A Summary of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998.

On Friday, August 7, 1998, President Clinton signed into law the Workforce Investment Act, which includes the 1998 Amendments to the Rehabilitation Act (the Act) and reauthorizes that Act for 5 years. The 1998 Amendments will greatly strengthen the public rehabilitation program by streamlining administrative procedures, expanding options for consumer choice, improving due process provisions, and increasing opportunities for consumers to obtain high quality employment. The Amendments also link the vocational rehabilitation (VR) program to a state's workforce development system.

Expanding Consumer Choice. The Amendments expand options for consumer choice in several ways. State VR agencies, in consultation with their State Rehabilitation Councils, are required to develop and implement policies and procedures to afford opportunities for applicants for services and eligible individuals to exercise informed choice throughout the rehabilitation process. The agencies must also provide information and the necessary support services to assist applicants and eligible individuals in making informed choices. These requirements reflect the policy that individuals with disabilities are to be full and active partners in their rehabilitation programming through the exercise of informed choices with respect to assessments for determining eligibility and VR needs and in the selection of their employment goals, services, and service providers.

The Individualized Plan for Employment (IPE) is a written plan that identifies the employment goal, services, vendors, and other information related to an individual's vocational rehabilitation. The 1998 Amendments changed the name of the plan from the Individualized Written Rehabilitation Program to the IPE in order to emphasize the employment focus of the VR program. The IPE provisions in the 1998 Amendments expand upon the role of the eligible individual as a collaborating partner in the development, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of his or her own plan. Eligible individuals (or their representatives) now have the option of developing their own IPE or requesting assistance in developing their plan from a qualified VR counselor.

Other new statutory requirements enable eligible individuals to exercise informed choice in the selection of their employment goal, services, service providers, and the methods used to procure their services. The Act also requires that services under an IPE be provided in the most integrated setting that is both appropriate to the service being provided and also reflects the informed choice of the individual.

Streamlining Administrative Procedures. The Amendments streamline the provisions for the state plan for VR services by reducing the former 36 state plan provisions to 24, and by limiting the circumstances under which a new State plan or plan amendment must be submitted to the Rehabilitation Services Administration. The amended Act now provides states with flexibility in locating the agency that the state designates to administer the VR program and retains the organizational requirement that the agency include a VR unit whenever the designated state agency is not primarily concerned with vocational rehabilitation, or vocational and other rehabilitation of individuals with disabilities.

The Amendments also reduce the burden on states by eliminating requirements for a strategic plan; however, the requirement that a portion of the Title I formula grant funds for the VR program be reserved to support the development of innovative approaches to expanding and improving VR services, particularly to individuals with the most significant disabilities was retained.

Previously, the 1992 Amendments to the Act included the provision that all individuals with disabilities were presumed to benefit from VR services in terms of an employment outcome unless the state VR agency demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence that the individual was incapable of doing so. Following the 1992 Amendments, the national eligibility rate in the VR program rose from 56.5 percent in 1992 to 76.5 percent in 1996.

The 1998 amendments further simplify and streamline eligibility determinations by establishing presumed eligibility for disabled individuals who are recipients of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or beneficiaries of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) payments. While presumed eligibility does not establish an entitlement to VR services for SSI recipients and SSDI beneficiaries, the provision recognizes that these individuals have already been determined, pursuant to the stringent criteria applied by the Social Security Administration, to be among the most severely disabled individuals who apply for VR services. Presumed eligibility for these individuals will increase administrative efficiency, reduce costs for eligibility determinations, and speed up the delivery of employment-related services to individuals who have already been determined to have a significant disability that affects their ability to work and who require VR services.

The Amendments also streamline the IPE by eliminating unnecessary content and by requiring that the plan be amended only when substantive changes in the employment goal, services, or in service providers are made.

These steps to streamline and eliminate unnecessary administrative requirements and to speed up access to services will save states both monetary and personnel resources that can be better used to support direct services to individuals with disabilities.

Increasing High Quality Employment Outcomes. The staggering unemployment rate of individuals with disabilities, measured at nearly 70 percent by the 1998 Louis Harris Poll, can be reduced through efforts to assist individuals with disabilities, particularly those with the most significant disabilities, to prepare for and achieve high quality employment outcomes to which they aspire. The Act also requires that an individual's employment outcomes be consistent with that person's strengths, resources, priorities, concerns, abilities, capabilities, interests, and informed choice. In this regard, the amendments address the need to increase successful employment outcomes through new provisions that emphasize telecommuting, self-employment, and small business operation as legitimate employment outcomes. Also added to the scope of authorized services are technical assistance and other consultation services for eligible individuals who are pursuing self-employment and small business operation.

A new provision in the Act eliminates the need for an extended evaluation prior to determining that an individual with a significant disability is ineligible for VR services. The new provision replaces this requirement by instead requiring the use of trial work experiences, including on-the-job supports and/or training, before a state VR agency can determine an individual to be ineligible for services due to the severity of the individual's disability. The new trial work requirement will help ensure that individuals with significant disabilities are afforded the opportunity to engage in "real work" experiences as part of the eligibility determination process, providing a more accurate measure of whether the individual is eligible for VR services and can pursue a high quality employment outcome.

Improving Due Process. The Amendments make major changes in the former due process requirements. State VR agencies are now required to implement policies and procedures relating to mediation of disputes between individuals and the agency, in addition to providing for formal hearings before impartial hearing officers (IHO). Mediation is voluntary on the part of both parties and cannot be used by the state agency to deny or delay the right of an individual to an impartial hearing. The revised due process provisions also eliminate the review of IHO decisions by the state VR unit director. However, a state may elect to conduct impartial reviews of IHO decisions by an official from the governor's office or the head of the state VR agency if the state has both a designated state VR agency and a designated VR unit.

Linkages to State Workforce Investment Systems. For several years, Congress and the States have been attempting to reform the nation's job training system to more effectively assist a greater number of people to prepare for and obtain employment. The Workforce Investment Act (WIA) follows this theme by streamlining and consolidating several employment and training programs into a unified statewide workforce investment system. The House and Senate bills that were merged to form the WIA both reflected an awareness of the employment needs of individuals with disabilities, especially those with significant disabilities, and, like the WIA, identified the VR program as a potential key component of state workforce systems.

The Act includes numerous provisions designed to link the VR program and the workforce investment system, including common definitions, common reporting requirements on program outcomes, and requirements for cooperative agreements between VR agencies and other entities in the system. The cooperative agreements must be replicated at local levels between VR offices and local entities that carry out workforce development activities.

While the Act contains very clear expectations for coordination and cooperation between VR agencies and other entities in the workforce investment system, none of the requirements in the Act or in WIA is intended to violate the integrity of the VR program. The Committee Report that accompanied the Senate bill states unequivocally that under no circumstances will the funds of a state VR agency be diverted to any purpose other than those spelled out in the Act. Still, the required linkages between state VR agencies and other entities in the workforce investment system are intended to lead to greater training opportunities and high-quality employment outcomes for individuals with disabilities.

Fredric K. Schroeder Commissioner, Rehabilitation Services Administration