N.Y. Education Law § 1004: Powers and duties of the education department

§ 1004. Powers and duties of the education department.

The education department shall have the responsibility of and is

hereby authorized:

1. To adopt and promulgate such rules and regulations and take such

action as may be necessary to carry out the provisions of this article.

2. To provide vocational rehabilitation services directly or through

public or private instrumentalities for handicapped persons (excepting

blind persons and, with respect to physical restoration services, those

persons who are entitled to such services pursuant to the workers'

compensation law and the volunteer firefighters' benefit law) whose

vocational rehabilitation the department determines after full

investigation may be satisfactorily achieved. In the course of its

investigation of an individual applicant's vocational rehabilitation

potential the department may conduct an extended evaluation program

including utilization of such vocational rehabilitation services as it

deems necessary.

3. To enter into reciprocal agreements with other states to provide

for the vocational rehabilitation of handicapped persons.

4. To engage in and contract for the making of studies,

investigations, demonstrations, research and reports, and the provision

of training and instruction (including the establishment and maintenance

of fellowships and traineeships with such stipends and allowances as may

be deemed necessary) the assessment of existing facilities and services

and the evaluation of present and future requirements, including plans

for the purposes enumerated above in matters relating to vocational

rehabilitation.

5. To arrange and pay part of the cost of projects leading to the

construction of workshops and rehabilitation facilities and the

extension and improvement or the establishment of vocational

rehabilitation services for handicapped persons, including the

furnishing of equipment or the furnishing of funds for the purchase of

equipment and supplies, personnel and other necessary and proper

expenses in the construction, establishment, improvement, continuation

or extension of rehabilitation facilities and workshops operated by

public or nonprofit organizations and agencies.

6. To cooperate in the operation of this article with the state agency

or agencies administering the state's public assistance program,

workmen's compensation program, the departments of health, mental

hygiene, the federal agencies charged with the administration of the

federal social security act and the federal fair labor standards act or

other appropriate federal legislation and with other public and private

agencies providing services related to vocational rehabilitation, and

with the state system of public employment offices in the state, making

maximum feasible utilization of the job placement and employment

counseling services and other services and facilities of such offices,

and to issue such certifications as are required or indicated thereby.

7. Within its discretion, to consider financial need of handicapped

individuals for the purposes of determining the extent of their

respective participation in the costs of vocational rehabilitation

services and to promulgate rules and regulations establishing financial

need as a condition to the availability of any of the services specified

in paragraph a of subdivision five of section one thousand two of this

chapter except that no economic need test will be applied as a condition

for furnishing the following vocational rehabilitation services: (a)

evaluation, including diagnostic and related services; (b) counseling

and guidance; and (c) placement.

8. To supervise and monitor service centers for independent living

pursuant to article twenty-three-A of this chapter.

9. To contract with not-for-profit organizations for the provision of

supported employment services, as defined in subdivision twelve of

section ten hundred two of this article, to individuals having severe

disabilities defined in subdivision fourteen of section one thousand two

of this article in integrated work settings. The commissioner shall

ensure that funds provided pursuant to this subdivision are not used for

the provision of services that are the responsibility of other state

agencies pursuant to the plan developed pursuant to subdivision two of

section one thousand four-b of this article. Services shall be provided

at a cost not to exceed that which is necessary and reasonable, and

shall include short-term intensive and extended support mechanisms

within an integrated work setting. The commissioner shall require

service providers to develop appropriate policies and procedures for

directing their supported employment programs, and to provide such

reports as the commissioner deems to be appropriate.