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Blind People Want The PIN To The ATM
Blind People Want the PIN to the ATM
By Fred Wurtzel
It is well-documented that, generally speaking, there is a 70-80 percent unemployment rate among blind people of working age. To give this some perspective, during the Great Depression of the 1930’s the worst economic event in American history, the unemployment rate for the general population was around 25 percent. It is also documented that blind people who successfully complete programs in rehabilitation services have an approximate 30-35 percent unemployment rate. Even this lower figure still exceeds the general population unemployment rate during the Great Depression and is more than 3 times the current “high” unemployment rate of around 10 percent.
Blind people and other people with disabilities have gone to Congress and explained these stark facts. Congress has been generous in appropriating funds to provide services to blind people to assist us in finding work.
With figures obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request from the Commission for the Blind the following facts have been uncovered. It is no wonder that the Administration has not shared this data with the Commission board despite the Board’s request at its March meeting. In Michigan, in 2010, the Michigan Commission for the Blind had around
$28 million to serve blind people. One might reasonably ask, “What has the MCB done with this very large amount of money to serve blind people?” Is every unemployed blind person now employed? What would you, the reader, do with $28 million to help your fellow blind person to get a job? Anyone who has had any kind of meetings or has an open case with the Commission will tell you that virtually without exception, the Commission staff believe the agency is under funded and cannot afford to provide the necessary services to assist every client to find employment in their chosen field. The facts simply do not bear this out. Given the very large budget surpluses, MCB has ample funds to fully help all clients.
As a slight aside, here is what the law; Public Act 260 of 1978 says about what the Commission is to do. Remember, shall means that this is the law and is not optional, while “may,” is discretionary and is an option for the agency.
The Commission law reads, in part, as follows:
393.354 Services to assist visually handicapped persons; fee; duties of commission
Generally.
Sec. 4. (1) The commission shall maintain a program of services to assist visually
handicapped persons to overcome vocational handicaps and to obtain the maximum degree
of self-support and self-care.. .
Again, the above is mandatory. It is the law, just like speed limits, drug laws and pollution control laws. Consider that the law uses the term Maximum degree” when referring to reaching a vocational goal. Many clients, of late, are being told that the Commission is only in business to assist with the minimum employment possible, so if a high school diploma will get a job in your chosen profession, then, the Commission will not help with college. It must be noted that administration officials will deny this is the policy, but this author has been in meetings where staff has expressed this position. If the “maximum degree” is the commission policy, then significant staff training is in order. Judging by the paltry amount spent on staff training, this will not be done, soon. We, the consumers, have been advocating for the development of a more comprehensive and intensive staff training effort, while the Commission administration has resisted our efforts at every turn.
Second, during the college policy development, there were hours of discussion on the point of maximum preparation for a career, and assistance with advanced degrees from Colleges or Universities is still resisted in the policy, though perfectly allowable.
In case one wonders if the above is too broad or not clear about how the Commission is to spend its money, consider the following from the same section:
. . .Shall do all of the following:. . .
. . . (g) Place visually handicapped persons in jobs or business enterprises in accordance
With the abilities and interests of the applicant.
(h) Teach visually handicapped persons trades or occupations which may be followed
in their homes and to assist them in whatever manner may seem advisable in disposing
of the products of their home industries.
(i) Aid individual visually handicapped persons or groups of visually handicapped
persons to engage in gainful occupations by furnishing materials, equipment, goods
or services to them, by providing financial assistance as necessary to encourage
and equip them to reach an objective established with them by the commission.
(j) Provide rehabilitation services for blind persons who are senior citizens so
that they may reside within a community.
In case there is a lingering doubt that MCB is to do all in its power to help unemployed blind people the following is added to make sure everyone is clear about the intent of the legislature.
(k) Provide other rehabilitative goods and services as appropriate to each individual
circumstance.
How many times must the law say that the Commission is to make maximum efforts to help blind people get good jobs? Not the minimum, not a minimum wage job, not a sheltered workshop, the law says the maximum effort in accordance with the blind person’s abilities and interests.
So, the reader may ask, what does all this have to do with the budget? A paraphrase of The Bible tells us that where the treasure is, there is the heart, also. It is telling that the cost categories which pay salaries, rents to state government, state retirement, and so on, are the accounts which are the most exhausted. Any account directed to providing direct services and employment to blind people is woefully underspent. One might reasonably wonder why those items that spend money for governmental items are nearly fully spent, fully spent or significantly over-spent while client service accounts are significantly underspent. Is this a reflection of the priorities of the agency? How does the greater Department or state government view rehabilitation funds? Are these funds treated as a convenient ATM to fund outside interests?
Below are some examples of the spending priorities within MCB as published by the agency for the 2009-2010 fiscal year? The first number is the amount appropriated by the legislature, the second is the actual amount spent and the third is the percentage of the total appropriation that was actually spent.
TOTAL EXPENDITURES
$28,798,133
$20,552,909
71 percent
According to these figures the MCB had nearly $29 million to spend. It only spent 71 percent of this money. There may well be good cause for not fully expending the amount allowable. The legislature provides authority to spend money, but may not provide the money itself. This is done so the agency may accept outside funds and legally spend them. Even if this accounts for a full 15 percent, that still leaves 15 percent unspent that could have been spent to help blind people find work.
MINI ADJUSTMENT PROGRAM
$100,000
$70,769
71 percent
The above is a long-running, innovative and arguably quite successful program to reach out to blind people around the state to introduce the services of the agency and demonstrate how a full course of services can be beneficial. Notice, this is a direct service to blind individuals and is 29 percent underspent.
CASE SERVICES
$5,431,115
$4,279,761
79 percent
It is difficult to explain that the agency failed to spend around $1 million while telling clients there are no funds for their services. This is the heart of the agencies programs to assist with employment for blind people. This is the reason the agency exists. Case services is where the real work of the agency is accomplished. Without case services, there is no reason for an agency for the blind. We are talking about 21 percent of the money available to help get jobs went unspent. Why? What is the barrier to providing desperately needed services? Remember, there are 70 percent of us who want to work and don’t. Most of the money comes from federal funds. Furthermore, if a client who receives Social Security benefits is successfully placed and ceases to receive Social Security benefits, the Commission is reimbursed 100 percent of the rehabilitation costs and the money is far less restricted in its use than ordinary rehabilitation funds.
One statistic not showing, here, is the percentage of the entire budget set aside for case services. Remember, case services include things like college tuition, adjustment to blindness services, adaptive technology and the vast array of services needed by unemployed persons who want to work.
MCB budgeted less than 20% of the total budget for its core services. To be fair, the entire budget includes stimulus funds which increase the budget above ordinary appropriations. So if these are subtracted, we are still around 25 percent. As will be demonstrated below, the nearly unrestricted stimulus funds remain virtually unspent, so the above caveat exacerbates the issue, not resolves it. It appears that it takes 3 to 4 dollars to spend 1 dollar of rehabilitation funds. This author wonders what the national mean and median percent of the total budget that goes for case services is for agencies for the blind. One concern about raising this low level of case service spending is that the administration will transfer the funds to other non-client categories and spend it all without increasing spending on case services.
SALARIES AND WAGES
$6,539,308
$6,199,397
95 percent
Ok, now we see that 95 percent of salaries and wages are spent while only 79 percent of case services funds are spent. Remember the part about where the heart and treasure are? Commission employees deserve good pay and good working conditions. There are a lot of very good employees within MCB. In this writer’s opinion, we ought to hire more counselors and placement people to reach and get jobs for more blind people. However, in this politically charged environment of cutting government spending, the above numbers with fully spent salaries and underspent case services do not support this premise.
VENDING & CAFETERIA OPERATIONS
$1,480,000
$1,239,911
84 percent
This item refers to the Commission’s Business enterprise Program (BEP). According to the BEP enabling legislation the purpose of the law is to “provide jobs and increase the economic independence of blind persons.” The BEP is the only direct program for employment within MCB. Tellingly, there are a large number of sighted persons operating Business Enterprise facilities and thus occupying jobs legally set aside for blind persons. In addition, the agency is under-supporting the program and not increasing the number of blind people working in the program. Recently, the agency has been trying to reduce upward mobility services designed to assist persons in the program to move into better jobs. Amazingly enough, they say it costs too much even though there is a big pile of unspent money in both BEP and in VR case services. At the most recent operator workshop, according to Elected Committee members, the operators were told there was insufficient funding to pay for recognition awards, though 16 percent of the budget remained unspent. The operators used funds to provide flowers and cards for sick or bereaved operators to pay for the recognitions of fellow operators. Where is the credibility?
