It's sensory for sure. NO way is it anything else. I can walk, talk, and think. I believe I'm emotionally stable as well. I mean this as no slight to those who might have emotional disabilities.
On 11/12/2012 9:24 PM, Easy Talk wrote:
Well if that happens, it is about time. I am actually suppressed the
article did get published and I know for a fact the reporter was given
much more information and her editor made her trim it down but maybe
this will be the first of many. As the article said it isn't only DBS
and it also refers to how little the public knows about DBS so you can
imagine how rampent the problem is.
The Faasby members don't have to go through competitive bidding since
they are non profits that are exempt by state statute for agencies
that provide services to the mentally and physically disabled. I
guess the state considers people who are blind either mentally or
physically disabled which pisses me off. I might have a sensory
disability but it isn't mental or physical so how does the FAASB
members qualify for the exemption.
So what do you all think, Is blindness physical or sensory.
.
Robert
----- Original Message -----
*From:* Daniel Ben Moshe <mailto:danielbenmoshe1@xxxxxxxxx>
*To:* tabi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:tabi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Sent:* Monday, November 12, 2012 7:29 PM
*Subject:* [tabi] Re: Fw: article in the Tampa Bay Times on DBS
Oh boy sounds like the fat is going to be in the fire here
soon. If this story grows legs somebody is in big trouble. I think
it's going to get real ugly I'LL give this a few months.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* tabi-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:tabi-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
[mailto:tabi-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] *On Behalf Of *Easy Talk
*Sent:* Monday, November 12, 2012 4:21 PM
*To:* tabi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:tabi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Subject:* [tabi] Fw: article in the Tampa Bay Times on DBS
----- Original Message -----
*From:* Easy Talk <mailto:Easytalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*To:* fcb-l@xxxxxxx <mailto:fcb-l@xxxxxxx>
*Sent:* Monday, November 12, 2012 4:19 PM
*Subject:* article in the Tampa Bay Times on DBS
TALLAHASSEE --- Looking for a lesson in how government outsourcing
is working in Florida?
Try this: Organizations that win business with the little-known
state Division of
Blind Services can bill taxpayers $58 an hour for travel time to
meet with a blind
person. The same organizations can charge taxpayers $2,000 or more
to place one phone
call.
If the deal sounds good for the groups that win the no-bid state
contracts, it's
because it is.
Why? Because the private third-party vendors largely dictate the
terms and receive
little oversight, former Division of Blind Services employees say.
The state agency with a $52 million budget has largely privatized
its support programs
as a way to save money and better serve a group of 11,000
Floridians in need, state
officials say.
But the results are mixed, at best.
Employee complaints about the Division of Blind Services have
spawned at least three
government investigations and four whistle-blower lawsuits, all
alleging waste on
some scale.
Blind Services director Joyce Hildreth, who worked at a group that
received state
contracts before joining the state agency in 2008, defends the
division. Under her
leadership, she says, the division has repaired fragmented
relationships with vendors
while implementing stricter penalties for nonperforming providers.
Hildreth, 65,
earns $119,000.
"My expectation of both (the vendors) and the division staff is
that they will work
together to the benefit of the client," she said.
The record, however, isn't so clear-cut.
. . .
An annual summer meeting between the state and 16 Division of
Blind Services providers
offers a window into the uneven influence the groups have over an
agency that is
supposed to oversee them.
Their joint mission is to line up ways to help blind Floridians
manage their disability
from infancy to old age. The division and its outsourced vendors
train blind people
for everyday tasks from using a cane to pouring water without
spilling. The division
also operates a program to help blind people find jobs.
At the meeting, state workers and the vendors appear to be
business partners, according
to several current and former employees who have attended. But the
vendors decide
the performance criteria and penalties.
"I tried to get (the vendors) to suggest how we could get a
mechanism in place so
we don't feed their coffers and have poor service," said Jerry
Edwards, a former
contract manager who was fired in 2010 after he criticized the
"lack of meat" in
the contracts. "The attitude, from Joyce and from (the vendors) of
not wanting to
go there, was a real problem."
Signs of waste are everywhere, former employees Edwards, Julius
Kimmie, Robert Irons
and Mary Ellen Ottman said in separate interviews.
Although the law requires state workers to monitor all 16
providers through yearly
unscheduled visits, the state only visited one vendor last year,
documents show.
Hildreth said the agency monitors the vendors by phone.
Loosely written contracts also allow vendors to make big money by
taking advantage
of loopholes, the former employees say.
A provider, for example, is paid from about $2,000 to $9,000 per
month for each person
it plans to serve. The state pays the money no matter how --- or
how many times --- a
provider helps a client.
So whether a provider makes 10 in-house visits, or just one phone
call, the money
comes in all the same.
During the 2012 legislative session the division asked for and
received more than
$540,000 in additional money to provide care for 201 blind babies
on a state waiting
list. But the vendors already received funding from nonprofit
groups to cover the
expenses associated with 172 of the same babies, documents show.
What's more, the state pays vendors based on their plans for
service, documenting
only time spent and making no attempt to measure results.
"The (vendors) call all the shots," said Ottman, a former employee
who tried to raise
red flags about the contracts to state officials. She quit in
September.
. . .
Hildreth says the state actually underpays vendors, which have to
raise money from
outside sources to cover their costs.
The biggest vendors, all nonprofits, include LightHouse of Central
Florida, Tampa
LightHouse for the Blind, LightHouse of Pinellas and Miami
LightHouse for the Blind.
Top employees make upward of $200,000 per year, according to
Internal Revenue Service
documents.
Representatives for the vendors say they're interested in helping
blind people, not
making money.
"Everyone has to remember this is about providing services to
people who need it,"
said Colleen Castille, a lobbyist for the vendor trade group, the
Florida Association
of Agencies Serving the Blind.
Gov. Rick Scott, who has sought to privatize government services
at an accelerated
pace since taking office, has talked about strengthening contract
transparency and
uniformity.
But state officials have done little to address contracting
complaints.
The state's chief financial officer, Jeff Atwater, has audited
three of the Division
of Blind Services' contracts and found them deficient, said
spokeswoman Anna Alexopoulos,
citing "significant issues in the management."
Yet Atwater, whose agency signs the contract checks, only has the
authority to question
the prices after the contracts are implemented. He can't void
contracts, even if
they are bad.
"If state agencies opt not to make critical changes to contracts
post-audit, taxpayers
will be on the losing end," Alexopoulos said.
A May report for the agency's inspector general, which does
independent government
investigations, criticized Hildreth for inappropriately managing
contracts and punishing
workers. Hildreth says those criticisms are unsubstantiated, both
in interviews and
with her staff.
In the state's complicated management structure, the division is
overseen by the
Department of Education.
Former Education Commissioner Gerard Robinson, who resigned in
August, said he spoke
with Hildreth about complaints from employees, but not about the
division's contracting
procedures. State officials know they need to address contracts,
he said. The question
is how.
State contracts are "a problem across the board, this isn't just
Blind Services"
Robinson said.
Pam Stewart, the interim education commissioner who replaced
Robinson, largely agreed.
"We do take seriously the need to look at all of our contracts and
make sure we're
getting the best return on our investment," she said. "We are
already moving in that
direction."
Former state employees see it differently.
"I contacted lawyers, my senator, the NAACP, Fox News and the
FBI," Kimmie said.
"But what I found out is ... nobody is listening."
Brittany Alana Davis can be reached at (850) 323-0353 or bdavis@
tampabay.com.
[Last modified: Nov 12, 2012 07:06 AM]
Copyright 2012 Tampa Bay Times
