29 U.S.C. § 721 — State plans

(a) Plan requirements (1) In general. (A) Submission. To receive money under this subchapter for a fiscal year, a State must submit a unified State plan under section 102 of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, or a combined State plan under section 103. The Secretary and the Secretary of Labor must approve it. The plan must include a vocational-rehabilitation-services portion containing the State plan provisions described here. (B) Nonduplication. The State does not have to resubmit policies, procedures, or descriptions that it already sent to the Commissioner and that show the State meets this subchapter’s requirements. This includes material submitted under the version of this subchapter in effect on the day before the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act took effect. (C) Duration. This portion stays in effect until the State submits and receives approval of a new plan, or submits needed modifications. The Commissioner may require modifications after a change in State policy or Federal law, a Federal or highest-State-court interpretation of this chapter, or a finding that the State is not complying with this chapter. (2) Designated State agency and unit. (A) The plan must name one State agency to administer the plan or supervise a local agency that administers it. If State law authorizes an agency for blind people, or another agency serving blind adults, to provide vocational rehabilitation services to blind people, that agency may administer or supervise the blind-services part while another State agency administers the rest. At a State’s request, the Commissioner may let the designated agency share money and administrative duties with another State or local agency for a joint disability-services program, and may waive the requirement in paragraph (4) that the plan cover every political subdivision for that joint program. In American Samoa, the Governor is the appropriate State agency. (B) The designated agency must either primarily handle vocational rehabilitation, or contain a vocational rehabilitation bureau, division, or similar unit. That unit must primarily handle rehabilitation of people with disabilities and be responsible for the agency’s program; have a full-time day-to-day director; have staff who are all or substantially all full-time rehabilitation workers; have a level and status comparable to other major units; and alone have authority and responsibility inside the agency to spend this subchapter’s funds consistently with its purposes. (C) If only one State agency is designated, the State may give one organizational unit responsibility for blind services and another responsibility for the rest. The requirements in subparagraph (B) apply separately to those units. (3) Non-Federal share. The plan must provide for the State, or the State and local agencies if the State chooses, to supply the non-Federal share of the cost of carrying out part B. (4) Statewide operation. The plan must operate in every political subdivision. The Commissioner may waive that rule for an activity likely to help substantially more people with disabilities, to the extent and time allowed by regulations, only if a local agency supplies the non-Federal share, including money given to it by a private agency, organization, or person. Earmarked money may be used in the geographic areas for which it is earmarked if the State tells the Commissioner it cannot supply the full non-Federal share without that money. (5) Order of selection. If the State cannot serve every eligible applicant, the plan must state the selection order, explain it, assure that people with the most significant disabilities go first under the State’s criteria, and allow the State to serve eligible people who need particular services or equipment to keep a job, whether or not they are already receiving vocational rehabilitation services. People who do not meet the order’s criteria must still be able to use the information-and-referral system in paragraph (20). (6) Administration. (A) The plan must use the administrative methods the Commissioner finds necessary for proper and efficient operation. (B) The designated agency and assisted community rehabilitation programs must take affirmative action to employ and advance qualified people with disabilities on the terms in section 793 of this title. (C) Facilities used to deliver assisted services must comply with the Architectural Barriers Act of 1968, section 794 of this title, and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. (7) Personnel development. The plan must describe a comprehensive personnel-development system. It must explain the procedures and activities the designated agency will use to ensure an adequate supply of qualified State rehabilitation professionals and paraprofessionals for the designated State unit. This includes a system that determines each year the number and types of personnel employed by the unit to provide vocational rehabilitation services, including the ratios of qualified vocational rehabilitation counselors to clients, and the number and types of personnel the State needs, including a projection of how many will be needed in five years. The projection must consider the number of people expected to be served, the personnel expected to retire or leave the vocational rehabilitation field, and other relevant factors. When appropriate, the plan must explain how this personnel-development system will be coordinated with personnel-development activities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. It must also describe a system that determines each year information about in-State higher-education programs preparing rehabilitation professionals, including the number of enrolled students and the number who graduated in the past year with certification, licensure, or credentials qualifying them for certification or licensure as rehabilitation professionals. The plan must describe the development, updating, and carrying out of a plan that addresses the designated unit’s current and projected vocational-rehabilitation-services personnel-training needs. That plan must coordinate and facilitate efforts among the designated unit, higher-education institutions, and professional associations to recruit, prepare, and retain qualified personnel, including personnel from minority backgrounds and personnel who are people with disabilities. The plan must describe the procedures and activities the designated agency will use to ensure that all personnel employed by the designated unit are appropriately and adequately trained and prepared. These procedures and activities must include a system for continuing education of the unit’s rehabilitation professionals and paraprofessionals, particularly