STATE IL COUNCIL
$101,000
$100,996
100 percent
Now, here is, possibly, the most egregious example of using the Commission for an ATM. This organization does nothing to employ, train or place anyone. It is particularly disgusting when one takes into account the numbers below about services to older blind persons, those who might be served by Independent living services. MCB has hardly spent any money on these individuals, yet it supports another state agency which does nothing perceptible to help anyone.
COST ALLOCATIONS
$242,139
$356,682
147 percent
Here is an item which exceeded its budget. None of these funds went to serve blind people. In fact, if the Attorney General’s office is paid from this category, these funds were spent to fire, demean and otherwise drag blind people down. They may be defended by saying they are necessary to carry out other services of the agency, but the fact that they are one and one half times more than budgeted while direct services are drastically below budget makes one wonder why agency and state government services get more than their share while blind clients are under-served and thrown into the streets with no job at all. It appears to be the ATM syndrome at work, again. This is an ambiguous category, a better description may help us feel better about its apparently excessive spending in the face of depriving blind clients of service.
BEP OCCUPANCY
$1,040,000
$1,008,368
97 percent
Again, this money goes to the Department of Technology, Management and Budget and is virtually fully spent. This money is allegedly to pay for space which is occupied by BEP foodservice facilities for state employees. First, this expenditure does not even belong within the BEP budget. The cost of space for state employee foodservices and break areas ought to be a cost for each agency, just like hallways, elevators and bathrooms. These spaces are for the benefit of employees and the cost ought to be included in the rent paid by the various agencies for housing their employees. This would not increase the cost of occupancy for the state as a whole, but would free up money for serving blind people by allowing more funds for matching federal funds.
Second, a large number of the BEP facilities are being operated by sighted people while qualified blind people are being denied the opportunity to work. So money appropriated to serve blind people is paying rent on space where sighted people are working. Many of these sighted people are not paying their fees to the agency, while blind operators are being removed for far less serious offenses.
Again, though the amount of money spent to operate the program is underspent, the money inappropriately going to DTMB from the MCB ATM for their purposes is fully funded. Is there something wrong with this picture?
MCB RENT AND OCCUPANCY
$450,000
$412,717
92 percent
Of course the MCB needs office space and other space in which to operate from. Again, the Department of Technology, management and Budget is getting funds from the MCB ATM provided to serve blind people while blind people’s cases are going wanting and blind people are being told there is insufficient money to provide needed goods and services. At a minimum, rent ought to be reduced to 79 percent, the same extent that case services are.
STRATEGIC PLANNING
$3,000
$1,096
37 percent
Strategic planning is a federal requirement under the Rehabilitation act. Clearly, as demonstrated by the federal monitoring report and the defiance of the law as shown in this under expenditure MCB does not take the Rehabilitation Act or such requirements seriously. Proper strategic planning ought to be looking at the facts in this budget and wondering why more resources aren’t going to the people who the agency is legally mandated to serve. It is difficult to imagine, based on this budget summary what planning was done and what the goals and outcomes were.
STAFF TRAINING
$29,000
$9,214
32 percent
Again, there is an apparent disdain for staff training in the face of a federal monitoring report and many policy development meetings where federal rules were flagrantly violated. As recent as 2 weeks ago, a client was illegally told they are required to use their SSI funds for their rehabilitation services costs. This is strictly prohibited by the law. Maybe some training on the rehabilitation act would prevent the agency from violating the law. (Incidentally, MCB administration was fully aware of all the violations contained in the monitoring report, including misappropriation of funds, in time to provide staff training during the subject fiscal year, not to mention the present year.)
ARRA - TITLE I
$2,000,000
$4,068
0 percent
This is stimulus funding. It has far fewer restrictions than ordinary rehabilitation funds. To MCB’s credit, it planned to use this funding to hire interns in state government and has done so. Judging by the expenditures, not too many blind people got these jobs. The inability to spend $2 million to help blind people get jobs is not surprising in view of the fact that MCB cannot even spend its ordinary rehabilitation case services money. Based on these facts, one may be led to believe that all the blind people in Michigan are working and jobs are easy to get. We must be being misled that Michigan’s economy is depressed and there are blind people looking for work.
