GOVERNMENT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Saetee Department on Disability Services —— 1125 15* Street N.W. * Washington, D.C. 20005 DE 202-730-1700 = www.dds.de.gov TO: Brenda Donald, Deputy Mayor FROM: ——LauraL.Nuss,Director J Department on Disability Services DATE: July 2, 2015 SUBJECT: __ Response to Questions posed by Councilmember Grosso ‘Thank you for the opportunity to respond to the concerns of Councilmember Grosso. | have provided some general insights on the operations of RSA that | believe demonstrate that the organization has made positive progress and I have attempted to provide responses to the specific items of concern listed in correspondence from the Councilmember’s Office. Iam committed to addressing the concerns of Councilmember Grosso and | am available or further discussion as, needed Ingeneral, RSA has demonstrated improvements in overall performance including increased placements, improved processing times and better trained and qualified staff. I understand that we have staff that are not completely satisfied with the management in RSA but I believe this to be a small but vocal minority. 1 am also confident that some of the complaints being shared with Councilmember Grosso are fairly old and have been resolved. Below, please find a table summarizing the most recent performance data for RSA showing clear progress for the last three fiscal years, RSA Performance Measures Fy2012 | FY2013 | FY2014 RSA Referrals 2416 | 3141 | 4016 RSA Transition Referrals 445_[ 904 | 1,230 Number of people placed by RSA that remained employed for 90 calendardaysor | so¢ | 533 | 643 more. Percent of people with a plan developed within 90 calendar days of eligibility 80% | 68% | 939% determination. Percent of people for whom eligibility is determined within 60 calendar days. 6856 jf, 92% | 92% I would also like to point out some of the significant improvement in other key areas not included in the standard performance indicators. * RSA communications are significantly improved with RSA holding monthly “all-hands” meetings where employees are able to share their concerns and have the opportunity to submit their concerns anonymously in advance of the meeting. RSA also holds monthly unit ‘meetings and each supervisor meets with their direct reports on a weekly basis.* RSA is an administration with a very high level of support for people with disabilities. We estimate that 36% of the RSA employees have disabilities (both disclosed and observed). ‘There are currently 13 MSS employees in RSA and eight (8), of those employees were promoted from within the organization to their current positions and five (5) of those MSS employees are people who have disclosed a disability. 1 believe that the higher than average number of employees with disabilities and the development of supervisors with disabilities in RSA creates an environment that truly is inclusive of people with disabilities while also holding all employees to a uniform standard of performance. ‘* RSA continues to support the Certified Rehabilitation Counselor (CRC) program even though the requirements have been relaxed by the federal government. RSA supports and funds RSA staff in their effort to obtain their Master’s Degree in Rehabilitation Counseling and to become qualified to sit for the CRC exam. ‘* Inconjunction and with the cooperation the State Rehabilitation Committee (SRC) RSA has been engaged in an extensive, proactive review of all policies and procedures and revisions are underway as needed. This activity is part of the RSA State Plan and was not born of any particular concern but is a timely review of policies and procedures that were implemented in 2010. ‘* RSAis in the midst of the second year of a relationship with George Washington University to provide monthly training to the vocational rehabilitation staff, ‘This is high quality professional training that is consistently elevating the skill level of our staff and the quality of services they provide. ‘+ The “DDS Fun Bunch’ is a voluntary employee organization in DDS that is primarily led by RSA employees. This group has taken the lead on social activities for the employees, holiday events and an annual team building day. They are a motivated and morale building force within the agency. In response to the particular concerns that were listed in the email from the Councilmember's office, please see the following: Lack of responsiveness ant inications by staj 1am particularly interested in learning the names of employees who have failed to respond appropriately. It is an expectation that all DDS staff members comply with District customer service guidelines regarding returning phone calls and emails and all employee phone messages are to include the name and phone number of the contact person (generally the supervisor) that can be contacted if the employee is not available. In addition, I have a dedicated customer relations staff person in my office that deals specifically with concerns and complaints about RSA. The customer relations staffare directed to bring the complaint to resolution by with the employce, the supervisor and if necessary up to the manager and the Deputy Director. ‘The RSA Deputy Director meets monthly with the customer relations staff to review all complaints and follow up as needed. on any performance issues. In addition, we track all complaints and the resolution of the complaints and we require staff to continually circle back to the individual to insure that they are receiving all necessary information. We are happy to provide aggregated information on the types of complaints