in rehabilitation technology, including training coordinated with entities carrying out State programs under section 3003 of this title. They must also include procedures for acquiring and sharing with those professionals and paraprofessionals important knowledge from research and other sources, including procedures for training them about the amendments to this chapter made by the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. The plan must set policies and procedures for establishing and maintaining standards to ensure that personnel needed by the designated unit are appropriately and adequately prepared and trained. The standards must be consistent with applicable national or State-approved or recognized certification, licensing, registration, or comparable requirements. They must establish education and experience requirements that ensure personnel have a 21st-century understanding of the changing workforce and the needs of people with disabilities. Those requirements must include either a bachelor’s degree in a field reasonably related to vocational rehabilitation, showing basic preparation in a field such as vocational rehabilitation counseling, social work, psychology, disability studies, business administration, human resources, special education, supported employment, customized employment, economics, or another field that reasonably prepares a person to work with consumers and employers, together with at least one year of paid or unpaid experience; or a master’s or doctoral degree in a field such as vocational rehabilitation counseling, law, social work, psychology, disability studies, business administration, human resources, special education, management, public administration, or another field that reasonably provides competence in the employment sector, in a disability field, or in both business-related and rehabilitation-related fields. The one year of experience may be direct work with people with disabilities, direct service or advocacy that gives experience and skills in working with people with disabilities, direct experience as an employer or small-business owner or operator, self-employment, or experience in human resources, recruitment, supervising employees, training, or other activities that provide experience in competitive integrated employment environments. The plan must also establish and maintain minimum standards, to the maximum extent feasible, to ensure that personnel are available within the designated unit who are trained to communicate in an applicant’s or eligible individual’s native language or mode of communication. (8) Comparable services and benefits. (A) Before providing an accommodation, auxiliary aid or service, or vocational rehabilitation service, the designated unit must determine whether a comparable service or benefit is available through another program outside this subchapter. This does not apply to services listed in paragraph (5)(E) or section 723(a)(1)–(4) and (14). No determination is required if it would interrupt or delay the person’s progress toward the employment outcome in the individualized plan, an immediate job placement, or service to a person at extreme medical risk. Merit-based awards and scholarships are not comparable benefits. (B) The Governor, consulting the State rehabilitation agency and other appropriate agencies, must ensure an interagency agreement or another coordination method among the designated unit and appropriate public entities, including the State Medicaid agency, a public higher-education institution, and a statewide-workforce-system component. It must ensure services and, when appropriate, accommodations or auxiliary aids in an individual plan, including during an interagency dispute. It must identify each public entity’s financial responsibility; set reimbursement terms and procedures; set dispute-resolution procedures, including how the designated unit may seek reimbursement; and set procedures for identifying each entity’s coordination duties and timely service delivery. (C) A public entity other than the designated unit that has a duty under Federal or State law, State policy, or this paragraph to provide or pay for a service that is also vocational rehabilitation must do so directly, by contract, or by another arrangement. If it fails, the designated unit must provide or pay for it and may seek reimbursement. If the public entity later pays, it must repay the designated unit. The designated unit may not pay for a service that another entity is obligated to provide, except as this subparagraph allows. (D) The Governor may satisfy the interagency-agreement requirement through a State law or regulation, a signed agreement among the public entities that clearly states each entity’s duties, or another appropriate method chosen by the designated State unit. (9) Individualized plan for employment. The plan must assure that a plan meeting section 722(b) is developed and carried out promptly after a person is found eligible. If the State uses an order of selection, it must do this only for people who meet the State’s selection criteria. Services must be provided according to the plan. (10) Reporting. The designated agency must report, in the Commissioner’s required form, level of detail, and time, information about applicants and eligible people receiving services. Annual reports must contain information needed to assess State performance under the relevant section 726 standards and indicators. The Commissioner must require counts of applicants; eligible and ineligible people, with ineligible counts by disability type and age; service recipients, including paragraph (5)(E) recipients without plans, recipients with significant disabilities who have plans, recipients without significant disabilities who have plans, open cases split between training and postsecondary education, types of services including supported employment, students receiving pre-employment transition services, and referrals between one-stop operators and State rehabilitation programs. For applicants and eligible recipients with significant disabilities, reports must state how many ended participation, achieved employment, and remained employed 6 and 12 months after obtaining or regaining work (or after retaining or advancing), including those earning the Fair Labor Standards Act minimum wage or another Commissioner-set wage and those receiving employer benefits. For others, reports must give the same ending, outcome, 6-month, 12-month, wage, and benefit information, plus the average time to obtain employment for those achieving outcomes. The Commissioner must also require costs for administration, assessments, counseling and guidance, other direct staff services, services purchased under plans, small-business