ARRA - OLDER BLIND
$1,187,077
$471
0 percent
ARRA - PART B
$156,528
$6,337
4 percent
The above 2 items are also known as “stimulus funds.” These are for older blind individuals. There are few restrictions and a limited time during which the money is to be spent, otherwise it must be returned to the federal government. Commission staff has called the NFB asking for donations of Perkins Braillers because they don’t have funds to provide equipment to seniors. Given the numbers, above, this is unimaginable. What in the world is happening, here? How can staff believe there is no money with budget surpluses in the millions of dollars? Again, there are good staff people out there who are not being properly trained, informed or supervised.
Last December during the quarterly Commission Board meeting, at the annual recognition of staff and clients who are doing extraordinary things there were some really good stories of quality rehabilitation work and positive outcomes. This leads one to wonder how many more such outcomes could have been achieved if there had been more and better planning, more and better staff training and a willingness to provide more goods and services to blind clients of MCB. Judging by the lack of spending of money targeted to help blind people, there is no need for the service. Somehow, it is doubtful this is true, based on the people I talk to on a daily basis, the adult children of blind seniors who want help for their moms and dads. The college students who are being told there is no money for technology, room and board and so on. All blind people who are looking for jobs have all the computer training and adaptive equipment they need to go to work. What other explanation could there be for this vast surplus of money? Could the explanation be a commission Director who is out of touch with what is happening in the agency? Could it be that the priority is to keep insiders funded while blind citizens go neglected and fired and discriminated against by the very agency that is legislatively established to assist them to get good jobs?
What is the Commission Board doing to monitor and control this travesty, this amazingly blatant rip-off of blind people while lining the pockets of sighted people and other agencies. How much does one agency director need to do before someone begins to question their competence? A short list of allegations includes a failing monitoring report from the federal government, illegally firing blind staff for belonging to the National Federation of the Blind, illegally firing the director of the Michigan Commission for the Blind Training Center with no due process, illegally taking jobs from blind vendors while illegally providing employment to sighted people in the Business Enterprise Program, allowing the entire staff of approximately 35 of MCBTC to sit idle for weeks with no work at a conservatively estimated cost of $75,000/week, no computers, no phones at full pay. How many offenses against blind people have to be committed before the Commission Board exercises its lawful duty to evaluate this person and take appropriate action? It is time to give blind people the PIN to the MCB ATM and allow us to join society as first-class tax-paying working people.
By Fred Wurtzel
It is well-documented that, generally speaking, there is a 70-80 percent unemployment rate among blind people of working age. To give this some perspective, during the Great Depression of the 1930’s the worst economic event in American history, the unemployment rate for the general population was around 25 percent. It is also documented that blind people who successfully complete programs in rehabilitation services have an approximate 30-35 percent unemployment rate. Even this lower figure still exceeds the general population unemployment rate during the Great Depression and is more than 3 times the current “high” unemployment rate of around 10 percent.
Blind people and other people with disabilities have gone to Congress and explained these stark facts. Congress has been generous in appropriating funds to provide services to blind people to assist us in finding work.
With figures obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request from the Commission for the Blind the following facts have been uncovered. It is no wonder that the Administration has not shared this data with the Commission board despite the Board’s request at its March meeting. In Michigan, in 2010, the Michigan Commission for the Blind had around
$28 million to serve blind people. One might reasonably ask, “What has the MCB done with this very large amount of money to serve blind people?” Is every unemployed blind person now employed? What would you, the reader, do with $28 million to help your fellow blind person to get a job? Anyone who has had any kind of meetings or has an open case with the Commission will tell you that virtually without exception, the Commission staff believe the agency is under funded and cannot afford to provide the necessary services to assist every client to find employment in their chosen field. The facts simply do not bear this out. Given the very large budget surpluses, MCB has ample funds to fully help all clients.
As a slight aside, here is what the law; Public Act 260 of 1978 says about what the Commission is to do. Remember, shall means that this is the law and is not optional, while “may,” is discretionary and is an option for the agency.
The Commission law reads, in part, as follows:
393.354 Services to assist visually handicapped persons; fee; duties of commission
Generally.
Sec. 4. (1) The commission shall maintain a program of services to assist visually
handicapped persons to overcome vocational handicaps and to obtain the maximum degree
of self-support and self-care.. .
