Round 1: What’s this?  After a weekend of celebrations and festivities, it’s not unusual for this soon to be 65 year old semi-cajun to be feeling achy, physically worn out, or mentally fatigued from an abrupt interruption to my ever so punctual sleep cycle and laid back retiree life style; however, it is now Tuesday and my head is still reeling punch-drunk not so much from this past Saturday morning & evening’s celebrations and festivities at the RSVL Christmas parties, but from the Friday all day anti-climactic ECM meeting. It’s as though I have been transported back in time to Mayberry RFD and I am staring into Goober’s smiling goofy face as he utters, “Surprise! Surprise!” .

How many long Sunday sermons have I endured “Don’t build your house on shifting sand but on rock“; well, it turns out those enduring sermons served me well, for as Shirley and I built a case in her Grievance letter (petition) for submission to the La. BEP Randolph-Sheppard Program Manager,  we were very careful to cross reference each allegation to a specific part of the La. Administrative Code (Chapter 5: Randolph-Sheppard Program Policy) and/or the illusive Technical Assistance & Guidance (TAG) Manual. Even so, a lot would depend on substantiating documentation to be provided by SLA RSMAs, Randolph-Sheppard Management Analysts (SLA agents - field operatives of La. Rehabilitation Services - responsible for oversight of BEP facilities in La. and BEP SLA “selected” managers). We were not surprised to receive a letter from the SLA stating that they concluded from the Informal Administrative Review that the selection process and resulting selection of a Fort Polk facility “satellite manager” was proper and in accordance with applicable policy and state law. Our point was that they did not do a good job of documentation and that a little digging into the matter at hand would reveal pertinent evidence that they either overlooked or had not acquired. From what I witnessed Friday, I would dearly love to see the current Grievance letter (petition).

La Blind Vendors’ Grievance: Round 1 ... My wife initiated a Grievance after the Fort Polk BEP facility “satellite manager” position selection.  We experienced such a high level of confusion and discomfort that she dropped it after the Informal Administrative Review. It is my understanding that the grievance process is mint to provide managers a better way than law suits to deal with problems within the BEP; however, for us it was intimidating and left us feeling that the SLA has the upper hand and that there is no use trying to oppose them.

Although the details of the current La. Blind Vendors’ Grievance cannot be discussed at this time, we can exchange comments on how we “feel” and what we “understand” in general about BEP grievances across the nation as this one unfolds.
I understand that managers have the choice to go it alone. It has been my experience that the SLA will let managers represent themselves or have someone of their choice (qualified to practice administrative law or not) to represent them. It is best to have the ECM on the managers side and to actually put forth the grievance. Our experience is that a grievance is clearly an adversarial arena favoring state BEP administrators and their lawyers. Remembering the difficulty we had trying to locate and retain legal representation, I venture to say that no matter how managers are represented, managers can expect a very stressful and intimidating experience from round 1, the “Informal Administrative Review” to the Evidentiary Hearing.