CONSTRUCTION OF REHABILITATION FACILITIES Mr. FLOOD. Your budget contains no new funds at all for construction of rehabilitation facilities. The Senate, you know, added $20 million to the 1973 Labor-HEW appropriation bill for that purpose. This was dropped in conference because of the lack of authorization legislation. The chances are that it will come up again. Is there a need for such facilities? Why were no funds included in the budget? Mr. TWINAME. There is a need for facilities, unquestionably, and for the upgrading of present facilities. We have authority in the program in section 2 for the States to use a percentage of their basic service money to renovate or construct facilities. Mr. NEWMAN. Up to 10 percent of the States allotment. Mr. TWINAME. Up to 10 percent of the basic money you appropriated under section 2. For example, in Virginia the State agency for the blind has just completed the construction of a basic rehabilitation facility for the blind, out of that grant money. As a basic philosophy, we feel that the States are in a better position to choose the mix of facilities and resources that they need in the rehabilitation program, and this gives them latitude to do that. Also, at a time, when there is not unlimited budget money, we have to make choices. It is our preference to make the choices in terms of basic service money with discretion in the States as to how much of it should be put into facilities. In other words, we would rather put the money on the actual percase rehabilitation. NATIONAL CENTER FOR DEAF-BLIND YOUTHS AND ADULTS Mr. FLOOD. The National Center for the Deaf-Blind Youths and Adults indicate that they need additional funds for the construction of the center. What is the Department's position on this? Mr. TWINAME. We do recognize the need that they have, which was not identified at the time this budget was prepared-as you know, many months ago. Mr. FLOOD. Do you intend to seek any additional appropriation for this construction? Mr. TWINAME. This has just come to our attention. I think we will have to defer a final decision in the same as we are on the basic Rehabilitation Act itself. Mr. FLOOD. What are your current plans? What is the time schedule or the calendar for the construction of that center? Dr. GARRETT. They have preliminary plans drawn. Mr. FLOOD. What is the timetable? Dr. GARRETT. If funds are available, they would be ready to go. Mr. MILLER. We have not described this to you. You have already appropriated $2.5 million. The latest estimates indicated are that they are $5 million short. We do not know yet how we will make up that $5 million. We will look at the money you appropriate in 1973 and see if perhaps there is any possibility we can reprogram. If not, we will have to consider it for the 1974 budget. INCOME MAINTENANCE EXPERIMENTS Mr. FLOOD. Suppose you bring us up to date on the status of the income maintenance experiments. Mr. CORBETT. I am the Director of the income maintenance experiments program in HEW. The current status of the Gary experiment is that it has completed its first year of operation. Mr. FLOOD. First, what do you mean by "income maintenance"? Mr. CORBETT. It is a test of the effect of various financial treatments on the behavior of the individuals. The HEW experiments focus on what we consider to be the most important behavioral question, which is work response of individuals. Do they work more or less under different guarantees and tax rates? Mr. FLOOD. What is the status of the program? Mr. CORBETT. All of the experiments are in the operational phase, that is, participants are receiving income maintenance payments; and at the end of 2 or 3 years of this stage, we will attempt to interpret what in fact happened, what was their work effort. Mr. FLOOD. How long have you been at this? Mr. CORBETT. Enrollment has been phased in, in the different projects, over different periods of time. Enrollment in Seattle was begun in November 1970, and it was completed in October of 1971. It varies by projects. Mr. FLOOD. In that period of time, don't you have some more concrete evidence of the status of such an experiment? Have you an exhibit A someplace? Mr. CORBETT. No, we do not, Mr. Chairman. The objective of the experiments is to simulate the long-term response of individuals to these programs, and we believe the first year responses the experiments are likely to be affected by the newness of the program. Mr. FLOOD. Have these experiments produced any useful information so far? If not, when do you expect to get some useful results? Mr. CORBETT. They have already provided some useful results, one result having been used by the Ways and Means Committee in its consideration of H.R. 1. That applied to a program feature we call the accounting period, the period over which you measure the individual's income to determine what his benefit will be. I can give an example, to explain that. The current welfare system essentially determines an individual's benefit based on his projection