Again, the above is mandatory. It is the law, just like speed limits, drug laws and pollution control laws. Consider that the law uses the term Maximum degree” when referring to reaching a vocational goal. Many clients, of late, are being told that the Commission is only in business to assist with the minimum employment possible, so if a high school diploma will get a job in your chosen profession, then, the Commission will not help with college. It must be noted that administration officials will deny this is the policy, but this author has been in meetings where staff has expressed this position. If the “maximum degree” is the commission policy, then significant staff training is in order. Judging by the paltry amount spent on staff training, this will not be done, soon. We, the consumers, have been advocating for the development of a more comprehensive and intensive staff training effort, while the Commission administration has resisted our efforts at every turn.
Second, during the college policy development, there were hours of discussion on the point of maximum preparation for a career, and assistance with advanced degrees from Colleges or Universities is still resisted in the policy, though perfectly allowable.
In case one wonders if the above is too broad or not clear about how the Commission is to spend its money, consider the following from the same section:
. . .Shall do all of the following:. . .
. . . (g) Place visually handicapped persons in jobs or business enterprises in accordance
With the abilities and interests of the applicant.
(h) Teach visually handicapped persons trades or occupations which may be followed
in their homes and to assist them in whatever manner may seem advisable in disposing
of the products of their home industries.
(i) Aid individual visually handicapped persons or groups of visually handicapped
persons to engage in gainful occupations by furnishing materials, equipment, goods
or services to them, by providing financial assistance as necessary to encourage
and equip them to reach an objective established with them by the commission.
(j) Provide rehabilitation services for blind persons who are senior citizens so
that they may reside within a community.
In case there is a lingering doubt that MCB is to do all in its power to help unemployed blind people the following is added to make sure everyone is clear about the intent of the legislature.
(k) Provide other rehabilitative goods and services as appropriate to each individual
circumstance.
How many times must the law say that the Commission is to make maximum efforts to help blind people get good jobs? Not the minimum, not a minimum wage job, not a sheltered workshop, the law says the maximum effort in accordance with the blind person’s abilities and interests.
So, the reader may ask, what does all this have to do with the budget? A paraphrase of The Bible tells us that where the treasure is, there is the heart, also. It is telling that the cost categories which pay salaries, rents to state government, state retirement, and so on, are the accounts which are the most exhausted. Any account directed to providing direct services and employment to blind people is woefully underspent. One might reasonably wonder why those items that spend money for governmental items are nearly fully spent, fully spent or significantly over-spent while client service accounts are significantly underspent. Is this a reflection of the priorities of the agency? How does the greater Department or state government view rehabilitation funds? Are these funds treated as a convenient ATM to fund outside interests?
Below are some examples of the spending priorities within MCB as published by the agency for the 2009-2010 fiscal year? The first number is the amount appropriated by the legislature, the second is the actual amount spent and the third is the percentage of the total appropriation that was actually spent.
TOTAL EXPENDITURES
$28,798,133
$20,552,909
71 percent
According to these figures the MCB had nearly $29 million to spend. It only spent 71 percent of this money. There may well be good cause for not fully expending the amount allowable. The legislature provides authority to spend money, but may not provide the money itself. This is done so the agency may accept outside funds and legally spend them. Even if this accounts for a full 15 percent, that still leaves 15 percent unspent that could have been spent to help blind people find work.
MINI ADJUSTMENT PROGRAM
$100,000
$70,769
71 percent
The above is a long-running, innovative and arguably quite successful program to reach out to blind people around the state to introduce the services of the agency and demonstrate how a full course of services can be beneficial. Notice, this is a direct service to blind individuals and is 29 percent underspent.
CASE SERVICES
$5,431,115
$4,279,761
79 percent
It is difficult to explain that the agency failed to spend around $1 million while telling clients there are no funds for their services. This is the heart of the agencies programs to assist with employment for blind people. This is the reason the agency exists. Case services is where the real work of the agency is accomplished. Without case services, there is no reason for an agency for the blind. We are talking about 21 percent of the money available to help get jobs went unspent. Why? What is the barrier to providing desperately needed services? Remember, there are 70 percent of us who want to work and don’t. Most of the money comes from federal funds. Furthermore, if a client who receives Social Security benefits is successfully placed and ceases to receive Social Security benefits, the Commission is reimbursed 100 percent of the rehabilitation costs and the money is far less restricted in its use than ordinary rehabilitation funds.
One statistic not showing, here, is the percentage of the entire budget set aside for case services. Remember, case services include things like college tuition, adjustment to blindness services, adaptive technology and the vast array of services needed by unemployed persons who want to work.
