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American Council Of The Blind OF NEW YORK, INC.
AN AFFILIATE OF THE AMERICAN COUNCIL OF THE BLIND, WASHINGTON, D.C.
A SELF-HELP ORGANIZATION DEDICATED TO IMPROVING THE LIFESTYLE AND
INDEPENDENCE OF THE BLIND,

2008 ACBNY LEGISLATIVE AGENDA

ACBNY strongly supports A08471 (Bing) and S5308 (Marcellino),

An Act to Amend the Education Law, which establishes licensing requirements for two categories of vision rehabilitation professionals: licensed orientation and mobility specialists and licensed rehabilitation teachers.
As New Yorkers age, the number of persons with significant visual impairments will increase.
Orientation and Mobility Specialists provide people who are blind or visually impaired with instruction in the use of their remaining senses along with their white cane or dog guide to enable safe navigation and independent travel in their environment.
Rehabilitation Teachers provide training in the reading and writing of Braille, safe cooking techniques and other homemaking skills, and instruction in keyboarding and the use of adaptive technology.
Licensure will provide qualified professionals who are specifically trained to meet the unique needs of people who are blind or visually impaired.
Additionally, licensing assures the provision of quality services through regulation and examination. Also, licensing will promote consumer safety and ensure that individuals who are blind have access to highly trained practitioners who have received specialized supervised training in working with people who are blind or visually impaired.

ACBNY supports services for New York State seniors by providing funding for the established program under Chapter 573 of 2007 by

restructuring A02522 (McDonough), A03108A (Pretlow), and S5960 (Flanagan),

An Act To Amend The Public Service Law and the State Finance Law in Relation to Enacting the Accessible Electronic Information Act. The number of seniors 60 years and older with functional visual impairments will continue to grow. The newly established Senior Visions Services Program will allow for collaboration between contract agencies of the State Office on Aging and the New York State Commission for the Blind and Visually Handicapped to provide:

Currently this segment of the population often has to wait until their vision declines to receive these necessary services. By providing funding for supportive services and enabling people to be trained in how to use their remaining vision, this proposed restructuring will reduce the number of accidents in the home and prevent stays in rehabilitation facilities and placement into nursing homes, thereby allowing New York State to realize savings of millions of dollars in medical costs.

ACBNY strongly recommends restructuring A02522 (McDonough), A03108A (Pretlow), and S5960 (Flanagan),

An Act To Amend The Public Service Law and the State Finance Law in Relation to Enacting the Accessible Electronic Information Act. These bills vest financial power to set and levy a surcharge in one individual, in concert with the Public Service Commission. These bills also propose to utilize state ?Abandoned Property? funds to provide additional funding to the Newsline service via the Accessible Electronic Information fund.
The referenced Newsline service can be provided by investing minimal funds?less than $200,000 to eligible New Yorkers.
No mechanism for accountability of the expenditure of these funds is established in these bills.
If ?abandoned Property? funds are to be utilized for the benefit of the blind, ACBNY would rather have them utilized to advance opportunities for training and employment of blind and visually impaired individuals and to increase the accessibility of the changing built environment (including but not limited to accessible pedestrian signals, detectable edge warnings, accessible voting systems, and accessible consumer-readable utility meters).
Specifically, ACBNY proposes a mechanism whereby funds collected through these means can be used to provide vital vision services to New York State?s millions of seniors through the Office of Aging and the Commission for the Blind and Visually Handicapped (CBVH) as directed through the signed Chapter 573 (2007).

ACBNY supports A07976 (Sweeney) and S00929 (Johnson)

which directs New York State Energy Research and Development Authority to study the best technologies to enable blind and visually impaired persons to read utility meters.
ACBNY believes that blind and visually impaired utility customers have a fundamental right to independently obtain an accurate reading of their utility meters in order to verify their billing.
The results of this proposed research will identify a feasible technology for this purpose.
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Last updated February 6 2008