Statement of the Department of Justice on Application of the Integration Mandate of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Olmstead v. L.C. to State and Local Governments’ Employment Service Systems for Individuals with Disabilities

8. What is an Olmstead Plan in the state and local government employment service system context?

A: An Olmstead plan is a public entity’s plan for implementing its legal obligation to provide services to individuals with disabilities in the most integrated setting appropriate.³⁵ To be legally sufficient, a plan must be comprehensive and effectively working.³⁶ A plan is neither comprehensive nor effectively working if it merely provides vague assurances of future integrated options or describes the public entity’s general history of increased funding for community services and decreasing institutional populations.³⁷ For example, in the employment context, a public entity cannot rely merely on the number or amount of supported employment services that it provides to people with disabilities, if the entity cannot demonstrate in what type of settings those services are provided or the success of those services in moving individuals from sheltered workshops to integrated employment settings.

To be comprehensive and effective, the plan must include concrete, reliable, and specific commitments for, and a demonstrated success of, actually moving individuals from segregated sheltered workshops or other segregated settings to integrated employment settings.³⁸ In assessing an Olmstead plan for a state’s employment service system, the Department will consider criteria such as the number of individuals who have transitioned from sheltered workshops to work in competitive, integrated employment ³⁹ with appropriate services and supports, their tenure in integrated jobs, the number of hours that such persons work in competitive integrated employment, and the number of individuals who remain in segregated settings. The Department also considers a public entity’s adherence to integration criteria such as interaction with non-disabled persons to the fullest extent possible and individualization of services.

Any Olmstead plan should be evaluated in light of the length of time that has passed since the Supreme Court’s decision in Olmstead, including a fact-specific inquiry into what the public entity could have accomplished in the past, and what it could accomplish in the future to prevent the unnecessary segregation of persons with disabilities. Any plan must address the concrete steps that will be taken in the future and how the entity plans on sustaining those steps beyond the scope of any litigation or legal challenge. Plans should include specific and reasonable timeframes for the employment of persons with disabilities in integrated employment settings; measurable goals for which the public entity may be held accountable; and funding to support the plan, which may come from reallocating existing service dollars.