MCB budgeted less than 20% of the total budget for its core services. To be fair, the entire budget includes stimulus funds which increase the budget above ordinary appropriations. So if these are subtracted, we are still around 25 percent. As will be demonstrated below, the nearly unrestricted stimulus funds remain virtually unspent, so the above caveat exacerbates the issue, not resolves it. It appears that it takes 3 to 4 dollars to spend 1 dollar of rehabilitation funds. This author wonders what the national mean and median percent of the total budget that goes for case services is for agencies for the blind. One concern about raising this low level of case service spending is that the administration will transfer the funds to other non-client categories and spend it all without increasing spending on case services.
SALARIES AND WAGES
$6,539,308
$6,199,397
95 percent
Ok, now we see that 95 percent of salaries and wages are spent while only 79 percent of case services funds are spent. Remember the part about where the heart and treasure are? Commission employees deserve good pay and good working conditions. There are a lot of very good employees within MCB. In this writer’s opinion, we ought to hire more counselors and placement people to reach and get jobs for more blind people. However, in this politically charged environment of cutting government spending, the above numbers with fully spent salaries and underspent case services do not support this premise.
VENDING & CAFETERIA OPERATIONS
$1,480,000
$1,239,911
84 percent
This item refers to the Commission’s Business enterprise Program (BEP). According to the BEP enabling legislation the purpose of the law is to “provide jobs and increase the economic independence of blind persons.” The BEP is the only direct program for employment within MCB. Tellingly, there are a large number of sighted persons operating Business Enterprise facilities and thus occupying jobs legally set aside for blind persons. In addition, the agency is under-supporting the program and not increasing the number of blind people working in the program. Recently, the agency has been trying to reduce upward mobility services designed to assist persons in the program to move into better jobs. Amazingly enough, they say it costs too much even though there is a big pile of unspent money in both BEP and in VR case services. At the most recent operator workshop, according to Elected Committee members, the operators were told there was insufficient funding to pay for recognition awards, though 16 percent of the budget remained unspent. The operators used funds to provide flowers and cards for sick or bereaved operators to pay for the recognitions of fellow operators. Where is the credibility?
STATE IL COUNCIL
$101,000
$100,996
100 percent
Now, here is, possibly, the most egregious example of using the Commission for an ATM. This organization does nothing to employ, train or place anyone. It is particularly disgusting when one takes into account the numbers below about services to older blind persons, those who might be served by Independent living services. MCB has hardly spent any money on these individuals, yet it supports another state agency which does nothing perceptible to help anyone.
COST ALLOCATIONS
$242,139
$356,682
147 percent
Here is an item which exceeded its budget. None of these funds went to serve blind people. In fact, if the Attorney General’s office is paid from this category, these funds were spent to fire, demean and otherwise drag blind people down. They may be defended by saying they are necessary to carry out other services of the agency, but the fact that they are one and one half times more than budgeted while direct services are drastically below budget makes one wonder why agency and state government services get more than their share while blind clients are under-served and thrown into the streets with no job at all. It appears to be the ATM syndrome at work, again. This is an ambiguous category, a better description may help us feel better about its apparently excessive spending in the face of depriving blind clients of service.
BEP OCCUPANCY
$1,040,000
$1,008,368
97 percent
Again, this money goes to the Department of Technology, Management and Budget and is virtually fully spent. This money is allegedly to pay for space which is occupied by BEP foodservice facilities for state employees. First, this expenditure does not even belong within the BEP budget. The cost of space for state employee foodservices and break areas ought to be a cost for each agency, just like hallways, elevators and bathrooms. These spaces are for the benefit of employees and the cost ought to be included in the rent paid by the various agencies for housing their employees. This would not increase the cost of occupancy for the state as a whole, but would free up money for serving blind people by allowing more funds for matching federal funds.
Second, a large number of the BEP facilities are being operated by sighted people while qualified blind people are being denied the opportunity to work. So money appropriated to serve blind people is paying rent on space where sighted people are working. Many of these sighted people are not paying their fees to the agency, while blind operators are being removed for far less serious offenses.
Again, though the amount of money spent to operate the program is underspent, the money inappropriately going to DTMB from the MCB ATM for their purposes is fully funded. Is there something wrong with this picture?
