CONSUMER ADVOCACY AND ADVISORY
Minutes of March
11, 2005
Chairman, Tim Jones, called the meeting of the Consumer and Advocacy Advisory Committee for the Blind to order at 1:10 p.m. on Friday, March 11, 2005. Invocation was offered by Ms. Hazel Staley. The following members were present: Tim Jones, David Alexander, Hazel Staley, Ron Eller, and Tom Winton
Members Not Present: Linda Lewis, Brian Lewis, Jim Shuart, Steve Walker,
Jennifer Talbot, Bill Apple, and Representative Verla Insko
Others Present: Debbie Jackson, Francine Martin, Pat Robbins, Jim Boehm,
Cyndie Bennett, and Carla Parker
Approval of Minutes
Motion
was made, seconded, and carried to approve the minutes of December 10, 2004.
North Carolina Library for
the Blind and Physically Handicapped—Francine
Martin
The
NCLBPH is a branch of the State Library of North Carolina. State Librarian Sandra Cooper has resigned her
position. The position will be advertised
nationally. Until the position is filled,
the two Section Chiefs and the Assistant State Librarian for Information Technology
will share the State Librarian responsibilities.
Assistant
State Librarian, Chief Operating Officer, Juedi Kleindienst, has announced
she is applying for long-term disability and will not be returning to work.
Denise
Sigmon, Section Chief for Library Services to whom the LBPH Regional Librarian
reports, will continue to serve as Section Chief and will have final authority
within the State Library for internal operating decisions. We look forward to her continued support of
LBPH services.
The
Governor’s continuation budget includes an increase for LBPH funding. The increase would cover the rent for the annex
now housing the braille collection, increases in utilities, increases in automation
costs, a new telephone system for LBPH including voice-mail option (so users
may leave a message when our lines are busy), and a card access security system
for the main LBPH building.
The
National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) is
providing monthly updates on the progress towards digital books in a new publication
entitled FLASH. The contents
of the newsletters will be included in each issue of the bimonthly catalogs,
Talking Book Topics and Braille Book Review. The newsletter is also available on the NLS
website, www.loc.gov/nls/. To view then follow the first link, “What’s
New” then select the “Flash, News, and Updates” link.
The
January issue discusses downloadable books and magazines. Five states’ LBPHs have contracted with commercial
audiobook vendors to allow a limited number of their patrons access to downloadable
books. They are testing to determine
accessibility issues of the general commercial equipment and software.
NLS has only their staff participating in the project.
One
year ago, NLS began a web magazine pilot project. Nearly 50 patrons across the nation are testing
the system, which makes available on the web three audio magazines: U.S. News
and World Report, Smart Computing, and selected issues of People.
The test patrons can download either the entire magazine or select
articles to download either to their computer or to a commercially available
player capable of playing digital talking books.
NLS
plans to have 20,000 book titles and a wide selection of magazines in digital
format available to users by 2008. In
the meantime, they are testing commercial and NLS-developed online products
to ensure the best options are selected for widespread use beginning late
in 2007.
Realizing
that efficient downloading of digital books requires high-speed Internet access,
the books available for downloading will also be available in the flash-memory
card digital format for circulation to all library users. The flash-memory card format has now been officially
selected. The flash memory card is
durable and can be reused thousands of times. The playback equipment has no moving parts,
so will endure mailing and require less repair than CD or tape players. More information on the digital planning and
projects is available on the NLS website and in the NLS News, a monthly
publication available on the NLS website and in all braille and tape and print
formats by subscription through NCLBPH.
·
Clay Griffith began work February
7, 2005 as our new Reader Advisor. He
fills the position vacated when Terry Jackson retired. Both toll-free lines should be fully staffed
most days again by mid-March.
·
We are still searching for
a Circulation Unit Supervisor. The
position is being advertised for the third time. It has been vacant since December 1, 2004. Various LBPH staff continue to assist as needed
in the Circulation Unit to ensure delays in service rarely occur.
·
Wallace (Teddy) Griffith, Magazine
Specialist, retired December 31, 2004. His
position is currently being studied to better meet needs of the library prior
to advertising.
·
The Machine Unit has been fully
staffed now for 4 months and has caught up on the backlog of machines to be
repaired.
