Vermont Coalition for Disability Rights
The Vermont Coalition for Disability Rights (VCDR) is a cross-disability advocacy organization that seeks to increase awareness of disability issues and effect systemic change through legislative and administrative processes. VCDR staff work closely with member organizations to empower people with disabilities, thus enabling them to directly participate in legislative decisions which will expand their civil rights.
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What's New:
The big news art the Statehouse on January 5th was the report to the Joint Legislative Government Accountability Committee from the "Public Strategies" consulting group. The Report "Challenges for Change: Results for Vermonters included about 38 million in reduced spending by suggesting a set of "challenges" (not yet developed proposals) to redesign the way services are delivered in Vermont to produce better outcomes with less cost.
There are a number of significant changes and redesigns suggested in this report that need to be further developed and acted upon by the administration and legislature.
Creating "Charter Units", reducing budgets to gain "flexibility", regulatory reform, purchasing "results" and not services" , "client centric, integrated system" are some of the key phrases used in the report.It looks at General Government, Human Services, Corrections and Education among others.
Lawmakers were told to expect resistance to the challenges and redesigns proposed in the report, especially from advocates of human service programs.
The special Government Accountability Committee "endorsed" the report and moving forward. The lawmakers and the administration held a joint press conference supporting the effort to move forward.
Here is the link to the report
http://www.leg.state.vt.us/jfo/Challenges%20for%20Change%20-%20PSG%20Report%2001-05-2010.pdf
More in David Gram's news article: