Program for disabled, blind, renamed to better reflect mission

The former Javits-Wagner-O'Day Program, which creates paid work for people with severe disabilities, is now called AbilityOne, though it may be more than a year before some customers become aware of the name change.

The JWOD Program, named for the 1971 act that created it, works with federal agencies to help them buy goods and services produced by nonprofit vendors where severely disabled individuals perform the majority of the work. In a Monday Federal Register notice, officials with the Committee for Purchase From People Who Are Blind or Severely Disabled, which administers the program, announced that the name change would take effect immediately.

The move to adopt AbilityOne as the program name stems from two main goals, according to program officials: to better communicate the mission, and respond to a routine update to the enacting legislation that will eliminate the Javits-Wagner-O'Day Act as a separate law and incorporate it, unchanged, into the U.S. Code.

In Monday's Federal Register, officials noted that the committee has long recognized that stakeholders, including federal customers, advocates for people with disabilities, the business community, elected officials and program workers, have sometimes been confused about aspects of the JWOD Program.

The committee, which is a federal agency, works with two national organizations -- National Industries for the Blind and NISH, which at one point stood for National Industries for the Severely Handicapped but is no longer an acronym -- to help state agencies and nonprofits participate by using at least 75 percent direct labor by disabled individuals to produce goods and services that are then sold to the federal government.

According to the notice, the committee would like to develop a clearer program identity that stakeholders could easily understand and communicate. Research revealed that stakeholders found the JWOD name neither descriptive nor compelling, leading to a search for a name that would more clearly communicate the program's mission and benefits.

Committee spokesman Bob Hartt said the new name will be rolled out over a transition period of at least 18 months, to let stakeholders make the connection between JWOD and AbilityOne and to allow program officials to use up printed materials with the old name. He said the long rollout also will allow other affiliated groups, including the awkwardly named committee and NISH, to decide whether to change their own names.

Hartt said a formal roll-out plan may be ready by early spring. On Wednesday, there was no evidence of the AbilityOne name on the program Web site or committee Web site.

Hartt said the name change effort is not related to, and in fact predates, a fraud incident that shook the program over the past year. The El Paso, Texas-based National Center for Employment of the Disabled, a program participant that has won large contracts over the past several years, was found to have misrepresented the level of work performed by disabled workers. An investigation eventually found that fewer than 8 percent of the workers were disabled, and the FBI has an ongoing investigation into allegations that NCED's president and chief executive officer at the time had used NCED funds to finance other business ventures and had arranged for payments of more than $4 million by the group to his family trust.

Hartt said the Texas nonprofit has since reorganized with new leadership and a new board. In May, the committee decided to let it remain in the JWOD program to avoid laying off its disabled workers. Hartt said that as of this month, those workers now make up the requisite 75 percent of the labor force, and the group now reports quarterly to the committee to facilitate close monitoring.

In an unfortunate coincidence, Hartt said the committee learned only after it had identified AbilityOne as a top pick for a new program name that the Texas nonprofit had dropped NCED in favor of the name ReadyOne Industries. He stressed there was no connection between the two entities.

Hartt said the committee is looking at ways to more effectively monitor the nonprofit vendors, for example, by investigating sudden changes in workload or the types of work they do, and is developing guidance on how participants should report the percentage of their workers who are disabled.

Federal agencies are required to buy some products and services through AbilityOne, and participants receive preference in federal contracting rules that allow agencies to buy from them without going through the full competitive process.