and their resolution upon request. | am particularly concerned that someone believes that we have not responded to their concernor if our communication is inadequate and I expect management to address any such problems when they are made aware of the issue. Fail fs ti There are two timeliness measures required by either federal or District regulations, related to the provision of vocational rehabilitation services. These are that eligibility must be determined within 60 days of an application and that an Individualized Plan for Employment (IPE) must be completed within 90 days. RSA's compliance with both of these ‘measures has been excellent over the past two years. In FY 2014, the agency completed eligibility timely 92% of the time and developed IPEs timely 93% of the time. Thus far in FY 2015, the agency completes eligibility timely 95% of the time and develops IPEs timely 96% ofthe time, Lack of alternatives provided when RSA rejects a vocational goal, Ifa Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) Counselor disagrees with a person about that person's employment goal then the VR Counselor is expected to counsel the person about options that are consistent with the person's strengths, resources, capabilities, and career interests to help them chart out a plan to develop their capacity so that they can pursue the goal or to identify alternative, related employment options. ‘The VR Counselor then must notify the person in writing of the agency's decision not to support the person’s stated goal. What occurs most often is that the agency identifies an interim objective that would allow us the opportunity to reconsider the appropriateness of the goal at a later date. For example, a student who expresses an interest in an employment goal of becoming a Medical Doctor but whose reading and math levels are below the fifth grade level would be encouraged to seek an employment goal in a related medical field, eg,, medical assistant, with an understanding, written into the IPE, that ifthe person later demonstrates an ability to succeed in post- secondary education, such that the person might be able to complete a Bachelor's degree and be accepted to medical school, that the goal would be reconsidered ata later date. Ifwe are unable to resolve the difference of opinion regarding the employment goal, the person has the right to seek an informal administrative review, mediation or file an appeal of the agency's decision with the Office of Administrative Hearings. These rights are ined and provided in writing to all applicants at the time they apply for services. In addition, all applicants are provided information about the Client Assistance Program provided by University Legal Services. This program is available to advocate on behalf of applicants and clients regarding the provision of services. disabilities. Generally speaking, ADA reasonable accommodation requests are directed to the agency HR office and not to the supervisor. In the last 12 months the DDS HR office received a total of 21 requests from 17 DDS employees. Of those requests, four were denied and all four that were denied were requests to telework. Three of the four requests that were denied were from staff in DDA and one was in RSA. One case was determined to not be an ADA accommodation. For two it was determined that the essential functions of the job could not be performed from home and the fourth was denied because the medical information did not support that the person could make sound legally binding decisions under the sedation and medication that the employee required. Of the four that requested to telework twocurrently telework under existing agency telework policy not related to ADA accommodations. The DDS HR office maintains all documents related to the accommodations requests and follows up with the appropriate agency divisions to insure that approved requests are fully implemented. Supervisors who receive accommodation requests are instructed to route the requests to the HR office. The forms for requesting the accommodation requests direct the person to submit the request to the HR office. A supervisor who failed to implement a reasonable accommodation request that was authorized by the HR office would be subject to disciplinary action, DDS is aware of the following complaints following the provision of a requested accommodation. + Anemployee who requested a specialized keyboard as an accommodation complained about the bright yellow color on the keyboard trim, © Anemployee who requested a specialized chair complained that he was not allowed to travel to the showroom to try out the chairs. The agency had purchased the chair to the specifications of the medical Doctor's prescription but upon receipt of his, complaint, we scheduled a special van trip for the employee to the showroom to sit and try out the different chairs. Retaltating against employees who report problems, ‘The agency does not retaliate against employees who report problems. I appreciate an employee who reports a problem as that allows me an opportunity address and correct the issue. However we do have situations where an employee who is not satisfied with the actions of the agency claims that the agency actions are being taken in retaliation. | have provided the following information based on cases that occurred in the last two years (2) years: * Acurrent employee claimed that RSA retaliated against her when she appealed her 2014 performance rating to the agency Review and Resolution Committee (RRC). This employee is claiming a hostile work environment and the complaint is currently under