Merger Madness

Merger Madness

Wayne Shevlin

Merger Madness

by Wayne E. Shevlin

**********

From the Editor: In recent years legislatures and governors

in state after state have decided that multiplying the layers of

bureaucracy thereby creating huge agencies will increase

efficiency in delivering rehabilitation services while at the

same time saving money. They argue that lumping accounting and

other administrative services together will automatically and

inevitably provide economy of scale. Sometimes they even argue

that counselors, who after all know everything about

rehabilitation, can be more efficient if they deal with a number

of different disabilities in a small geographic area rather than

specializing in one or a very few disabilities and traveling some

distance to cover the case load.

But anyone who has ever tried to make his or her perplexed

way through layers of the rehabilitation bureaucratic maze knows

that such arguments benefit no one but the empire builders at the

very top, where power and influence are available to a very few.

Clients with specific needs are not served. Counselors only

become discouraged trying to understand the access-equipment,

mobility, and Braille needs of blind consumers; learn American

Sign Language and other communicative skills to help deaf

clients; and meet the specific needs of those with brain injury,

orthopedic limitations of all kinds, or mental retardation. It

can't be done effectively, but since the only people losing out

are those requiring rehabilitation and the dedicated

professionals trying to serve them, the disadvantages of such

merger plans are frequently discounted.

The legislative battles that result when these consolidation

plans surface are messy and unpleasant. The members of the

disability community resisting the legislative juggernaut have

little money, power, or influence; so why should legislators

listen to us? We are frequently told that we don't really

understand the situation, that no one intends to damage the

rehabilitation delivery system, that we will experience no

diminution in the quality of the services delivered. They dismiss

the fact that we are the ones who have been on the receiving end

of whatever rehabilitation has been available, and we know what

works and what doesn't. We have learned the hard way that long

chains of command, budget dispersal, and paperwork create chaos

and confusion. We have all heard the stories of what happens when

a counselor doesn't know enough about a disability to insure that

proper services are procured for a client. And many of us can

name the states in which services for the blind have been buried

in much larger agencies for so long that the notion of effective

service delivery would be a joke if human lives weren't being

destroyed by the system.

Despite our best efforts we lost the most recent round of

the separate-agency battle in Texas in early May. Happily, in

North Carolina the blind are still up and fighting and appear to

be holding their own against determined opposition. Wayne Shevlin

chairs the NFB of North Carolina's Legislative Committee. Here is

the way he tells the story of the latest confrontation in North

Carolina:

**********

I returned home from National Convention in July of 1998 to

find that someone in our state legislature had introduced a bill

to merge our Division of Services for the Blind, Services for the

Deaf, and Vocational Rehabilitation into one generic agency

called the Division of Rehabilitation Services. As Legislative

Chairman of the NFB of North Carolina, I immediately went to work

making calls to people in the organization, encouraging them to

make calls and to write to their legislators, particularly those

on the committee which had introduced this idea. I went as far as

to get a permit to demonstrate in front of the Legislative

Building if necessary.

At that time it turned out not to be necessary. (See Herman

Gruber's article, "North Carolina Agency Survives Surprise from

Legislature" in the November, 1998, issue of the Braille

Monitor.) The bill was passed on from the committee to our State

House of Representatives, and the bill to merge was voted down

fifty-seven to fifty-five. But unfortunately it didn't end there;

in fact, it was just getting started.

While the merger was voted down, a provision was passed to

establish a study commission to look at the feasibility of

merging the Division of Services for the Blind, Services for the

Deaf, and Vocational Rehabilitation. The accounting firm of Price

Waterhouse-Coopers--who better to work with the Blind than an

accounting firm--were hired to do the study. Consumers were to be

included in the study. However, we were told that the merger was

a done deal, and what we thought didn't really matter.

Nevertheless, our state president, Herman Gruber, was asked to

participate in the merger study.

In March of this year the issue began to heat up. I began to

hear all kinds of rumors, including more talk that the merger was

already a done deal. A done deal, eh--I guess they forgot to

consider the National Federation of the Blind of North Carolina.

Herman and I had already been keeping in touch regularly; now it

became daily. We also began having regular meetings with the

North Carolina Council of the Blind, North Carolina Association

of Workers for the Blind, and other groups and people who had no

blindness-field affiliation at all.

On March 24 we held a meeting in Raleigh to plan and inform

people about what was happening. People were also encouraged to

visit their legislators as long as they were in town for the

meeting. We decided to schedule a demonstration in front of the

Legislative Building on April 6. I was asked to set up the

demonstration. I had participated in NAC-Tracking and in a number

of demonstrations held at Washington Seminars through the years,

but I had never organized one before.

I learned very quickly just how many details are involved in

organizing a demonstration, especially one which turned out to be

as big as this one was. We needed to obtain permits from

Legislative Security and the Raleigh Police Department. We had to

find a place for people to gather and for them to park cars and

vans. There were press releases to write and send, slogans and

signs to invent and make, people to notify, and on and on. Peggy

Elliott, Second Vice President of the National Federation of the

Blind, and her secretary Darla Hamilton arrived the day before

the demonstration to help and give us moral support. We met with

them the night they arrived to cover last-minute details.

The big day arrived. The demonstration was to be held at

noon. We were all to gather at the Holiday Inn and walk about

five blocks to the Legislative Building. Only as people began

arriving did we realize the size of the group we were going to

have. By all counts, ours and the media's, we had between four

and five hundred people in attendance. We had people from all

parts of the state: agency employees; AER, NFB, and ACB members;

deaf-blind people, folks in wheel chairs, and members of the

Lions Club in their orange vests. The media were well represented

by our four major local TV stations, reporters from the Raleigh

and Charlotte papers, and several other papers from across the

state. We marched up and down in front of the Legislative

Building for almost two hours with Mrs. Elliott in the thick of

things helping to organize and leading the chanting. A number of

legislators came out to watch and talk to us.

After the smoke had cleared, several of us who had been

recognized as organizers of the opposition movement received

phone calls inviting us to a meeting of the joint Senate and

House Appropriations Committee the next week. Now was the time to

let those with the real power know how we felt, as if the

demonstration hadn't. The first folks in line to speak to the

committee were representatives of the Department of Health and

Human Services (DHHS), the parent agency of the state agency

serving the blind. They presented their study results and their

recommendations, which were--surprise, surprise--that Services

for the Blind, Services for the Deaf, and Vocational

Rehabilitation be merged into a Department of Rehabilitation.

Some of the more interesting things said by the Secretary of DHHS

were "they were trying to help the blind and that we ought to be

grateful" and that "the blind were the only consumers who opposed

the merger." We were also told that a few of the blind had

stirred the rest up.

The next day the consumers had our say. The first people to

speak were two advocates from the deaf community. They were very

much opposed to the merger. Hmmm, what was that about the blind

being the only group opposed? Then we had our chance. Mr. Gruber

was the spokesman for blind consumers and was eloquent. He was

asked whether the blind would be satisfied if we were guaranteed

a voice in deciding the way the merger would be done. Mr.

Gruber's response was, "If the input on planning the merger was

as significant as it had been on the Study Commission, it wasn't

worth much."

Since the committee meeting we have heard many rumors about

what may happen: everything from "it's a done deal" to "the

legislature will wait until the consumers forget and then try to

slip it through." In the end I think they are likely to combine

our school for the blind with the three schools for the deaf but

leave our agency alone. The Secretary of DHHS can merge the

agencies without the backing of the legislature, but I don't

think it is likely. We are continuing to keep in touch and build

support with our legislators to let them know we have not

forgotten and are continuing to keep our plans current. It's not

over yet, and blind North Carolinians are in no danger of

forgetting or of ceasing to keep a watchful eye on those who

think that bigger bureaucracy is better.

I want to extend thanks to all who participated and who have

expressed their support. Thanks especially to our National

Office. Peggy Elliott and Herman Gruber provided excellent advice

and leadership. Thank you to the members of the NFB of North

Carolina, who by their hard work have made my job as legislative

chairman easier. If anyone still wonders why the National

Federation of the Blind, our experience in North Carolina is an

eloquent illustration. Without the commitment, experience, and

momentum of the Federation, we would never have come as far as we

have.

**********