Vocational rehab division may have overstated success

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- The state Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, which funds job training for the disabled, may have granted money to unqualified recipients and overstated its success at moving people into jobs, according to an audit.

The report by State Auditor Claire McCaskill, issued Tuesday, recommended numerous new accountability measures, most of which the division said it would implement.

The division spent about $65 million in the 2002 federal fiscal year helping people with mental or physical disabilities receive a college education, job coaching, counseling and equipment or surgeries needed to help them work. Funding is on a 4-to-1 federal-to-state ratio.

During the past five years, the division reported to the federal government that it had an average 70 percent success rate, defined as the percentage of closed cases in which people achieved their employment goals and remained employed for at least 90 days.

However, the audit concluded that "program officials may have overstated successful employment outcomes."

"People lost sight of the goal of the program," McCaskill said. "The goal of the program is not to close the case successfully. The goal of the program is to help someone with a disability become gainfully employed."

The federal government requires states to meet a 56 percent success rate. States that fail to meet that and other criteria could lose federal aid, but only if it is a persistent problem, state vocational officials said.

Out of 9,377 vocational rehabilitation cases during a 17-month period, auditors randomly selected 103, then reviewed 30 of those that agency officials agreed were representative of the program, the audit said.

State vocational counselors had labeled 22 of those 30 cases as successful. But auditors said six of the supposedly successful cases were questionable.

For example, the program paid $3,100 for college training for a person determined to be unable to continue working as a restaurant server because of disability. But after the training, the person went back to work as a restaurant server, the audit said.

The audit also identified participants whose incomes exceeded eligibility guidelines -- but that had not been verified with pay stubs or other official means.

McCaskill's audit recommended better guidelines for classifying cases as successful, verifying employment, obtaining proof of a person's income and deciding when to close cases, among other things.

In a written response, the state education commissioner said most of the recommendations would be carried out and the division would contract with the economics department at the University of Missouri-Columbia to develop a method of verifying employment. The auditor's office said the contract was unnecessary and the task could be completed by state employees.

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On the Net:

Auditor: http://www.auditor.mo.gov/

Vocational Rehabilitation: http://vr.dese.mo.gov