http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/24/AR2005042401066_pf.html
washingtonpost.com
Disabled
Program Changes Decried
Former RSA
Chief Faults Consolidation
By Brian
Faler
Special to
The Washington Post
Monday,
April 25, 2005; A17
The woman
who, until recently, led the federal government effort to get the nation's
disabled into the workforce is lashing out at the Bush administration, saying
it is quietly attempting to "dismantle" programs critical to helping
the blind, deaf and otherwise disabled find jobs.
Joanne
Wilson, who left her job as commissioner of the Rehabilitation Services
Administration on March 1, now says she quit in protest of what she said were
the administration's largely unnoticed efforts to gut the office's funding and
staffing.
"Programs
for people with disabilities are being dismantled, and nobody is crying out and
saying, 'Look what's happening,' " said Wilson, who, as RSA commissioner,
was one of the government's highest-ranking disabled officials.
Wilson said
the Department of Education, which has jurisdiction over the office, is pushing
to allow governors to combine RSA programs with a number of other job placement
programs that serve both the disabled and the able-bodied. The net result of such
a move, she said, would be less money and fewer services dedicated to helping
those with disabilities. Wilson said the agency is also cutting RSA staffing by
about half while pushing to downgrade the authority of the commissioner who
runs it.
The agency
defended the proposal, saying the consolidation would make the program more
efficient and flexible and would not affect the government's vocational
services for the disabled.
"Even
though you combine it with other programs, it's going to be the responsibility
of the states to use it responsibly and to generate the results that they are
going to be required to have in order to qualify for the money," said John
Hager, assistant secretary for special education and rehabilitative services.
Hager said
the staffing cuts -- expected to slice the RSA's personnel to about 70, from
138 -- are coming at the expense of its regional offices, which the agency has
deemed unnecessary thanks, in part, to advances in technology. "This is
something most parts of the Department of Education did years ago," he
said.
The
reorganization, which the administration proposed in its 2006 budget plan,
would have to be approved by Congress.
The RSA
provides money, technical assistance and oversight to state agencies that, in
turn, provide rehabilitative and vocational services for those who are blind,
deaf, paralyzed or intellectually disabled. Such services may include training
on how to live independently, navigate communities and develop marketable
skills.
The program
serves about 1.2 million people at an annual cost of about $2.9 billion. Those
who enroll in the programs participate for a few months to several years. Hager
said that the RSA places about 215,000 each year and that two-thirds of those
who enter the program come out with jobs.
Fredric K.
Schroeder, who ran the office for much of the Clinton administration and is
teaming up with Wilson to draw attention to her criticisms, said the proposed
consolidated job program would not be able to provide the same range of the
often expensive and extensive services RSA offers.
"The
way you rehabilitate a person with a severe disability is very different than
the way you help a dislocated worker return to the workforce," he said.
Moreover,
they said, the disabled would probably get lost in the mix of a combined
program because many state agencies are pressured to place as many people in
jobs as possible. That would often lead them, Wilson said, to focus on those
easiest to place.
Hager, the
education official, called those warnings "speculative" and said the
administration has proposed increasing the RSA's funding. It has proposed
expanding the office's state grant programs by slightly more than 3 percent.
The overall RSA budget would remain essentially unchanged, however.
The
president of one of the major advocacy groups for the disabled, the American
Association of People with Disabilities, said the organization has not taken a
position on the proposal. Andrew Imparato said the group is waiting for more details
to emerge.
"There's
an ongoing dilemma within disability policy," he said. "Do we want
separate programs that we can then try to hold accountable? Or do we want to
hold the generic programs accountable? Or do we want a little bit of
both?"
Wilson, who
was named to the post in 2001, is herself the beneficiary of a job placement
program designed for the disabled. She became blind as a child and was
illiterate for much of her childhood, she said. Wilson entered a program in
Iowa at age 19. She went on to become a public school teacher before running
the Louisiana Center for the Blind and, later, the RSA. She is now a director
at the advocacy group National Federation of the Blind.
"The
system invested money in me, and they invested a lot of time in me,"
Wilson said. " . . . But as a result I've been employed for how many years
now? That was when I was 19. I'm now 58. I was employed for 40 years and paid a
lot of taxes back into the system with that. I couldn't have gotten that if I
had walked into a generic job placement program."
© 2005 The
Washington Post Company
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