enterprises, community rehabilitation programs, other group services, and helping eligible people use other programs under this chapter and title I of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. Reports must include the State’s annual program-effectiveness evaluation. Additional complete-count or sample information must cover age, gender, race, ethnicity, education, impairment category, disability severity, student status, key application, eligibility, plan, and participation dates, earnings at application and exit, work status, occupation, service types including assistive technology, public or private service providers, and reasons for leaving without an outcome, plus information needed to measure the standards and indicators. Data must be complete except where sampling is allowed, cross-classifiable as much as possible, and confidential. A category need not be broken down if it is too small for reliable statistics or the breakdown would reveal personally identifying information. The Commissioner must issue an annual comprehensive report containing this information and a summary, and send it to the specified House and Senate education and appropriations committees within 90 days after the fiscal year ends. (11) Cooperation, collaboration, and coordination. The plan must require cooperative agreements with other statewide workforce-system components. Agreements may provide staff training and technical help about rehabilitation services, eligibility, accessibility, nondiscrimination, reasonable accommodations, auxiliary aids, and rehabilitation technology; linked information and financial-management systems and employment, vacancy, career, and investment information; common intake, referrals, databases, resource information, and hotlines; employer cooperation for placement and other agreed activities; each component’s staff roles, resources, and financial duties; and dispute procedures. The agreements must be replicated locally. The plan must describe coordination with Federal, State, and local agencies outside the workforce system, including section 3003 programs, rural-development programs, noneducational out-of-school-youth agencies, and State-use contracting programs. It must coordinate with education officials on student transition through consultation and technical help, including video conferences and calls; transition planning for individualized education programs; agency and financial responsibilities, lead agencies, and qualified staff; and outreach to students needing services. It must describe employer work to identify competitive integrated employment and career exploration, and employer help with rehabilitation and student transition services. It must assure working relationships with the Statewide Independent Living Council and independent living centers; a formal Medicaid and developmental-disability-agency agreement for services, including extended services, to waiver-eligible people with the most significant disabilities; formal agreements with part C grant recipients for services to American Indians, including referrals and information sharing, reservation-area services, transition planning, and shared studies, assessments, training, and other resources; coordination with assistive-technology programs and referrals; coordination with Ticket-to-Work employment networks; and collaboration with Medicaid, developmental-disability, and mental-health agencies to develop community employment in integrated settings. (12) Residency. The plan must assure that the State will not impose a residence rule that excludes anyone present in the State. (13) American Indians. Except as part C provides otherwise, the designated agency must serve American Indians with disabilities who live in the State to the same extent as other significant disability populations in the State. (14) Extended or special-certificate employment. For each person with a disability served under this subchapter who is employed in extended employment in a community rehabilitation program or under section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the plan must provide for a review and reevaluation of that person’s status. The review and reevaluation must take place semiannually during the first two years of the person’s employment and annually thereafter. It must consider the person’s interests, priorities, and needs for competitive integrated employment or training. The person or, as appropriate, the person’s representative must be given the opportunity to participate in the review and must sign an acknowledgment that the review occurred. The State must make maximum efforts, including providing services, reasonable accommodations, and other support, to help the person obtain competitive integrated employment. Within 60 days after the end of each fiscal year, the State must report this information for each person to the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor. (15) Annual goals and progress reports. (A) Every three years, the designated unit and the State Rehabilitation Council, if there is one, must jointly conduct a statewide assessment of the rehabilitation needs of residents with disabilities. It must particularly address people with the most significant disabilities, including supported employment needs; minorities and people unserved or underserved by the program; people served by other statewide-workforce-system components; and youth and students, including pre-employment-transition and other transition needs. It must assess transition and pre-employment-transition needs and coordination with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and the need for community rehabilitation programs. When the State updates an assessment, it must report the update to the Commissioner. (B) Each year the plan must report estimates of the number of State residents eligible for services; the number who will receive part B or subchapter VI services, including numbers in each order-of-selection priority category if used; the number eligible but not served because of that order; and the service costs, including costs for each priority category if applicable. (C) The plan must identify State goals and priorities. The designated unit and Council, if any, must develop, agree on, and review them each year and agree on revisions. The State must report revisions. Goals must rely on the statewide assessment and updates, performance under section 726 standards and indicators, and other information about program operation and effectiveness, including Council reports and section 727 monitoring findings. If an order of selection is used, the plan must also set service and outcome goals and target times for each priority category. (D) The plan must describe strategies to meet