·
The Machine Unit staff has
almost completed a self-audit as recommended by the National Library Service.
A random sampling of 50 machines was selected.
If the machine is out to a patron, the patron is contacted and asked
to verify the serial number if possible.
·
Once the self-audit is completed,
the Machine Unit will begin work on verifying our database inventory of machines
with the national machine inventory database called BPHICS. NCLBPH maintains records for more than 14000
machines, most in the hands of patrons. The
BPHICS reconciliation project will ensure the national database of machine
inventory accurately reflects the machine status as shown in our database.
This project is also recommended by the National Library Service.
This project will not require any patron contact.
The
Keystone Library Automation Software (KLAS) annual conference is being held
in Raleigh on March 16-19 this year. The
software was developed from specifications provided by NCLBPH in the early
1980s. Now more than half the states
are using the software. Having the
conference in Raleigh allows many NCLBPH staff to attend, have input on the
software development, and meet and network with staff from other LBPHs across
the country.
North Carolina Department of
Public Instruction—Tom Winton
American Printing House for
the Blind—DPI
is in the process of its annual
registration of legally blind students throughout the State. This registration determines the federal quota
funds that are received for buying instructional materials for students. So far this fiscal year, 130 separate orders
have been processed.
3rd Annual NC Conference
on Visual Impairment and Blindness--Approximately 200 professional
throughout North Carolina are attended this conference. DPI contracted with the keynote speaker, Dr.
Abraham Nemeth.
Summer Institute for Teachers—July 25-29—Susan Osterhaus,
Texas School for the Blind, will be present to talk about teaching math to
students who are visually-impaired.
Annual Conference from the
Exceptional Children’s Division will be held November 7-8, 2005, in Greensboro, NC. Approximately 3,000 educators are expected.
Mr. Winton is serving on the APH Educational Products Advisory Committee.
IDEA, Individual’s with Disabilities Education Act, was reauthorized in December and is now called Individual’s with Disabilities Education Improvement Act. One provision is the establishment of a national file format for textbooks—National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard, which is one file format that all textbooks must follow and submitted electronically.
New licensure standards have been submitted to the State Board of Education for teachers of visually-impaired.
NC Division of Services for
the Blind—Debbie Jackson
The
3rd Annual North Carolina Conference on Visual Impairment and Blindness
is currently underway on the campus of the Governor Morehead School.
Appreciation was expressed to the BE Operators for their conference
input in raising money and purchasing snacks.
DSB
sponsored a speaker for the conference—Ms. Silvana Rainey, Assistive Technology
Specialist, conducted 4 sessions during the conference.
Ms. Rainey was able to demonstrate pretty much every device relating
to technology/blindness and answered many questions.
The
House of Representatives has passed its bill to reauthorize the Workforce
Investment Act including the VR Act—HR 27.
There were possibilities for amendment to the bill during committee
and floor debate that would have consolidated funding for nine job training
programs including that of VR. Due
largely to the efforts of advocates, the amendment was not introduced at either
point.
The
House Bill has a great deal of language regarding additional emphasis on services
to transition students. It also changes
the position of RSA Commissioner from an appointed one to one that would be
hired by the Secretary of Education. Because
the RSA Commissioner is the highest level position that deals with services
to people with disabilities, advocates view this as a very unfavorable move.
A
Senate Bill has not gone to committee yet.
It is expected that their bill will be introduced in a few weeks and
once passed a conference committee will work on the differences.
The
funding consolidation issue is also seen in President Bush’s budget. This consolidated funding is seen as something
that the administration wants very much.
Also
in the President’s budget is a provision that would eliminate 50 to 60 positions,
most of which are in RSA. The plan
would be to close down all RSA regional offices. All RSA functions would be handled out of its
Washington office. It is our understanding
that the President can take this step even if the provision outlined in his
budget is not passed. RSA seems to
be moving ahead with plans to close the offices.
In
February, Commissioner JoAnne Wilson resigned her position at RSA effective
March 1. She has been replaced by Acting
Commissioner Troy Justesen.
Although
DSB’s Expansion Budget request progressed from the DHHS level to the Office
of State Budget, the request was not included in the Governor’s Budget. The request would have added case service money
to the ILR case service budget as well as several positions that would have
benefited ILR and VR consumers.
