§ 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.