underachieving deaf, the aging blind, those with endstage renal disease, and those with spinal cord injuries not be neglected.

Our experience in past years under the innovation and expansion grant authority, as well as the special project provisions, has enabled us to bring into the mainstream of the program handicapped people who otherwise have been considered too great a risk to be included in the regular vocational rehabilitation program.

TRAINING GRANTS

This is a time when we should be strengthening our staff competencies to deal with the increased numbers of severely disabled we are serving. The specialized rehabilitation professions in the areas of counseling, work evaluation, rehabilitation medicine, and rehabilitation facility administration do not have long histories of broad support and, in fact, have been the creations of the training programs under the Vocational Rehabilitation Act. We strongly believe that these programs should continue to receive vocational rehabilitation support, so that we may continue to upgrade the quality of services to the handicapped.

The President would like to see training funds maintained at the fiscal year 1975 level of $22.2 million. Not only would this deny attention to many handicapped persons; it would likewise deny a productive and meaningful source of education and employment to able persons. The Council of State Administrators feels that an appropriation of any less than $27.7 million in newly appropriated moneys would serve neither the interests of the handicapped nor those of the able, and we recommend this amount as a minimum appropriation for funds under section 203 of the act.

FACILITIES

There is a great need to assure quality services within the community, especially in the case of the severely disabled. These services. are available in rehabilitation facilities, but sorely inadequate numbers of such facilities exist in reasonably available sites in most communities. The lack of funding for construction and improvements of facilities has slowed down and greatly limited the ability of the State agencies to serve additional applicants, especially those with severe handicaps.

In the face of a well known and critical need for facility expansion, the administration's failure to request any funding whatsoever for sections 301, 302, and 303 of the act comes as a slap in the face to those seriously concerned with implementing the act's dictate that the severely handicapped be given top priority. Facilities and services cannot be developed overnight and, therefore, the almost total lack of funds in recent years is now reflecting itself in a reduced capacity for serving increased numbers of the severely disabled in facilities. It is most important, therefore, that the Congress provide immediate support in a substantial amount for construction and initial staffing of rehabilitation facilities, as provided in section 301 of the act.

Because of the immediacy of this need, the CSAVR must press for your committee's support for an appropriation of $25 million for

53-100 - 75 51

section 301 for fiscal year 1976. This would allow the prompt initiation of construction; $20 million and staffing; $5 million of additional service facilities to a degree that could have an impact on increased services for the severely disabled in the reasonably near future.

We also ask that you allow adequate funding for section 302, to provide training services and rehabilitation facility improvement projects; and for section 303, which provides for mortgage insurance to encourage development of needed facilities. For section 302, we recommend a minimum appropriation of $23 million; and for section 303, we urge an appropriation of $5 million, which we believe will permit a realistic implementation of this program.

RESEARCH

Before closing, Mr. Chairman, we wish to comment briefly on the subject of research, since others will deal with this area more completely than we. Suffice it to say that, while ours is a more practical world, one of applying methods and procedures developed elsewhere, we are mindful of the extent to which we are all dependent upon our colleagues in research for the great strides that have been made in rehabilitation. For the research program to have a measurable impact, we feel that an appropriation of $30 million for section 202 is an irreducible minimum.

Mr. Chairman, we have tried to present the views of the Council of State Administrators of Vocational Rehabilitation with respect to the need for adequate funding of vocational rehabilitation programs, in order that we might better serve the handicapped through programs of quality and substance.

We are aware of the budgetary restraints under which you operate, and in these days of tight and erratic economic conditions, we would be the first to insist upon a full dollar's return for each tax dollar expended in State and Federal programs. Mr. Chairman, we can give that quality of service in our programs if we are given funding adequate to the task. If we are able to serve the disabled well, they will return to the Government through their State and Federal tax dollars much more than the amounts expended to rehabilitate them.

We want to serve, and we sincerely ask that all appropriate consideration be given to our requests for the minimum amounts we feel are necessary to allow us to provide to America's handicapped citizens the type and quality of service they deserve, and that the Congress intends for them to have.