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Rehab services stresses federal match, school programs and remote-work impacts in budget hearing
Summary
The Department of Rehabilitation Services outlined federal matching requirements for vocational rehabilitation and services for the blind, described expanded priority groups, and discussed workforce, facility and remote-work implications as it presented its FY26 requests to the Appropriations committee.
Melinda Front, executive director of the Oklahoma Department of Rehabilitation Services, told the Appropriations and Budget committee the agency expanded client-serving capacity after state matching funds allowed it to open an additional priority group under the federal vocational rehabilitation (VR) program.
Front said DRS served about 85,947 Oklahomans with disabilities and their families in fiscal 2024 and that the agency continues to operate the Oklahoma School for the Blind (Muskogee) and Oklahoma School for the Deaf (Sulphur), residential institutions that also serve day students.
Why it matters: The federal VR program uses a 4-to-1 federal-to-state matching formula; without sufficient state match DRS cannot draw all available federal funds. The agency said restoring and maintaining the match…
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