[nfbmi-talk] interesting analysis on wia afb

[joe harcz Comcast]

-----Original Message-----
From: Acbny-l [mailto:acbny-l-bounces at emissives.com] On Behalf Of lori
Sent: Wednesday, August 28, 2013 8:34 PM
To: acb of ny
Subject: [Acbny-l] Advocates Say Senate's VR Bill Needs Rehab!--and New
DOLRegs Pass Over Employees with the Most Significant Disabilities

FYI from the American Foundation for the Blind.
Lori
Subject: [leadership] Advocates Say Senate's VR Bill Needs Rehab!--and New
DOL Regs Pass Over Employees with the Most Significant Disabilities

Advocates Calling for Senate Workforce Bill's Rehabilitation!
Proposed Rehab Act Changes Deeply Divide Disability Community; And New Labor
Department Regulations Ignore Employees with the Most Significant
Disabilities

For further information, contact:

Mark Richert, Esq.
Director, Public Policy, AFB
(202) 469-6833
MRichert at afb.net

As part of an effort to proceed with congressional review and reapproval of
the Rehabilitation Act, reauthorization which has been pending for more than
a decade, a U.S. Senate Committee has voted to send a comprehensive
workforce investment measure to the Senate floor for consideration which, in
the view of many in the disability community, falls well short of the
general "do no harm" objective that all such legislation should honor.
Specifically, many in the disability community are expressing disbelief that
a bipartisan coalition of leading Senators would propose the kind of massive
bureaucratic reorganization that the legislation embodies without much
evidence of need or future program improvement. Yet, other loud voices in
the disability community are herolding the Senate Rehab Act proposal as a
long over due shakeup of a system in need of fundamental revitalization and
realignment.

The Senate Rehab Act proposal would essentially strip the U.S. Department of
Education of any role in the preparation of adults with disabilities for
entry or reentry into the workforce. The entirety of the functions now being
managed by the Rehabilitation Services Administration would be uprooted and
turned over to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). Additionally, independent
living services for people with disabilities would be migrated to the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Oddly, however, independent
living services for older individuals who are blind would be overseen by DOL
and not HHS. Both the name and the residence of the National Institute on
Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) would be changed to establish
NIDRR's mission within HHS and to broaden, or narrow depending on one's
point of view, NIDRR's scope to concern research supporting community
inclusion through independent living.

When pressed for the rationale for these major bureaucratic shifts, the
proposals champions have gone on record saying that past performance
indicates that the status quo is unacceptable, and yet, the reassignment of
these responsibilities is simply proposed in the hope that change will yield
future improvement. Certainly those within the larger independent living
movement are praising the reorganization inasmuch as they have been seeking
exactly this kind of restructuring in the hope of achieving more streamlined
control over independent living dollars. Still others, particularly those
concerned with services to older individuals who are blind, were able to
make the case to the bill's champions that the long bureaucratic association
of older blind services with rehabilitative services justifies their
continued linkage; this means, rather incongruously, that should the
legislation become law, not the Education Department but DOL will have
oversight and management responsibilities for  a program with an avowedly
non-employment-related purpose.

What is more, advocates for the repeal of section 14(c) of the Fair Labor
Standards Act, provisions which allow the payment of subminimum wages to
people with significant disabilities, are outraged by what they see as a
betrayal of that worthy cause and an attempt to build even stronger linkages
between 14(c) and the rehabilitation system. These advocates point to
section 511 of the Senate Rehab Act reauthorization bill as the source of
this grave concern, noting that section 511 would, for the first time,
articulate Rehab Act conditions which, when met, would permit payment of
subminimum wages. The supporters of section 511 counter that, should section
511 become law, it would in fact limit the ability of people with
disabilities to be placed in subminimum wage jobs by imposing strict
training and evaluation prerequisits that are not currently delineated for
state rehabilitation agencies.

Some advocates fear that one unintended consequence of the Senate proposal
to strip the Educaition Department of RSA, NIDRR, and the independent living
programs might be that the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) is
eventually folded into the Education Department's elementary and secondary
education bureaucracy, ultimately removing a Presidentially appointed
Assistant Secretary-level guardian of the nation's special education system.

In addition to these more controversial proposals:

* Section 7 - clarifies and strengthens the definitions of competitive
integrated employment, customized employment, and also revises the
definition of supported employment.

* Section 101 - strengthens Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) reporting
requirements so that VR providers must report the number of people provided
supported or customized employment services and the amount of time necessary
to attain an employment outcome, and requires that VR state plans include
strategies to implement pre- employment transition services.

* Section 102 - presumes that an individual with a significant disability is
eligible for and can benefit from VR services, requires that an
Individualized Plan for Employment (IPE) have a goal of competitive
integrated employment, and requires that an IPE be developed within 90 days.

* Section 110 - sets aside 15% of a state's vocational rehabilitation funds
to serve young people with disabilities who are transitioning from school to
competitive integrated employment, and also designates funds to provide
technical assistance and to support model demonstration projects on this
issue.

* Section 114 - establishes local and national pre-employment transition
coordinators to ensure that VR has an active role in special education
services to promote the goal of higher education or competitive integrated
employment for transitioning youth.

* Section 204 - promotes research to convert sheltered workshops into
locations for competitive integrated employment for people with disabilities
and to provide opportunities for people with significant disabilities to
work in integrated settings at competitive wages.

* Section 303 - authorizes activities to improve the transition of youth
with disabilities from school to post-secondary education or competitive
integrated employment.

* Section 621 et seq. - provides grants to assist States in developing
programs to provide supported employment services for youth to achieve an
employment outcome of competitive integrated employment, and requires states
to develop plans to expand supported employment opportunities for youth.

* Section 801 - permanently establishes the Office of Disability Employment
Policy, Services and Supports within the Department of Labor with the goal
of increasing competitive integrated employment and training opportunities
for people with disabilities.

* Section 803 - provides for a public education campaign about employment of
people with disabilities.

When the Senate reconvenes in September, it is expected to take up the
legislation. Advocates are strongly encouraged to let each of your U.S.
Senators know how you feel about the changes being proposed to America's
vocational rehabilitation and independent living services systems. What is
less certain is the extent to which the Senate's proposed approach, no
matter what it may ultimately look like coming out of the Senate, can
survive the rest of the legislative process. The House's approach to Rehab
Act reauthorization is dramatically different in content but enjoys even
less community support.

In a somewhat related matter, the Labor Department has just announced
release of the long-anticipated regulations to update and strengthen
implementation of section 503 of the Rehab Act which establishes an
affirmative action obligation on federal contractors. Advocates for these
new regulations had asked that DOL set two basic benchmarks for federal
contractors to meet, a 7% hiring goal for people with all kinds of
disabilities, and a 2% hiring goal for those with the most significant,
so-called targeted disabilities. Opponents of the new regulations,
principally the business community, have consistently maintained that these
new rules will not result in significant hiring of people with disabilities
but will merely impose vast record keeping and reporting obligations while
allowing individuals to game the system. In announcing the new final
regulations, DOL explicitly declined to establish a specific hiring goal for
those with the most significant disabilities. This failure to  retain a
distinct priority for employment of the most vulnerable and jobless within
the disability community has many advocates worried that these new rules, if
they will bear fruit at all, will only likely lead to federal contractors
hiring people with legally-recognizable disabilities but who do not require
significant accommodation or who have "hidable" disabilities. Clearly DOL
and proponents of the final regulations dismiss such fears.
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