investigation. ‘* Acurrent employee previously filed multiple discrimination suits against the agency. All but one claim have been dismissed and the current investigation is in discovery by the Office of Human Rights. This employee claims that RSA retaliated against him for filing the law suit when he was put on a performance improvement plan (PIP) for poor work performance. ‘© Acurrent employee has claimed the agency retaliated against him for being ill. The employee believes that the agency retaliated in not providing him adequate assistance to obtain donated leave from DCHR after he had exhausted his accrued leave plus received the maximum amount of donated leave (320 hours) from the agency. The employee was advised that he needed to contribute to the DCHR system in order to be eligible to apply for the additional leave and that DDS had no control over the granting of DCHR Leave Bank funds. ‘+ Aformer employee made a statement related to funds not being available to authorize services when in reality the funds needed to be de-obligated from outstanding authorizations. The employee was directed to confirm whether the services would be provided or not, and if not, that he, or his rehabilitation assistant needed to de-obligate the funds, He did not agree that he had any responsibility for 4monitoring whether services authorized were being provided. The employee was later put on a performance improvement plan for an unrelated performance problem and he claimed the PIP was retaliation for his statement. This employee resigned from the agency and then sought payment of unemployment insurance benefits claiming a “constructive dismissal. The agency objected to the claim and the employee lost the case. ‘* A former employee who objected to several decisions of the agency including but not limited to her request to work at an off-site location that the agency determined was not accessible and objections to the location of her work space, filed a iscrimination claim with the Office of Human Rights (OHR). A failure to follow up on the part of the employee resulted in OHR considering the matter closed. The employee later resigned from employment and sought client status with the agency for the purpose of pursuing an additional advanced degree. Unfortunately, I cannot confirm that the cases outlined above are directly related to the concerns Councilmember Grosso has received without any other details, however, | am providing the information in an effort to respond to the Councilmember's concerns. I can assure you that any claims of retaliation are taken seriously, investigated and any corrections that are needed are swiftly implemented. | am happy to look into specific circumstances if provided with adequate information or complaints. Inability of employees to authorize critical services, causing client delays ‘This in fact was an issue during the last quarter of FY 2014, and at the beginning of FY 2015. This came about due to the fact that RSA expended 100% of its 2014 federal grant and all funds that had carried over from FY 2013 by the end of the fiscal year. In order to issue authorizations to a provider, the agency has to first requisition funds and then issue a purchase order. Authorizations are then issued against the purchase order. Clients have a choice of providers and the agency is not able to predict with certainty which provider may be selected by a client. When funds became tight at the end of the fiscal year, our fiscal staff moved funds in order to fund providers as they were selected. This process can delay the authorization by a number of days. In addition, no services can be authorized at the beginning of the fiscal year until the budget is allocated, requisitions are approved and purchase orders issued. Due to staff transitions in our Contracts office at the beginning of the fiscal year, some of the purchase orders were delayed for a number of weeks. Other possible delays can be related to clients requesting services from a provider, particularly a college or university, which is not in the District's payment system. Before issuing an authorization, RSA must to obtain payment information from the provider, in order to enter the school into the system. RSA has provided reasonable accommodations to blind employees in the form of a “reader” ‘which is generally an employee in a clerical role assigned to read to the blind employee. The reading is done as needed and is primarily for any incoming mail, reports or other documents that are not received electronically. items that are received electronically can be “read” by the blind employee using assistive technology. The assigned “reader employee” also has regular duties outside of the reading assignment. ‘The agency is not aware of anyformal certification for a “reader” though would welcome information on such a certification if it exists. 