[visionrehabtherapist] Fw: PCB Advocates Say Senate's VR Bill Needs Rehab!--and New DOL Regs Pass Over Employees with the Most Significant Disabilities
- From: "Shelley L. Rhodes" <guidinggolden@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <visionrehabtherapist@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 31 Aug 2013 19:48:29 -0400
ation!
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@xxxxxxx
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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