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States eligible to compete for Subminimum Wage to Competitive Integrated Employment Grants totaling $167 million
Today, the U.S. Department of Education’s Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) released the notice inviting applications for the Subminimum Wage to Competitive Integrated Employment (SWTCIE) demonstration project, which is aimed at increasing access for people with disabilities to jobs that pay good wages.
The SWTCIE project is the largest discretionary grant administered by RSA, with $167 million available to State Vocational Rehabilitation agencies and their partners.
“Economic security should be available to all Americans,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. “Providing individuals with disabilities with a high-quality education and the services that they need to thrive will result in real pay for real jobs, empowering them and leading to greater social and economic inclusion.”
Read the full press release.
Message from the Provider Relief Bureau of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA):
HRSA is making more than $413 million in Provider Relief Fund (PRF) Phase 4 General Distribution payments to more than 3,600 providers across the country this week.
Providers received an email notification Monday, March 21 if their application was among those processed in this latest batch. HRSA is working to review all remaining applications as quickly as possible.
With this announcement, a total of nearly $12 billion in PRF Phase 4 payments has now been distributed to more than 82,000 providers in all 50 states, Washington D.C., and five territories. This is in addition to HRSA’s distribution of American Rescue Plan (ARP) Rural payments, totaling nearly $7.5 billion in funding to more than 44,000 providers since November 2021.
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Webinar: How Blended, Braided or Sequenced Funding Can Help Drive Employment, Equity and Inclusion
Tuesday, March 22 | 3:00pm–4:30pm ET
Register for the webinar.
The Administration for Community Living, along with federal partners at the Department of Labor, Department of Education, and the Social Security Administration, invite you to attend a federal interagency webinar hosted by the LEAD Center.
Demand for workplace talent is high. Remote work opportunities may be with us to stay. These conditions offer new opportunities for expanded access to workforce activities for people with disabilities.
To ensure that workforce programs are ready to meet this demand and can support job seekers and career changers equitably, programs often need to draw on a range of different funding sources. The ability to blend, sequence, or braid funding with other resources becomes an essential ingredient to support employment, equity, and inclusion. Yet each source of funding usually comes with specific goals, target populations, and performance indicators.
In this federal interagency webinar hosted by the LEAD Center, state practitioners across the workforce system will discuss how they successfully applied innovative, collaborative resource sharing that benefits both businesses and job seekers with disabilities.
Contact Dallas Oberlee with questions.
ACL/CMS Promising Practices Webinar Series: Rethinking Day Services —The Without Walls Approach
Thursday, March 24 | 3:00 pm–4:30 pm ET
Register for the webinar.
This webinar will provide insight into how a without walls approach can be used as part of a COVID-19 response strategy, how to train staff to shift from center-based services to community-based services, and what a without walls approach looks like in practice. For more info, please visit this link.
With this week’s signing of the federal Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022, the Pennsylvania Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs (DDAP) expects its budget for Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 to be at least equal to the current year’s budget of $378 million. Before the signing of the act, DDAP’s budget was $317 million. The difference was the result of a $60 million gap in a state opioid response (SOR) grant that has been restored. The majority of DDAP’s funding comes from the federal government, as opposed to state dollars.
As part of the Federal Appropriations Act, $3.9 billion has been budgeted for substance use treatment, including continued funding for opioid prevention and treatment, recovery, and tribal focused treatment efforts. This includes $1.85 billion for the Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Block Grant (SABG); $1.525 billion for SOR Grants; $34.9 million for Pregnant & Postpartum Women; $13 million for Building Communities of Recovery; and $101 million for Medication Assisted Treatment.
In its Senate Appropriations Hearing yesterday, DDAP said that, although the exact amount of Pennsylvania’s SOR grant for FY 2023 was not yet know, it expected it to be at least as much as the current year’s grant, which is $178 million.
The Senate Appropriations Committee will meet for a budget hearing with the Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs (DDAP) at 2:30 pm today, March 16. The budget hearing will be livestreamed. Please note that RCPA provider members received an email from RCPA earlier this week that incorrectly stated the hearing was at 10:00 am today.
For Fiscal Year 2022/2023, the governor is budgeting a total of $317 million for DDAP, which is a 16 percent reduction over the current fiscal year’s budget of $379 million. The decrease is due to a $60 million reduction in federal State Opioid Response dollars.
More details of DDAP’s budget are available in DDAP’s Bluebook. In addition, a previous communication from RCPA about DDAP’s budget ahead of its House Appropriations Committee provides additional detail about the $317 million budget.
ODP Announcement 22-031 provides guidance about the process for providers and Supports Coordination Organizations to request one-time payments to address staff training, credentialing, and business associates programs for employment.
As part of the Office of Developmental Programs’ (ODP) American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) strategy to strengthen Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS), providers can receive a one-time supplemental payment. The following activities would be supported by this funding:
Providers interested in applying will need to complete and submit the attached Staff Training, Credentialing, and Business Associates Programs for Employment Supplemental Payment Application and submit via email to Rick Smith. Applications will be accepted through June 30, 2022. Funding may be requested up to 1% of ODP eligible service revenue from Fiscal Year (FY) 2019/2020, FY 2020/2021, or $100,000, whichever is greater.
Please see the announcement for full details of this program.