1am aware of a situation where a blind employee and the employee assigned as her reader had a disagreement regarding the lower graded employee performing additional duties outside of the “reader” duties. This disagreement was resolved by the supervisor and lam not aware of any other situation where a blind or vision impaired employee did not receive adequate accommodations to assist with reading, This statementiis not accurate. The agency provides adaptive equipment as needed to employees at their work stations and also provides the equipment in interview rooms. We are happy to demonstrate such equipment to you or the Councilmember if desired. In addition, when we have assigned staff to work at offsite locations, we ensure that all necessary adaptive equipment is available to the employee at the offsite location. am aware of one situation that occurred more than a year ago when adaptive equipment ‘was illegally and unofficially removed from an interview room after hours. The situation ‘was investigated and we believe that it was removed by a disgruntled employee who subsequently resigned. The agency located the removed equipment and returned it to the interview room. If anyone knows of any other circumstances where equipment was removed | would appreciate the information as this equipment is District property. During the last 12 months seven (7) RSA employees have been put on a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP). The agency does not put any employees on Personal Improvement Plans. Of the seven (7) RSA employees on PIPs in the last year, none had a disability and none had requested any sort of accommodation. ‘The DDS policy on alternate work schedules allows employees in non-supervisory positions at grade 13 or below to request a compressed work week (working 9 days in a pay period instead of 10) or a flex time schedule with start and end times outside of standard District business hours. Supervisory employees or non-supervisory employees at grade 14 and above are not eligible for compressed work schedules but may request to telecommute one day per pay period. A total of seven (7) employees in all of DDS have requested and been approved to telecommute, one (1) of which is in RSA. An additional four (4) requests to telecommute were received and denied during the last 12 months. Three (3) of the employees were supervisors in DDA and one (1) was a non-supervisory staff member in RSA andall four (4) were denied. Two of the denials were ADA related and were denied because the employee could not perform the duties of the job from the remote location or could not perform the duties while taking a medication. Two of the supervisors in DDA were denied because of their performance.1 believe that this complaint may be related to an employee who in 2011 requested the agency purchase a motorized scooter for her use at the job site and at home. This was not an ADA accommodations request but was a request to RSA by a client who also was employed by RSA. The situation was resolved in 2013 with the purchase of a scooter which is currently on loan to the individual per RSA policy. There is no indication in the record as to why the decision to provide the scooter was delayed and the two previous RSA deputy directors in place following the initial request are no longer employed by the agency. The situation was resolved soon after the current Deputy Director assumed the role. In situations such as this, RSA would be required to rely first on comparable benefi either public benefits or services or goods paid for through a person's health insurance. Ifa scooter is medically necessary it should be covered by health insurance. RSA would provide support for this equipment, to the extent it was medically necessary, and other benefits (¢., Medicaid or health insurance) were not available. The person would also be liable for financial contribution, based on their income. There is no record of any request to any supervisor in RSA or to the DDS Human Capital Administration requesting desk duty related to pregnancy. However we do have record of an employee in DDA who asked to be assigned to desk duty at approximately 12 weeks of pregnancy. However the physician's statement that the employee provided was for 100% bed rest, not desk duty. The agency denied the request as it was against her physicians orders and the employee subsequently went on leave, We do not have any control over the complaints that are filed with the OIG, nor do we influence the OIG investigations or outcomes. DDS has requested detail from the OIG regarding the number of complaints filed against DDS and the resolution/status of those complaints. This information can be provided once available. 1 believe that this is a concern that was surfaced by Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind (CLB). As you know the agency has met with CLB regarding their concerns and they have stated these concerns in other forums. However itis not accurate. In anticipation of the meeting with you and CLB, we reviewed authorizations issued to CLB during FY 2014, through April, 2015. The agency issued 102 services authorizations to CLB, for a total of. $174,887. There was only one month during this period, June, 2014, that no service authorizations were issued to CLB. There are certainly times around the end of a fiscal year and start of a new fiscal year when authorizations to spend funds may be delayed as new service requisitions and purchase orders are put into place but there are no actions on the part of DDS or RSA to limit the authorization of, services during any particular time period and the fiscal year change is generally no morethan a week or two. The authorization of services is based on the selection of the service by the client. Clients select the services and the providers and VR staff are not in the position to direct individuals to any particular provider except in cases where the selection is not appropriate for the client, I sincerely hope that these responses help to clarify the activities in RSA and our intentions to provide the best possible services to the individuals we serve. I recognize that fair treatment of our employees is essential to staff morale and essential to productivity and high performance. [am available for further discussion at your convenience. CC: Andrew Reese, Deputy Director or RSA.