Letter to Education Secretary Arne Duncan - Continue Working with Opportunities for Ohioans with Disabilities

Letter

Today, U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio) led the Ohio Congressional Delegation in sending a letter to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan urging the Department of Education (DOE) to continue to work with Opportunities for Ohioans with Disabilities (OOD) as they provide rehabilitative services to Ohioans with disabilities seeking employment throughout the state. OOD is current working with DOE to improve investment by implementing recommendations of the Department's Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) issued earlier this year in the preliminary draft of the FY2013 monitoring report.

The Ohio Congressional Delegation writes, "Ohioans with disabilities seeking employment opportunities receive, among other services, job training through 182 full-time equivalent employees in local communities. This public-private partnership has been in place since 2008 and enables the OOD to focus on being able to serve the current backlog of 1,915 Ohioans who have been waiting for services. As OOD begins the process of moving this program into compliance, we ask that the Department allow services to continue for the thousands of Ohioans who depend on these for employment and independent living."

"County boards of developmental disabilities are the state's largest local funding partner in providing employment services to people with disabilities. If this partnership were to end, more than 4,000 people served by county boards of Developmental Disabilities would lose the support they need to find and keep a job," said Bridget Gargan, Executive Director of the Ohio Association of County Boards of Developmental Disabilities. "We strongly support the efforts of Ohio's congressional delegation to maintain critical job training and employment services to people with disabilities."

The full text of the letter is below.

The Honorable Arne Duncan
Secretary
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue Southwest
Washington, D.C. 20202

Secretary Duncan:

We write to express our support for the ongoing efforts of the Opportunities for Ohioans with Disabilities (OOD) Agency as they provide rehabilitative services to Ohioans with disabilities seeking employment throughout the state. It is our understanding that OOD is working with the U.S. Department of Education to improve federal investment by implementing the Department's Rehabilitation Services Administration's (RSA) recommendations in the FY2013 monitoring report's preliminary draft. We appreciate and share the Department's continued commitment to individuals participating in OOD programs and the partnership arrangements during this transition.

The findings reached in the draft RSA FY2013 monitoring report reflect several years of ongoing negotiations between OOD and the Department of Education. In 2011 and 2012, OOD submitted annual plans to RSA which included a description of Ohio's 63 Third Party Cooperative Arrangements (TPCAs) Vocational Rehabilitative Public Private Partnerships (VRP3s) contracts. Each plan was approved by the RSA. This past October, RSA issued a draft of its FY2013 monitoring report directing OOD to cease using federal Vocational Rehabilitation dollars for services that they deem unallowable under third party agreements. At this time, OOD is taking efforts to implement the RSA recommendations in order to be in full compliance with the Department of Education guidelines.

Ohioans with disabilities seeking employment opportunities receive, among other services, job training through 182 full-time equivalent employees in local communities. This public-private partnership has been in place since 2008 and enables the OOD to focus on being able to serve the current backlog of 1,915 Ohioans who have been waiting for services. As OOD begins the process of moving this program into compliance, we ask that the Department allow services to continue for the thousands of Ohioans who depend on these for employment and independent living.

With these concerns in mind, we respectfully request that the Department continue working with OOD and allow OOD to implement any changes to its current TPCA structure through the end of the federal fiscal year 2014. This extension will help mitigate the disruption of the services being provided to thousands of Ohioans as OOD works with RSA to fully comply with federal guidelines.