MCB RENT AND OCCUPANCY
$450,000
$412,717
92 percent
Of course the MCB needs office space and other space in which to operate from. Again, the Department of Technology, management and Budget is getting funds from the MCB ATM provided to serve blind people while blind people’s cases are going wanting and blind people are being told there is insufficient money to provide needed goods and services. At a minimum, rent ought to be reduced to 79 percent, the same extent that case services are.
STRATEGIC PLANNING
$3,000
$1,096
37 percent
Strategic planning is a federal requirement under the Rehabilitation act. Clearly, as demonstrated by the federal monitoring report and the defiance of the law as shown in this under expenditure MCB does not take the Rehabilitation Act or such requirements seriously. Proper strategic planning ought to be looking at the facts in this budget and wondering why more resources aren’t going to the people who the agency is legally mandated to serve. It is difficult to imagine, based on this budget summary what planning was done and what the goals and outcomes were.
STAFF TRAINING
$29,000
$9,214
32 percent
Again, there is an apparent disdain for staff training in the face of a federal monitoring report and many policy development meetings where federal rules were flagrantly violated. As recent as 2 weeks ago, a client was illegally told they are required to use their SSI funds for their rehabilitation services costs. This is strictly prohibited by the law. Maybe some training on the rehabilitation act would prevent the agency from violating the law. (Incidentally, MCB administration was fully aware of all the violations contained in the monitoring report, including misappropriation of funds, in time to provide staff training during the subject fiscal year, not to mention the present year.)
ARRA - TITLE I
$2,000,000
$4,068
0 percent
This is stimulus funding. It has far fewer restrictions than ordinary rehabilitation funds. To MCB’s credit, it planned to use this funding to hire interns in state government and has done so. Judging by the expenditures, not too many blind people got these jobs. The inability to spend $2 million to help blind people get jobs is not surprising in view of the fact that MCB cannot even spend its ordinary rehabilitation case services money. Based on these facts, one may be led to believe that all the blind people in Michigan are working and jobs are easy to get. We must be being misled that Michigan’s economy is depressed and there are blind people looking for work.
ARRA - OLDER BLIND
$1,187,077
$471
0 percent
ARRA - PART B
$156,528
$6,337
4 percent
The above 2 items are also known as “stimulus funds.” These are for older blind individuals. There are few restrictions and a limited time during which the money is to be spent, otherwise it must be returned to the federal government. Commission staff has called the NFB asking for donations of Perkins Braillers because they don’t have funds to provide equipment to seniors. Given the numbers, above, this is unimaginable. What in the world is happening, here? How can staff believe there is no money with budget surpluses in the millions of dollars? Again, there are good staff people out there who are not being properly trained, informed or supervised.
Last December during the quarterly Commission Board meeting, at the annual recognition of staff and clients who are doing extraordinary things there were some really good stories of quality rehabilitation work and positive outcomes. This leads one to wonder how many more such outcomes could have been achieved if there had been more and better planning, more and better staff training and a willingness to provide more goods and services to blind clients of MCB. Judging by the lack of spending of money targeted to help blind people, there is no need for the service. Somehow, it is doubtful this is true, based on the people I talk to on a daily basis, the adult children of blind seniors who want help for their moms and dads. The college students who are being told there is no money for technology, room and board and so on. All blind people who are looking for jobs have all the computer training and adaptive equipment they need to go to work. What other explanation could there be for this vast surplus of money? Could the explanation be a commission Director who is out of touch with what is happening in the agency? Could it be that the priority is to keep insiders funded while blind citizens go neglected and fired and discriminated against by the very agency that is legislatively established to assist them to get good jobs?
What is the Commission Board doing to monitor and control this travesty, this amazingly blatant rip-off of blind people while lining the pockets of sighted people and other agencies. How much does one agency director need to do before someone begins to question their competence? A short list of allegations includes a failing monitoring report from the federal government, illegally firing blind staff for belonging to the National Federation of the Blind, illegally firing the director of the Michigan Commission for the Blind Training Center with no due process, illegally taking jobs from blind vendors while illegally providing employment to sighted people in the Business Enterprise Program, allowing the entire staff of approximately 35 of MCBTC to sit idle for weeks with no work at a conservatively estimated cost of $75,000/week, no computers, no phones at full pay. How many offenses against blind people have to be committed before the Commission Board exercises its lawful duty to evaluate this person and take appropriate action? It is time to give blind people the PIN to the MCB ATM and allow us to join society as first-class tax-paying working people.
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