The
good news is that no cuts were recommended for DSB in the Governor’s Budget.
Of course, the final outcome will not be known until the General Assembly
has passed its budget.
In late March or early April, DSB will be airing two radio spots that will hopefully help to address the common observation that people don’t know DSB exist. Our target stations will be those in rural areas, African American stations, and Spanish speaking stations. The spots will be very general, hopefully, providing enough information for a person to make contact with us if they are having vision problems that impact their functioning at home or work.
Governor Morehead School—Cyndie Bennett
Cyndie
Bennett distributed a list of events/accomplishments. They include the following:
·
Completed SACS Accreditation
5 year renewal cycle in November 2004.
·
Kathy Davis, GMS Outreach Director
(in partnership with Tom Winton of DPI and Alana Zambone of NCCU) presented
to Southeast Regional Special Education Directors Meeting in November.
·
K-12 staff have completed training
in Learning Media Assessments and Functional Vision Assessments and are in
the process of developing a Vision Room in Lineberry to be used for conducting
clinical evaluations.
·
Capitol improvement money is
forthcoming—priorities to be addressed are air conditioning systems and repairs
to uneven, cracked sidewalks.
·
Staff participated in a Christmas
“Giving Tree” project, donating over 100 items for children in the Wake County
foster care system.
·
Currently considering acquiring
a Tele-Medicine system to provide more access to physicians and to reduce
absenteeism. Using Tele-Medicine, students
in the GMS Health Center can be evaluated by a physician in his/her office
using medical equipment such as an ophthalmoscope (to view the eye) through
a computer monitor. (Currently, we
have on-campus access to a physician only twice/week).
·
Students in the short-term
program visited a NC Museum, the NC Legislative Building, and NC State University.
They also participated with the NC State PE Department in using a rock
climbing wall, swimming, bowling, and golf.
·
The Orientation and Mobility
instructors have approved for particular students to go off campus and practice
their independent walking skills. Students,
transported by the Student Life Educational Aide, make weekly trips to Cary
Towne Center and Crabtree Valley Mall.
·
The students enjoyed many holiday
events, including shopping in the community to purchase Christmas gifts for
parents and friends, visiting with Santa, attending The Christmas Carol at
the BTI Center and Cinderella at Raleigh Little Theatre, and taking in a concert
by the Seabreeze Singers. They also
had the opportunity to socialize at a New Year’s dance and a Valentine dinner
and dance on campus.
·
Congratulations are in order
to the GMS cheerleaders and the wrestling team, who came in 1st
and 2nd, respectively, (from a field of 6) in the Eastern Athletic
Association for the Blind (EAAB) Tournament hosted by New York Institute for
Special Education in Bronx, New York.
·
The Learning Center now has
Internet service available on all computer stations as well as a new network
printer so that students can print out their homework assignments from any
computer in the center.
·
The 2nd Annual Braille
Challenge was a great success.
·
GM co-hosting North Carolina
Conference on Visual Impairment and Blindness:
The Road to Independence March 10-12.
State Council of NC Lions—Jim Boehm
Capsule Program—fund raising program which ask each club in North Carolina to donate $50 in hopes of raising $10,000. The money will be used to furnish the new building at Camp Dogwood, purchase a guide dog, and educate the youth about diabetes—a leading cause of blindness.
Long
range plan to re-district from 9 districts to 6 districts to meet international
standards of 1,250 per district.
State
Convention will be held at the North Raleigh Hilton, May
27-29.
Many
local clubs had Christmas parties for the blind and visually-impaired.
NC Lions Foundation—Jim Boehm
The
new building at Camp Dogwood should be completed by April 2005.
A
new garden at Camp Dogwood will have a variety of flowers, shrubs, benches,
and a water fountain.
Funds
are running low for matching funds for glasses but should never run out due
to reserve funds that the Foundation has.
The
Foundation also provides hearing aids with the local clubs paying for the
fitting.
The
White Cane Drive is progressing well.
NC Council of the Blind—Ron Eller
A
group attended the Annual Legislative Seminar.
