SB 476 - This act makes various changes regarding Sheltered Workshop policies and operations.

This act would replace sheltered workshops with extended employment sheltered workshop. An extended employment workshop is defined as a long-term employment provider operated by a not- for-profit corporation whose primary purpose is to provide employment for persons with disabilities and who meet the state rule regulating such entities.

The current definition of a sheltered workshop is an occupation-oriented facility operated by a not-for-profit corporation, which except for staff, employs only handicapped persons.

The act would also redefine those who could be hired by an extended employment sheltered workshop, by deleting the term "handicapped person" and replacing it with the term "an employee with a disability". The current definition of handicapped person limits an employee to a person who is lower range educable or upper range trainable mentally retarded or other handicapped person 16 years of age or over who has had school training and has a work capacity in a sheltered workshop environment which has been adapted to the abilities of the mentally retarded.

This act defines an employee with a disability as a person with mental retardation, mental illness, head injury, or other disability certified by the Missouri Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, the Missouri Rehabilitation Services for the Blind or other certifying agency or professional as agreed to by the Department, and who is formally certified for employment in an extended employment sheltered workshop.

If, an extended employment sheltered workshop can prove to the Department that employees with disabilities account for not less than 75% of the workhours of direct labor, and that priority was given in hiring qualified persons with disabilities, they would be allowed to hire nondisabled employees upon the showing that this employment would enhance the individual skills and abilities of employees with disabilities. The act does mandate that no qualified employee with a disability shall be displaced by a nondisabled individual.

The act requires extended employment sheltered workshops to make reasonable accommodations in accordance with the American with Disabilities Act.
CHERYL GRAZIER