ALBANY — The program run by the state Education Department that helps New Yorkers with disabilities find jobs and live independently is not fulfilling its mission, too often leaving participants with inadequate plans that don’t accomplish those goals, according to an audit released Wednesday by state Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli.
The agency’s Adult Career and Continuing Education Services – Vocational Rehabilitation Supported Employment Program (ACCESS-VR) supports the employment goals of thousands of people with disabilities through training, education, vocational rehabilitation and career development.
But department records show significant delays in implementing plans for achieving participants’ goals and state officials have failed to conduct federally required annual reviews of those plans, according to DiNapoli’s audit.
“People with disabilities often face great obstacles in finding and keeping the jobs they want, and the pandemic has only made things harder,” DiNapoli said in a statement. “The State Education Department needs to do a better job with this important program for people with disabilities.
There were about 1 million employment-age New Yorkers with disabilities in 2018, according to 2019 American Community Survey data. Before the pandemic, the unemployment rate for people with disabilities in the state was double the rate of the general population, according to the comptroller’s report.
The pandemic led to soaring unemployment rates in New York, including for those with disabilities, a trend that peaked in April 2020. For the one-year period between September 2020 and August 2021, unemployment rates for people with a disability averaged 15.2 percent — 7.9 higher than pre-pandemic averages. This rate continues to be significantly higher than for the general population, the Comptroller’s Office found.
Under the ACCESS-VR program, counselors work with people to develop an Individualized Plan for Employment (IPE). The IPE should identify the employment goal for the participant, the services that will be provided and how progress will be measured.
DiNapoli’s auditors determined the Education Department does not regularly meet the deadlines for eligibility determinations (60 days after the application date), finalization of IPEs (90 days after eligibility date), or annual reviews of IPEs, which are required by federal law and Education Department policy.
Auditors selected and reviewed 200 participants’ case files from April 2017 to December 2020 and found 27 had late eligibility determinations, 35 had IPE’s that were completed late and 47 had late annual reviews.
In one example, the participant’s eligibility was determined 175 days after the application date, or 115 days late. Another participant had their IPE finalized 362 days after the eligibility determination date, or 272 days late. Auditors found the Education Department implemented a corrective action plan after a 2018 federal review and has met its goal of meeting the timeliness requirements for 90 per of the eligibility determinations and IPE finalizations. However, annual reviews are still not being conducted on time, the audit determined.
Auditors also found the IPEs do not contain all the required information in sufficient detail. They reviewed 50 IPEs for the required contents. The IPEs generally contained the majority of the required elements, but none contained all of them. The IPEs also often contained vague or boilerplate language, rather than using specific, customized, or detailed language as called for in state policy.
The Education Department also failed to provide any documented evaluations to show they were adequately monitoring the ACCESS-VR program to make sure participants were getting the training and support services they needed, the report states.
“The department cannot evaluate the success or improvement areas for individual participants or the program overall without better monitoring,” the report states.
DiNapoli’s audit cites an independent report by an advisory group based on department data that found that the number of ACCESS-VR participants fell 30 percent between 2019 and 2020. The group also determined that just 8 percent of the program’s participants secured employment, a number falling far short of the agency’s 55.8 percent goal. The ratio for ACCESS-VR wages compared to the average state wage was 0.45, short of their goal of 0.52.
DiNapoli’s office recommends improved procedures to determine eligibility, finalize IPEs, and ensure IPE annual reviews are being completed on time. He recommends full IPE’s with more detail and periodic reviews of the effectiveness of the ACCESS-VR program.
The comptroller lauded Gov. Kathy Hochul’s recent appointment of the state’s first Chief Disability Officer, which he said he hopes “will result in much-needed improvements to the state’s services and support for people living with disabilities.”
Education Department officials generally disagreed with the audit’s findings and took issue with some of the data collection methods of auditors in letters attached to the comptroller’s report.
Department spokeswoman Emily DeSantis said in an emailed statement that the audit “fails to acknowledge the strategies and internal controls that have been successfully implemented to address the audit findings.”
Auditors also did not sufficiently take into account the impact of the global pandemic, shifts in federal guidance, and staffing shortages within the department, DeSantis said.
“NYSED will continue to work with our state and local partners to ensure all individuals with disabilities who want to work will have the opportunity to achieve employment and independence,” she said.
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