Hopefully some of the things we did before and while we were there
had an impact on items not being included in HR 27. ACB is committed to the preservation of a separate
funding stream for VR and strongly opposes the language in HR 27 that offers
the consolidation of funds that would direct capital away from programs that
directly serve persons with disabilities.
ACB
encourages the creation of a Beneficiary Impact Statement to study the impact
of changes on Social Security Retirement to Social Security Disability Programs
and opposes any changes that would have an adverse impact on workers who acquire
disabilities.
ACB
is strongly opposed to changes in the current structure of the Medicaid program
that include converting the program into a block grant or otherwise imposing
caps on federal funding. They believe
that these measures run contrary to the partnership entered into between the
States and the federal government, and put at risk the provision of quality
healthcare to needy families and individuals with disabilities.
ACB
supports legislation to restore the Video Description mandate ensuring that
video described programming will continue to be available to people who are
blind. This programming will include
both descriptive information during regular programming, and verbalization
of critical emergency information which is commonly displayed visually for
other viewers. ACB urges Congress to
support the restoration of Video Description.
ACB
supports the language in HR 3 (the Transportation Efficiency Act: A Legacy for Users or TEA-LU) that maintains
the New Freedom Initiative (NFI) as a program separate and apart from Section
5310 and encourages the Senate to adopt language maintaining that separation. NFI encourages integrated rather than segregated
services. ACB believes that the current
funding proposed, $91 million, for Section 5310 is grossly insufficient to
meet the current demand for the critical transportation services for people
with disabilities and senior citizens and asks Congress to consider increasing
that amount.
ACB
supports the amendment of TEA-LU to include the Remote Infrared Audible Signage
Model Accessibility Project (to be proposed as Section 3045 of Title III)
establishing the nation’s first inter-model transportation system linked by
accessible signage. ACB believes it is imperative that individuals with disabilities
are included in all aspects of transportation planning and project disclosure.
ACB
urges congress to protect the priority granted by the Randolph-Sheppard Act
for blind vendors on federal property, including military dining facilities.
National
Convention is going to be the week of July 4 in Las Vegas. The State Convention is going to be in Burlington
on September 23-25.
National Federation for the
Blind—Hazel Staley
In February, 15 federations from NC went to Washington for an annual seminar. Six were from Charlotte. Three issues were discussed with Congress: Guide Persons/SSDI; require publishers to make textbooks more accessible to college students; and military dining.
National
convention in Louisville, Kentucky, the first week in July and State Convention
is going to be in Raleigh on September 9-11.
The
Federation will be participating in the “Human Race” which is a walk-a-thon
on March 19 in Greensboro.
AER—Tom Winton
Bill
Apple was not able to attend this meeting as he is involved with NCCVIB. NCAER is a strong partner in this conference.
The Rachel Rawl’s Award was presented to Donna Apple.
NCAER
has purchased materials to try to recruit more people in the field of Rehabilitation,
Teachers, O & M Specialists or Low Vision Therapists. This recruitment material will be shared with
the VI Program at NC Central in an effort of drawing more people into the
field.
Business Enterprises Program—Tim Jones
Annual
Sales—(2004) $12,322,863
(2003) $11,728,482
(2003)
$35,681
Net
Income to All Operators—(2004) $3,183,798
(2003) $2,000,997
83
facilities are currently operating with no vacancies.
Mr.
Tim Jones made a motion that the floor be opened for nominations of Chair. Ms. Hazel Staley nominated Tim Jones. After no further nominations, Mr. Jones entertained
a motion that the nominations be closed. A motion was made, seconded, and carried that
the nominations be closed and that Tim Jones be elected by acclamation as
Chair.
Mr.
Jones made a motion that the floor be opened for nominations of Vice Chair.
Mr. David Alexander nominated Ron Eller.
After no further nominations, Mr. Jones entertained a motion that the
nominations be closed. A motion was made, seconded, and carried that
the nominations be closed and that Ron Eller be elected by acclamation as
Vice Chair.
None
With
no further business, motion was made, seconded, and carried that the meeting
be adjourned. The meeting adjourned
at 2:30 p.m. The next meeting is scheduled
for June 10, 2005 at 1:00 p.m.
Respectfully
submitted,
Tim
Jones, Chairman
Consumer
and Advocacy Advisory Committee for the Blind