Agency To Help Disabled Rations Services Vocational Rehabilitation May Have To Break Promises

The state struck a deal with a deaf and disabled young man: We’ll pay for your college degree, and you get off public assistance.

James Barnet took the deal. He’d struggled to find work and friends since graduating from high school. He wanted to become first a forester, then a biologist, anything outdoors.

He settled on biology - lab work fit better with the limitations of his cerebral palsy - and picked the National Technical Institute for the Deaf in Rochester, N.Y.

The state Division of Vocational Rehabilitation agreed to pay for tuition, books, and twice-yearly flights home to Spokane. The state liked the deal too: Barnet was on his way to being a contributor to government coffers, rather than a drain.

“I felt like I could maybe reach my goals, despite my handicap,” said Barnet by e-mail last week. “I do know about reaching goals, since I am an Eagle Scout.”

But last month, DVR told Barnet it was so broke that his $4,000-per-quarter tuition may not be paid beyond the spring. Worse, he may not have a ticket home for the holidays.

Thousands of disabled, job-hungry adults statewide are now in a similar spot.

The state program has begun strictly rationing services, unsure if there is money to make good on its current agreements.

It also is joining a growing number of state programs nationwide that institute an “order of selection” - providing job-training support for only the most disabled people.

As a result of the decision, instituted in November, 5,000 people statewide and 400 people in the Spokane area are now on waiting lists for help. And they’ll likely sit there for a while; DVR isn’t accepting new clients until next summer.

Advocates for the disabled call the cuts disastrous. They say DVR has been the best source of expensive but needed get-to-work tools. The department has paid for vans, drivers, voice-recognition computer software and education that nonprofit agencies simply can’t afford.

“Folks that are halfway across the bridge, all of a sudden the bridge is crumbling and they have nowhere to go,” said Joe Whaley, a disabled fisherman from Medical Lake who lobbies for services. “They feel like it’s a waste of time. DVR is really the only option to become independent.”

Blame the problem on a hot state economy, DVR director Jeanne Munro said.

The program relies on federal funding for 80 percent of its $45.2 million yearly budget. The budget grew by .8 percent from the year before, while demand from disabled people is up 4 percent during the same period, and costs are up 12 percent. The program is open on a first-come, first-served basis, not reserved for just the poor.

“People with disabilities, their only hope to get out of poverty is go to work,” she said. “Because the economy is so hot, people are saying to themselves, this is my chance.”

Unemployment rates for disabled people - including the mentally ill, physically and mentally disabled and injured workers - hover around 70 percent. Their average income is well below the poverty level.

The program worked for Bruce Johnson. A football injury he sustained while playing for Reardan High School in 1967 left him a quadriplegic. DVR equipped his van with a driver and a lift for his wheelchair, then paid for college computer training.

He earned a degree in 1990 from Eastern Washington University, graduating summa cum laude, then got a job as a city administrative assistant in Reardan.

He credits DVR’s funding and experienced staff with his success.

“This is like coming back into the world,” Johnson said. “There are some real intrinsic values, like self-respect.”

There’s also a public benefit, he adds.

“Instead of taking money out of the system, you put money back into it.”

With a yearly budget of less than one percent of the $6.25 billion spent each year within the Department of Social and Health Services, DVR has operated with little attention and controversy.

But the impact of the cuts are now prompting criticism that DVR is partly to blame. Critics focus on a decision two years ago that allowed DVR contractors to set their own rates.

Previously the contractors - largely nonprofit groups who provide training and job-readiness assessments - had accepted lower fees. Now, some charge up to $98 an hour.

As a result, the costs of contracted services rose by 40 percent from 1997 to 1999, to an average cost-per-client of about $4,000.

“I’m really discouraged and frustrated that they did all these things at once, when they knew there were more people coming in,” said Sue Elliot, executive director of the ARC of Washington State. “I just think it’s not the best judgment when you look at the whole picture.”

Kathy Coster agrees. She was one of the founding members of the Coalition of Responsible Disabled, a Spokane nonprofit agency that helps disabled people live independently.

“I don’t think people are asking real tough questions of DVR, about how they got in the position they’re in,” said Coster, who works there now as a counselor.

Because groups like hers rely on DVR money, Coster predicts a ripple effect that could topple nonprofit agencies in Spokane.

“When you’re a private nonprofit, it’s a significant portion of budget,” she said. “Right now we’re fighting over paper clips.”

Munro acknowledges the boosted rates increased costs but she said the agency had to do it to pay market rates. There had been no increases for the previous six years, putting some nonprofit agencies in the position that they couldn’t afford to continue contracting with DVR.

But the largest factor in the budget crunch is the rising needs of its clients, Munro said. Disabled high school students are now encouraged to seek employment, and know their rights under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act.

“We have more and more sophisticated young people who have been in a system where it’s more normalized, then coming out expecting to be integrated into the job market,” she said.

DVR’s budget crunch is not expected to get better. The Legislature will be struggling to tuck the cost of newly passed initiatives under the spending cap of Initiative 601. It’s not expected to be a good year for social services.

Advocates also are asking Congress to increase funding for programs like DVR. Nearly half of all such programs nationwide have instituted the “order of selection” rationing system because of similar budget woes.

In Washington, that rationing system will force Munro’s staff to only serve those classified as most severely disabled.

What that means for DVR’s clients is unclear, and depends on how much the department will be able to spend. DVR will decide at the end of January how far it will honor the current agreements with clients such as Barnet.

After learning that his deal with the state may be killed, Barnet’s mother, Margie Barnet, a teacher at Spokane’s Bancroft School, persuaded DVR to at least fly James home for Christmas and pay for winter quarter tuition.

But his remaining three years of school are uncertain. The Barnets have applied for a formal hearing to demand that all be paid.

Gerry Steinauer, head of Spokane’s DVR office, is sympathetic, but said the department is in a tough spot.

“We can’t lose sight of the fact that these are persons’ lives we’re talking about,” he said. “Our promise is that as long as the funding is there, we’ll do what we can.”