[PHOTO/CAPTION: Parnell Diggs]

[PHOTO/CAPTION: Parnell Diggs]

The Braille Monitor

June,

2002

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Legislator

Wreaks Havoc Trying

to Write Off Rehabilitation Programs for the Blind

by

Parnell Diggs

Parnell

Diggs

From

the Editor: Parnell Diggs is the president of the National Federation of the

Blind of South Carolina. Across the country in recent years blind people have

been fighting to preserve whatever autonomy they have achieved for their state

agency programs. South Carolina's blind citizens are no exception. Every time

South Carolinians turn around it seems that someone, usually a legislator named

Rex Rice, is sharpening his knife in the hope of cutting services to the blind

down to the size and quality he apparently thinks blind people deserve. In the

following article, Parnell Diggs reports on Mr. Rice's latest efforts and the

response of the NFB of South Carolina. This is what he says:

Early

in the 2002 state legislative session, Representative Rex Rice of Easley, South

Carolina, was gathering his resources for his third attempt in as many years

to eradicate the South Carolina Commission for the Blind, which would certainly

diminish the quality of life of blind South Carolinians.

Representative

Rice proposed re-establishing set-asides in 1999--thirty-five years after they

had been abolished in South Carolina. In March of 2001, as the General Assembly

considered across-the-board budget cuts, Rice wanted to slash the Commission

for the Blind budget by 17 percent, while much smaller cuts were proposed to

other agencies.

Under

Rice's plan the Department of Disabilities and Special Needs would have received

a 3 percent cut. The average budget cut for South Carolina state agencies (including

the Department of Vocational Rehabilitation) was approximately 10 percent in

2001.

The

Commission for the Blind received a 9.8 percent cut after the NFB of South Carolina

intervened, handing Rice his second legislative defeat in as many tries. Then

in October of 2001 we learned that the State Legislative Audit Council was auditing

the Commission's Business Enterprise Program.

Heading

the five-member legislative contingent requesting the audit was none other than

Representative Rex Rice. Officials of the Legislative Audit Council assured

us that the scope of the audit was limited to the Business Enterprise Program--not

that we believed those protestations for a minute.

I

received a letter from the Legislative Audit Council in December with the news

that (just as we had suspected) the scope of the audit would extend to the very

survival of the Commission itself. Based on the comments of consumers and other

interested people, the auditors claimed, the audit would attempt to accomplish

five objectives.

One

of these was to "examine the advantages and disadvantages of combining

the Commission with another agency." The auditors would complete their

fieldwork by February of 2002, and a preliminary report would be forthcoming

in April. If anything was ever a foregone conclusion, the results of the audit

of the Commission's Business Enterprise Program was it. We knew the auditors

would recommend that the Commission for the Blind be placed under the Department

of Vocational Rehabilitation.

Nevertheless,

I met with the auditors in mid-December and tried to impress upon them the importance

of maintaining a separate agency for the blind. The auditors thanked me for

my comments, told me they would contact me if they needed additional information,

and continued with their plans to recommend that the Commission be eliminated

to save administrative costs.

With

the arrival of January came the beginning of the 2002 legislative session. The

NFB of South Carolina hosted its annual Legislative Appreciation Reception on

January 23 with sixty-five of the hundred-seventy legislators attending. In

a ten-minute presentation we made it clear that programs for the blind are more

effective when administered by a separate, autonomous agency.

On

the morning of February 13, we learned that a Ways and Means subcommittee would

be meeting later that day to discuss the need to implement cost-cutting measures

for the second consecutive fiscal year. Participating substantially in the deliberations

of that subcommittee was none other than the Honorable Rex Rice.

Rice

had enlisted the support of the Subcommittee Chairman, who also happened to

be the House Majority Leader, Representative Rick Quinn of Columbia. Quinn believed

that doing away with the Commission in the name of cutting costs made sense;

and besides, to hear Quinn tell it, our objections were futile.

When

the appropriations bill was reported out to the House floor, we discovered that

the Ways and Means Committee had moved the entire Commission for the Blind line

item to the Department of Vocational Rehabilitation without allowing comment

from the blind community. Clearly Rice had decided not to wait for the audit

recommendations. With the stroke of a pen he intended to eradicate separate

programs for the blind in the state. Soon the House would be debating the appropriations

bill, and the Commission would be left out.