assessed needs and achieve the goals. These include expanding services and providing a broad range of assistive technology statewide at every rehabilitation stage; outreach to minority and unserved or underserved people; better services and transition coordination for students; needed community rehabilitation programs; better performance under section 726; and help for other workforce-system components serving people with disabilities. (E) The plan must evaluate program effectiveness and include a joint annual progress report from the designated unit and Council, if any. The report must measure goal achievement, describe strategies that helped, explain factors blocking unmet goals, and assess performance under section 726. They must jointly send the annual report to the Commissioner. (16) Public comment. Before adopting or amending service policies or procedures, the designated agency must give adequate notice and hold public meetings throughout the State so the public, including people with disabilities, can comment. It must actively consult the client-assistance-program director and, when appropriate, Indian tribes, tribal organizations, and Native Hawaiian organizations. The agency and any sole local administering agency must consider the views of service recipients and representatives, rehabilitation personnel and providers, the client-assistance director, and the Council, if any. (17) Facility construction. If the plan specially allows construction of community rehabilitation facilities, the Federal construction share for a fiscal year may not exceed 10 percent of the State’s section 730 allotment. Section 776, as it existed the day before August 7, 1998, applies to that construction. The State must follow the Commissioner’s rules to ensure construction does not reduce other vocational rehabilitation efforts. (18) Innovation and expansion. The State must reserve and use part of its section 730 funds for innovative ways to expand and improve services, especially for people with the most significant disabilities, consistent with the assessment and goals. It must also support the State Rehabilitation Council, if any, under its section 725 plan, and the Statewide Independent Living Council under its section 796d plan. The plan must explain use of the reserved money, and the State must report each year how it used the money in the prior year. (19) Choice. The plan must assure that applicants and eligible people, or their representatives, receive information and support to exercise informed choice throughout rehabilitation, as section 722(d) provides. (20) Information and referrals. The designated agency must operate a system that gives people with disabilities accurate rehabilitation information and guidance, in appropriate communication methods, to help them prepare for, obtain, keep, or regain work. It must refer them appropriately to Federal and State programs outside this rehabilitation program, including other workforce-system components. Each referral must go to the program best suited to the person’s employment needs and must give the person notice that the referral was made, a specific contact at the receiving agency, and information and advice about suitable services. (21) Consumer-controlled commission or Council. (A) The plan must provide either for an independent commission responsible under State law for operating or overseeing the program, consumer-controlled by people with impairments that substantially limit major life activities and representing a broad range of disabilities (unless its unit serves blind people), including family members, advocates, or other representatives of people with mental impairments, and performing section 725(c)(4) functions; or for a State Rehabilitation Council meeting section 725 requirements. If there is a Council, the designated unit and Council must jointly develop and review the State’s goals and priorities, consult regularly about general policies and procedures, and jointly submit the annual progress reports required by paragraph (15)(E). The plan and any revisions must include the Council’s input and recommendations and the designated unit’s response to that input and those recommendations. If the designated unit rejects or does not incorporate input or recommendations from the Council, the plan or revision must explain why. The designated unit must also transmit to the Council all plans, reports, and other information required by this part, general policies and practices, and due-process decisions transmitted to the Council confidentially. (B) If two State agencies are designated, the State must establish a Council for each agency that does not meet subparagraph (A)(i), or one Council for both if neither agency meets it. (22) Supported-employment supplement. The plan must assure that the State has an acceptable subchapter VI plan, including use of its funds to supplement part B funds for services leading to supported employment. (23) Annual updates. The State must send annual updates on personnel development and any other information the Commissioner requests, plus the annual reports required by paragraphs (15) and (18), at the time and in the manner the Secretary sets. (24) Contracts and cooperative agreements. The designated agency may contract with a for-profit organization for on-the-job training and related part A, subchapter VI programs if it decides that organization is better qualified than nonprofit agencies or organizations. The plan must describe how cooperative agreements with private nonprofit rehabilitation providers will be established. (25) Students with disabilities. The State must develop and carry out strategies addressing the paragraph (15) assessments and achieving State goals to improve and expand student services statewide. It must also develop and carry out pre-employment-transition-service strategies. (26) Job growth. The plan must explain how the State will use initiatives for in-demand industries or occupations under sections 106(c) and 108 of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act to increase competitive integrated employment opportunities for people with disabilities. (b) Submission, approval, and modification. If this plan is part of a unified plan, section 102(c) of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act applies. If it is part of a combined plan, section 103(b) and paragraphs (1), (2), and (3) of section 103(c) apply. (c) Construction. Nothing in this part reduces a local educational agency’s or another agency’s duty under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to provide or pay for transition services that are also special education or related services needed to give children with disabilities in the State a free appropriate public education.