of income in the current month. Payments in the experiment are based on the income an individual received over an annual period. The Ways and Means Committee introduced the concept of an annual accounting period into the welfare reform legislation that passed the House. The definition of an accounting period has great financial implications. Mr. FLOOD. That is your exhibit A. All right. Mr. MICHEL. If you will permit me to inquire here, I notice you don't mention that New Jersey experiment, which was the very first one. There is no money in here for that, of course. What have we learned from that one? Mr. CORBETT. That experiment, of course, was funded through ОЕО. Mr. MICHEL. I know. Therefore, we do not know anything about it? We did not just fritter all that money down the drain, did we? Mr. CORBETT. No. Mr. MICHEL. I know that was all male, heads of households. I think that was probably one of the criticisms of that project. What the devil did we learn from that experiment? Mr. CORBETT. It is my understanding that within the next few months OEO will be issuing a final report. RESEARCH ACTIVITIES Mr. FLOOD. For research activities you are asking $64 million. That is the same amount you asked for last year. Mr. TWINAME. Yes, sir. Mr. FLOOD. Does this mean all the projects funded in 1972 will continue, or will there be some projects replaced by new ones? What does it mean? Mr. TWINAME. In the case of research and training, in a sense there are a number of needs, but we do have each year a certain number of research projects lapse, the 3-year terms run out and we have an opportunity to reprogram new projects. In this way we can begin to change our priorities within a constant budget, which in this particular year, becomes necessary. I would like to ask Dr. Garrett to speak to these programs and to recognize that, since we were last here, he has received the Lasker Award for his contribution in the field of rehabilitation research, particularly internationally. I want to give public and official recognition to this. Do you want to comment on our ability to undertake new projects within a constant budget? Dr. GARRETT. I think there are a few areas which are significant in which this committee has indicated an interest in past years, which are new or which receive greater emphasis in the 1973 period than in 1972. The total amount of money is the same, but you can finance new starts because of the fact that projects are discontinued. In other words, you have a 3- or 5-year commitment which is completed. You are constantly replacing. We constantly reevaluate what we are trying to do in research. The two major areas of emphasis in the budget that you have before you are the two areas which Dr. Newman mentioned are in the new VR Act. One is the area of spinal cord injury. Here we are setting up a comprehensive system, which means taking the individual from the time of injury on through the total rehabiltation process until he is reestablished in the community with followup and follow-on services. In 1972 we had a million dollars to support four such programs, and in 1973, that item itself goes up to $2.5 million. We will be going from four such center programs to 10. In rehabilitation engineering, in which this committee has also been very interested, in 1972 we supported five centers for $1.4 million; and in 1973 we will be going up to roughly about $3.5 million with 10 such centers. These are the major thrusts of our program. The third one where we roughly doubled the amount of money between 1972 and 1973, is in preparation also for the item Dr. Newman was mentioning; that is, the severely disabled. Our concern is what is really the rehabilitation potential of individuals with very severe disability? This is roughly what the differences are between 1972 and 1973. Mr. FLOOD. Your budget justifications for research state that all continuing projects are being reviewed, and that those showing little promise will be terminated. What have your reviews disclosed? Have you terminated any projects because of little promise? Dr. GARRETT. Yes. I will give you our experience in 1972, because we have not done our analysis for 1973 as yet. In 1972, we discontinued roughly-I think my figure is right—$2 million worth of projects, not just because of the fact that they were not making progress, because we would ordinarily discontinue those anyway, and that is phased into our planning, but, rather, because we were concerned with the new priority setting in which we are engaged in the whole social and rehabilitation service and HEW. We weeded out some projects which potentially could be funded under other resources that were now available, primarily rehabilitation, or which were not contributing as they might toward the solution of our high priority areas. This is about our history. Mr. FLOOD. Suppose you supply a breakdown for the record showing the amounts for new and continuation projects for 1972 and 1973. (The information follows:) 84-311 0-72 - 32 |