Dallas may work with a local nonprofit to hire six blind or partially sighted people to answer the majority of municipal court calls, but could waive city rules requiring that the contracted workers be paid at least $15.21 an hour.
City Council members will weigh a proposal next month to pay Envision Dallas, which helps provide jobs and other services for people who are visually impaired, more than $786,000 over three years to help fill 16 vacant city positions in the municipal court customer service call center. But Dallas’ 311 Customer Service Director Janette Weedon said Monday that if the city makes the nonprofit pay workers the minimum contractor rate, that could make the workers ineligible for federal benefits, such as Social Security Disability Insurance.
Under Social Security rules, visually impaired people can’t receive those disability benefits if they earn more than $2,260 a month. That’s a little more than $14 an hour when working eight hours a day for five days a week.
“I realize that this is an exception, it is the only exception that has ever been asked,” Weedon told council members during a committee meeting Monday. “But I think this is a great opportunity for us to partner with an organization that is giving an opportunity for meaningful employment for individuals who would not otherwise have that opportunity.”
The proposal calls for six workers to handle about 70% of the nearly 11,000 calls the municipal court gets each month. At least three workers...
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