Clinton orders agencies to hire disabled employees

Ten years to the day after the signing of the landmark Americans With Disabilities Act, President Clinton Wednesday issued an executive order saying agencies should try to hire a total of 100,000 disabled workers by September 2005.

Achieving that goal would nearly double the 122,000-person disabled federal workforce, although retirement is expected to winnow the group considerably over the next decade. Under current law, individuals with "a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities" are considered disabled.

The proclamation came just a day after Vice President Al Gore broke from his presidential campaign schedule to announce a range of programs, tax incentives and nearly $100 million in direct spending aimed at improving home ownership and residential living options for the disabled. Also included in the Gore package was a proposed executive memorandum that would require agencies to strive to develop and share assistive technologies and universal design facilities for disabled employees.

The Office of Personnel Management will assume responsibility for implementing Clinton's executive order, beginning with a requirement that all agencies provide OPM with a formal blueprint for recruiting and hiring people with disabilities. The plans, due Sept. 25, must detail both how and at what pay grades the agencies plan to employ disabled workers and what steps they will take to create an accessible environment for the new employees.

OPM Director Janice R. Lachance, whose agency earlier this month launched a Web site for disabled federal job seekers, cited the contributions currently being made by such employees as proof that the programs in place are worth bolstering.

"The quality of work performed by people with disabilities-and the full range of occupations they hold-only serve to reinforce the Clinton-Gore administration's commitment to do more for those who only need a chance to show what they can do for America," said Lachance.

President Clinton has aggressively pushed efforts to reduce the stubborn 75 percent unemployment rate among the disabled, a percentage that has barely budged despite the record-low unemployment achieved under Clinton's watch. The administration claims that 72 percent of this population would work if given the opportunity.

The 1998 Presidential Task Force on Employment of Adults with Disabilities yielded two federal publications promoting the recruitment of people with disabilities, Accessing Opportunity: The Plan for Employment of People With Disabilities in the Federal Government and People with Disabilities in the Federal Government: An Employment Guide. These were the first of their kind among executive branch agencies.

More recently, OPM has finalized regulations designed to allow employees with psychiatric disabilities to gain competitive federal service status after they've completed a probationary, non-competitive stint.

Yesterday's announcement does not lock agencies into meeting specific hiring targets. Clinton's order only calls on agencies to try to meet the overall goal of hiring 100,000 people with disabilities.