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Legislative Network Alerts Alert Number 171 August 30, 2006 For Your Information The Restructuring of RSA's Training Grants To: Members of the Legislative Network From: Patricia Leahy, Director of Governmental Affairs For those who read on the run, this Washington Wire deals solely with a very important issue: The restructuring of the Rehabilitation Services Administration's (RSA) Training Grant program. Dr. Fredric Schroeder, the former Commissioner of RSA and the founder of RSA's Employment Conference, has just issued the attached history/chronology of RSA's Training Grant Program. The National Rehabilitation Association will be discussing this important issue in a forthcoming TeleSeminar to be announced. As you are all fully aware, the Rehabilitation Services Administration has been substantially weakened by the closing of its Regional Offices on September 30 of last year. Many of the seasoned, well-qualified RSA staff had been retired or fired with the closing of the Regional Offices and those few from the field who received offers from the Central Office (Washington) RSA just a few short days before the Regional Offices closed, must be overwhelmed with providing both the training of newly-hired staff, conducting the actual monitoring (assuming this monitoring is not just a paper chase and, as in the past, involves a thorough, onsite case review) and the provision of technical assistance. Please take a moment to read this very important information. The National Rehabilitation Association, continues to partner with The National Council on Rehabilitation Education (NCRE), to advocate for substantial, increased funding for Training and will continue to do so over the next weeks and months. Thank you. Status of RSA Training Grants Fredric K. Schroeder, Ph.D. Legislative Consultant National Council on Rehabilitation Education August 30, 2006 For many years the rehabilitation services administration (RSA) training budget has remained constant at 39.624 million. For each of the past three years, the Congress has applied an across-the-board 1 percent rescission [reduction] resulting in a loss of nearly 4 million annually. Accordingly in fiscal year 2007 (the current fiscal year), RSA training is funded at a level of 38.437 million. Of this amount approximately 50 percent goes to long-term training, 25 percent to continuing education (including the RRCEP's), 15 percent to state agency in-service training, and 10 percent to interpreter training and other miscellaneous training. On October 1, 2005, RSA closed its 10 regional offices, laying off 65 of its employees. This action reduced the total number of RSA staff by nearly 50 percent. As a result, significant restructuring of the RSA central office became necessary. One casualty of the staff reduction was the training division, now known as the Training Program Unit. Under the new structure, the unit now has eight staff to administer 453 training grants. At the present time, most training grants are five years in duration. It would be nice if they were distributed evenly, that is 20 percent expiring each year. As it happens, a significant number of grants will expire next year, at the end of fiscal year 2007. Given RSA's significant reduction in staff, the high turnover in grants presents a significant management challenge. Accordingly, RSA began seeking ways to restructure the administration of its training grants. The initial strategy was to reduce the number of awards, thereby lowering the staff time needed for reviewing, paneling, and monitoring training grants, as well as providing technical assistance. However, while the reduction in staff was the catalyst for developing a plan to restructure the RSA training program, as the process progressed, RSA began a thorough, detailed assessment of the impact of its training dollars on meeting the needs of state vocational rehabilitation (VR) agencies for qualified personnel. The problem of addressing the need of VR agencies for well-trained staff is complex. For example, one factor affecting the supply of rehabilitation counselors is the relatively low number of graduates exiting master’s level rehabilitation programs--a number far short of the number of qualified rehabilitation counselors needed by state VR agencies. For this reason, as part of its restructuring efforts, RSA has been looking for strategies to increase the number of graduates from CORE accredited master's level programs. At the present time, 75 percent of the funds under long-term training grants must be allocated to direct student support. While there is strong justification for this approach, the question remains whether more can be done to increase the number of graduates from university rehabilitation programs. In other words, as currently structured, do RSA’s long-term training grants attract new students to university training programs or do they simply provide money for tuition and fees to students who would be in the program anyway? And if so, how could RSA training dollars be used to recruit new students into university programs? Another issue relates to the difficulty universities have in expanding the number of faculty positions, and hence, increasing the program's ability to graduate more students. With 75 percent of training grant funds going to student support, little remains to hire new faculty. This list is by no means exhaustive. There are many other factors affecting the ability of state VR agencies to recruit and retain qualified rehabilitation personnel. Nevertheless, RSA would like to find ways to recruit new students into CORE accredited rehabilitation programs, expand the capacity of existing programs, and fund the establishment of new CORE accredited programs. In February, 2006, RSA began soliciting ideas on how to restructure its training program. RSA gathered information (including written comments) from many stakeholders in preparation for the release of a formal Federal Register announcement to be published in the fall of 2006. The idea was that the Federal Register notice would summarize the various suggestions gathered from the field and would request formal comment in advance of a final notice providing the details of its restructuring plan. At the present time the draft Federal Register announcement is in the clearance process within the US Department of Education. Once cleared by the Department, the notice will be sent to the office of Management and budget for review and approval. While RSA had hoped to publish the Federal Register notice in early September, 2006, it appears unlikely that the necessary review and approval will be completed in time for an early September publication date. In addition, the content of the Federal Register notice is uncertain. While RSA has indicated that the Federal Register notice will be used as a way for the field to review and comment on suggestions gathered over the past several months, it is entirely possible that the various reviewing authorities may have other views on what the Federal Register notice should contain. The only thing that is known for certain is that the Federal Register notice will address the RSA training program. It is possible that the Federal Register notice will include specific suggestions for restructuring the training program, but it is equally possible that the Federal Register notice will simply solicit further comment from the field on how RSA training funds can best be used. Regardless of the content of the Federal Register announcement, I believe that there are a number of predictable strategies RSA will consider as it seeks to reduce the number of training grants it administers while seeking to maximize the impact of available grant dollars and training staff. From a mechanical standpoint, they include: Larger long-term training grants, from an average of 100,000 per year to 200,000 or more; Funding consortia of universities providing long-term training; and Regional grants--a central source for administering stipends and other student support. From a substantive standpoint, I believe RSA will consider: Ways of attracting more students into core accredited university training programs; Ways of expanding the capacity of existing programs; and Ways of helping develop new programs. From the perspective of needing to make the best use of limited personnel, I believe RSA will seek to address: Finding the best allocation of available training dollars (pre-service versus in-service, etc.); and Balancing the time required for grants management with the needs of grantees and state VR agencies for technical assistance. It may well be that other ideas will surface during the formal process. Rehabilitation educators should give serious consideration to the implications of these and other strategies for reducing the number of RSA training grants. |
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