WHEREAS, the Maryland State Department of Education's Division of Vocational Rehabilitation became the sole state licensing agency for blind vendors in Maryland, effective July 1, 1980; and
WHEREAS, financial support for the Maryland Blind Vending Program is an acknowledged responsibility of the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, however, The Division of Vocational Rehabilitation has never yet owned up to this responsibility and fulfilled it; and
WHEREAS, The Division of Vocational Rehabilitation's failure to meet its financial responsibility for the program has caused a severe condition of deficit financing, forcing Blind Industries and Services of Maryland and vendors into stop-gap measures to avert collapse of the program; and
WHEREAS, BISM's legal obligations to oversee and fund the Maryland Blind Vending Program ended with the transfer of all licensing agency functions to the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, yet BISM, due to The Division of Vocational Rehabilitation's failure -to fund the program, has faced the alternative of letting the program die (on one hand) or (on the other hand) to take the course it has chosen, not to abandon the program, but rather to continue to work with the vendors and to help the program grow; and
WHEREAS, the vendors, too, have been forced to bear excessive costs to preserve the program in the face of The Division of Vocational Rehabilitation's failure to use funds available through state and federal sources; and
WHEREAS, neither BISM nor the vendors can continue to carry the responsibility of the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation as the problem of funding has now reached a crisis:
NOW, THERFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind of Maryland in Convention assembled in Hagerstown this 13th day of October, 1984, that this organization condemns The Division of Vocational Rehabilitation's apparent refusal to face up to the principal obligations vested in it as a state licensing agency; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we commend b6th the vendors and BISM for carrying out the costs of the state, while at the same time, we urge Governor Hughes, other officials of the State of Maryland and the responsible agencies involved to fulfill their obligations to the Maryland Blind Vending Program including its financing.