[Federal Register Volume 82, Number 170 (Tuesday, September 5, 2017)]
[Notices]
[Pages 41941-41942]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2017-18751]


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DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION


Arbitration Panel Decisions Under the Randolph-Sheppard Act

AGENCY: Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, 
Department of Education.

ACTION: Notice of arbitration decisions.

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SUMMARY: The Department of Education (Department) is changing the way 
it notifies the public of arbitration panel decisions under the 
Randolph-Sheppard Act. The Department will no longer publish detailed 
synopses of each decision in the Federal Register. Rather, the 
Department will publish a quarterly notice in the Federal Register 
listing any decisions reached in the previous three months. The full 
text of the decisions will be available on the Department's Web site 
and by request. This notice lists decisions from the first two quarters 
of 2017 and available decisions from 2016.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Donald Brinson, U.S. Department of 
Education, 400 Maryland Avenue SW., Room 5045, Potomac Center Plaza, 
Washington, DC 20202-2800. Telephone: (202) 245-7310. If you use a 
telecommunications device for the deaf (TDD) or a text telephone (TTY), 
call the Federal Relay Service, toll-free, at 1-800-877-8339.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: For the purpose of providing blind persons 
with remunerative employment, enlarging their economic opportunities, 
and stimulating greater efforts to make themselves self-supporting, the 
Randolph-Sheppard Act, 20 U.S.C. 107 et seq. (Act), authorizes blind 
persons to operate vending facilities on Federal property and provides 
them with a priority for doing so. The vending facilities include, 
among other things, cafeterias, snack bars, and automatic vending 
machines. The Department administers the Act and designates an agency 
in each State--the State Licensing Agency (SLA)--to license blind 
persons to operate vending facilities on Federal and other property in 
the State.
    The Act requires arbitration of disputes between SLAs and blind 
vendors and between SLAs and Federal agencies before three-person 
panels convened by the Department whose decisions constitute final 
agency action. 20 U.S.C. 107d-1. The Act also makes these decisions 
matters of public record and requires their publication in the Federal 
Register. 20 U.S.C. 107d-2(c).
    The Department's long-standing practice has been to publish in the 
Federal Register detailed synopses of

[[Page 41942]]

arbitration decisions rather than their full text, which are sometimes 
quite lengthy. This saves publishing costs for the Department and time 
for interested members of the public. The Department has also provided 
copies of full arbitration panel decisions to members of the public 
upon request.
    The time it took to draft these synopses resulted in a publishing 
backlog, however. Therefore, the Department has decided to change its 
practice in a way that will allow it to comply with the statutory 
requirement for publication and to provide the text of the arbitration 
panel decisions to the public more quickly and conveniently and at 
minimal cost to the Department.
    The Department will now make the full text of arbitration panel 
decisions under the Act available on the Department's Web site, and we 
will add older, archived decisions as they become available in the 
proper format and are made accessible to individuals with disabilities 
under section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. The decisions will be 
searchable by key terms and available for download in Adobe Acrobat 
(.pdf) format. The Department will continue to provide copies of 
decisions to members of the public upon request to the person listed 
under FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT.
    Since the beginning of 2017, Randolph-Sheppard Arbitration panels 
have issued the following decisions.

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                 Case name                    Docket No.         Date                       State
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Kansas Dept. for Children and Families v.         RS 15-15          5/9/17  Kansas.
 Department of the Army.
Homan v. Maryland.........................        RS 15-06         3/30/17  Maryland.
Texas v. The Department of the Air Force..        RS 16-09         2/28/17  Texas.
Sheets v. California......................        RS 13-08         2/27/17  California.
Florida Dept. of Education, Division of           RS 15-13          2/1/17  Florida.
 Blind Services v. Department of the Air
 Force.
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    The decisions are available at www.ed.gov/programs/rsarsp/arbitration-decisions.html.
    At this same site, we have posted the following decisions from 
2016.

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                 Case name                    Docket No.         Date                       State
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Oklahoma v. Fort Sill.....................        RS 15-10        12/23/16  Oklahoma.
South Carolina v. Dept. of the Army.......        RS 15-07          9/2/16  South Carolina.
Georgia v. Fort Stewart...................        RS 13-09         1/11/16  Georgia.
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    In the future, shortly after the end of every calendar quarter-
March 31, June 30, September 30, and December 31-the Department will 
publish a notice in the Federal Register listing arbitration decisions 
issued in the previous three months and any older decisions when they 
become available and are made accessible under section 508. The notice 
will provide a link to the Web site where the decisions may be found 
and contact information for anyone, with or without access to the 
internet, who wishes to request a copy of a decision from the 
Department.
    Accessible Format: Individuals with disabilities can obtain this 
document in an accessible format (e.g., braille, large print, 
audiotape, or compact disc) on request to the contact person listed 
under FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT.
    Electronic Access to This Document: The official version of this 
document is the document published in the Federal Register. Free 
internet access to the official edition of the Federal Register and the 
Code of Federal Regulations is available via the Federal Digital System 
at: www.gpo.gov/fdsys. At this site you can view this document, as well 
as all other documents of this Department published in the Federal 
Register, in text or PDF. To use PDF you must have Adobe Acrobat 
Reader, which is available free at the site.
    You may also access documents of the Department published in the 
Federal Register by using the article search feature at 
www.federalregister.gov. Specifically, through the advanced search 
feature at this site, you can limit your search to documents published 
by the Department.

    Dated: August 30, 2017.
Kimberly M. Richey,
Acting Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative 
Services.
[FR Doc. 2017-18751 Filed 9-1-17; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 4000-01-P