Aloha Justin. I think we need to hear more facts before we can give you an answer that you would be satisfied with. Example, is this an agency decision? Is this coming out of the agencies Admin budget? Or is this a section decision? And does this come out of each sections budget? And the most important question is, why are only the sighted staff being allowed to have their registrations paid for? And is it all of the site at staff in the building? Honestly, the way your questions and concerns have been raised, it sounds like obvious discrimination. I hope we can get more answers before we draw any conclusions. As you may know, our agency along with the rest of vocational rehabilitation here in Hawaii is going through an order of selection. We are dealing with some major budget issues. Because of these budget issues, our section has had to make some really tough decisions over the last few months. One of those tough decisions was that the staff members of our section would not be attending this year?s NFV state convention on the sections very limited budget. To make clear, this is not an agency decision, but rather a section decision made by the section supervisor who happens to be blind. And as you know, there are other really tough decisions that have been made that I won?t talk about here. There are employees in other sections who will be attending this year?s convention through work, and they happen to be cited, 4 of them to be exact. I can promise you that them being cited and us being blind has nothing to do with why they?re going to convention as part of work and we are not. To be honest, I was disappointed when I found out I had to pay for my own registration. But then I thought about it, and I realized whether Work was going to pay for me or not, I would find a way to attend our state convention! Even if that meant I had to come up with the 50 dollars on my own! I think it would be well worth it! So yeah, I think we definitely need more facts before we come to any conclusions. I definitely don?t want people to be misled and I?m sure you feel the same way.Hope this helps. Sent from my iPhone

On Sep 7, 2018, at 11:02 AM, nomc-request at lists.nbpcb.org wrote:

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Today's Topics:

1. Question about Attending State Conventions as Employees (Justin Salisbury) 2. Re: Question about Attending State Conventions as Employees (Lerone Walker)

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Message: 1 Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2018 08:45:15 +0000 From: Justin Salisbury <PRESIDENT at alumni.ecu.edu> To: "NOMC at lists.nbpcb.org" <NOMC at lists.nbpcb.org> Subject: [Nomc] Question about Attending State Conventions as Employees Message-ID: <BY2PR13MB031068845D0CCE6B76D5D88689000 at BY2PR13MB0310.namprd13.prod.outlook.com>

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Colleagues,

I recently heard about a state VR agency and its plans for how to save money on a state convention. They are basically sending the sighted employees to the convention as a work activity but expecting the blind employees to pay their own way because that's something they can reasonably be expected to be attending even if they were not employees. The agency is divided into a handful of sections, and the section where all of the blind employees work is the one not getting compensated.

Has anyone experienced this kind of thing before? What arguments worked or did not work to resolve the issue, hopefully in a peaceful and face-saving way?

Asking for a friend,

Justin