Vocational Rehabilitation Program (Combined or General)

The amending of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (the Act), as amended by Title IV of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) on July 22, 2014, required significant program and federal reporting changes beginning July 1, 2017. State VR agencies must now report on 363 individual data elements each quarter, for all active and closed VR cases. The enhanced reporting requirements require a significantly increased level of effort, as prior reporting was due annually for closed cases only, and required significantly fewer data elements. Additionally, BRS must now follow participants for four consecutive quarters post-exit from the VR program to report employment, earnings, and educational gains.

BRS has begun to report data through the revised and expanded RSA-911 report. Baseline data collected between July 1, 2017 and June 30, 2018 will assist the joint efforts of VR and RSA to set specific measures for each performance expectation. The existing Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between BRS and DWD was updated to ensure that BRS can obtain employment and wage data through DWD. Additionally, other resources are being investigated to aid VR in meeting data collection and reporting requirements either through other State agencies and public or private sources, including post-exit data.