We

knew that the House would be taking up the appropriations bill on March 12,

which gave us a mere two weeks to turn the tide. We took our message to the

public, first with a February 21 press conference on the Statehouse steps, and

on February 22 a half-page advertisement in one of the state's leading newspapers.

Blind South Carolinians chipped in $2,500 to cover the cost of the ad informing

readers that the Ways and Means Committee had disenfranchised blind citizens

in taking unilateral action to put the Commission for the Blind out of business

for lack of funding.

On

Saturday, February 23, I presided over a strategy session of chapter leaders

from across the state. We each agreed to contact specific legislators by March

12 and to be present in the House gallery at various times during the debate

of the appropriations bill. Representative Quinn said that he wasn't swayed

by the newspaper ad or by our lobbying efforts, but he and Rice met twice with

NFB of South Carolina officials before the budget debate. At the first meeting

Quinn presented a draft of a bill that he called "enabling legislation"

to coincide with the appropriations bill.

This

legislation would have established an agency called the Commission for the Blind

under the Department of Vocational Rehabilitation. He had taken the statute

which created the Commission in 1966; and wherever it mentioned the "Commission

for the Blind," Quinn simply inserted the words, "the Department of

Vocational Rehabilitation."

On

March 5 we met with Representatives Rice and Quinn for a second round of talks.

Rice had been prodding Quinn for a week to introduce his commission bill, but

by the end of the March 5 meeting, Quinn had agreed to back an amendment on

the House floor replacing the Commission line item in the appropriations bill.

Blind

South Carolinians took their seats in the House gallery (white canes extended)

on March 12 in support of the Commission for the Blind. The irony of the Majority

Leader and Rex Rice having to convince inquiring legislators on the House floor

that the Federation really did now support the Commission amendment was amusing

to observers in the gallery.

By

the end of the day the House had restored funding to the Commission for the

Blind, and it was clear that the Commission would not be folded into the Department

of Vocational Rehabilitation. Programs for the blind would remain separate and

autonomous in South Carolina without losing a penny of client services funding.

Sadly,

however, Rice's support of the Quinn amendment was not the result of a change

of heart. On the contrary, he continued his assault on state programs for the

blind until the end of the 2002 legislative session. On April 11 Representatives

Quinn and Rice introduced H. 5118, a bill to combine certain administrative

functions of the Commission for the Blind with those of the Department of Vocational

Rehabilitation and to eliminate the position of Commissioner. The Governing

Board would still exist, but it would not have the authority to hire a Commissioner.

The Commission would still exist, but there would be no one to run it. We believe

that Rice conceived of this legislation as a step toward abolishing separate

programs for the blind.

In

late April we learned that the Legislative Audit Council was conducting a second

audit at the request of Representative Rice. This one would be so broad that

it would include the eight state agencies within the jurisdiction of Quinn's

subcommittee and would explore the feasibility of combining all of these agencies.

One of these just happened to be the Commission for the Blind. So in the final

weeks of the 2002 legislative session the Legislative Audit Council was conducting

two audits at the same time involving the Commission for the Blind.

At

this writing H. 5118 is pending in a Ways and Means subcommittee, but it has

little chance of becoming law this year. We believe that the Commission for

the Blind is safe at least until January of 2003 when the next legislative session

begins, but at that time we think that, fueled by the results of two legislative

audits, Rice will renew his assault on programs for the blind.

In

the meantime chalk up another victory for the National Federation of the Blind

in the continuing struggle to maintain separate state programs for the blind.

The struggle began in 1993, when some legislators wanted to make the Commission

for the Blind part of the Department of Mental Retardation (if you can believe

it), and unfortunately there is no end in sight.

The

wisdom of creating the Commission for the Blind in 1966 did not become foolishness

during the following decades. It was right in 1966, and it is right in 2002

to have separate state programs for the blind. We opposed efforts to eliminate

separate programs for the blind in 2002, and we will do so come January 2003

and beyond if necessary.

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