfbnet.org/robertsellers500%4
0comcast.net