As Maine faces a need to grow its workforce, people with disabilities are a largely untapped resource. There are about 115,000 people with disabilities in Maine, and with just a little bit of help many could become full-fledged contributors to Maine’s economy.
But just 29.7 percent of Maine people with disabilities of working age are employed, according to census data, the sixth lowest rate in the nation. The state’s gap in employment between those with and without disabilities is the nation’s largest.
Maine could be doing much more to bolster employment for these residents. But the Maine’s only state-run employment program focused specifically on those with disabilities, the Department of Labor’s Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, is barely staying afloat.
Its mission is to help people with disabilities find work they enjoy and can stay in long term. The counselor is the key person making sure that happens. Counselors help clients figure out the best career path and what they need to do to find related work. They might need to enroll in training, or a visually impaired client might need special technology at work to be successful. Vocational Rehabilitation pays for those training courses or the special technology.
But Vocational Rehabilitation is barely making do with the resources it has.
The Department of Labor division that runs the program has stopped serving an entire category of potential clients — those deemed least severely disabled. Compared with their peers in the private sector, vocational rehabilitation counselors are underpaid and overworked. With few people in administrative support positions — especially compared with vocational rehabilitation programs in other states — counselors spend time on administrative duties they could be spending with clients.
Ultimately, these working conditions hurt clients: One of the keys to their success is their ability to build a relationship with a counselor who understands their needs and goals. But counselors who are spread too thin are taking too long to develop required plans for helping their clients get into careers. Counselors are averaging about four months to come up with a plan for each client, when federal regulations require them to do so within 90 days.
Over the past few years, vocational rehabilitation clients have been more likely to leave the program prematurely than to leave it successfully employed. While about 1,000 clients are successfully employed each year, about 1,400 clients drop out before their counselors have developed a plan to help them find a job. Factoring in the clients who have dropped out before they’ve found out whether they’re eligible for help, and those who find jobs but last less than 90 days on the job, these unsuccessful cases outnumber the successful ones by about three to one. Helping these clients only to have them leave before getting results is a great cost to the state, and it’s unnecessary.
If Maine wants to see more people with disabilities working, the first step is growing the budget for vocational rehabilitation. Gov. Paul LePage is proposing funding for two new vocational rehabilitation counselors in his biennial budget, along with $390,000 in additional funds to cover services for clients. The Legislature should make a point of investing in this area.
A larger budget would allow the program to hire more staff. With more counselors, they would have more time to form closer relationships with individual clients and make sure they stay engaged instead of dropping out before they find the right work. With more administrative support staff, counselors could spend less time on paperwork and more time with clients.
Maine only stands to benefit from helping more residents with disabilities find long-term work. If more people with disabilities can support themselves by working, they will contribute more in taxes and become less dependent on public assistance — such as disability payments, subsidized housing and food stamps.
Improving the vocational rehabilitation program is the first step to getting more people with disabilities employed. The solution is there. The state just needs to act on it.
