Sheltered workshops begin making radical changes to meet requirements

April 29--Tweet

Watertown's sheltered workshop will undergo a "huge paradigm shift" in the next three years to meet state requirements.

According to Jefferson Rehabilitation Center Executive Director Howard W. Ganter, the agency has a three-year transition plan for its Production Unlimited workshop to come into compliance by 2020 -- but some current workers may be left behind.

Production Unlimited has previously been a closed workshop, providing work for people with disabilities at their own levels of productivity, with wages reflective of their abilities.

The new integrated model by the Office for Persons with Developmental Disabilities requires all people in the program to be full staff members, earning employee benefits but restricted to following HR rules and conduct, like requesting time off ahead of time and working set hours.

The workshop will maintain its 14c certificate, which allows low-production employees to be paid below minimum wage, but workers will see an increase of 6.6 percent over the next two fiscal years.

"There may be people who will not succeed in the new, more competitive environment," Mr. Ganter said. "But we will still try to maintain people who want to work but are less productive."

All organizations offering workshops like JRC are facing sweeping changes created by new state requirements. In the last few years, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's office has taken a close look at sheltered workshops, which find employment for people with disabilities at wages based on skill level, for not being in compliance with a 1999 Supreme Court decision.

The Olmstead decision states that actions of "unjustifiable segregation" of those with developmental disabilities violates the Americans with Disabilities Act -- which is now taken to mean closed, or disability-only, workshops.

Now, sheltered workshops will need to meet a minimum of 25 percent employees without disabilities. These workers with higher skill levels and minimum wage requirements result in a considerable increase in spending for the non-profits running workshops.

Mr. Ganter says that many of the individuals and families JRC supports are understandably nervous about the huge paradigm shift, but it's change or have the whole workshop shut down.

"This all ties into preservation," he said.

However, Mr. Ganter emphasized that the agency will continue to work toward a smooth transition over the next three years.

"We still plan on having pre-vocational services in the workshop that will allow time-limited opportunities for skill development and the hope is we will have some form of employment for those who are currently in the model and still want to work but are not able to comply to the new setting or work competitively," he said in an email.

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