In this episode, Nicky and Terry share all of the news that is the news when it comes to Randolph-Sheppard. Hear about the latest victories and setbacks, the Supreme Court decision that could impact blind entrepreneurs, industry trends, and more.
Intro Music (00:03):
We are Randolph Shepherd Podcast. We're Randolph Shepherd podcast.
Intro Music (00:16):
This is the We are Randolph Shepherd podcast, promoting blind entrepreneurship and Independence. And now here's the dynamic duo, Nikki Geicos and Terry Smith.
Nicky (00:26):
Welcome to the We Are Randolph Shepherd podcast [00:00:30] for July, 2024. And of course we have to thank our sponsors, the National Association of Blind Merchants, Coca-Cola, Blackstone Consulting, Southern Food Service, Siteline Wealth Management, Sodexo Tyler Technologies, F-S-I-G-R-S-A Management Group. You selected Cantaloupe and Cure, Dr. Pepper. Terry, how are you?
Terry (00:57):
I'm doing great, Nikki. I'm recording this, sitting [00:01:00] up in my mom's house in Marshtown, Tennessee. Came up here for her 92nd birthday celebration. She turned 92 yesterday. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, she still lives alone, still drives everywhere and so we came up and had a good day yesterday and I'm going to take her to a movie today and just still spending the weekend and so yeah, really, really happy [00:01:30] about that. I'm, I'm very blessed and I know that and I appreciate it. Also, Nikki, a shout out to our producer Josh Harper. Josh is a teacher at the Tennessee School for the Blind, and Josh was recently named the Teacher of the Year at the Tennessee School for the Blinds. I There you go. Congratulations.
Nicky (02:00):
[00:02:00] Oh God, all mom and Josh. All right.
Terry (02:02):
Yeah, really proud. It's a to start. Yeah, he's a good guy. Does a good job making
Nicky (02:08):
Us. Josh is a great guy. Yeah, he is good. He's a great, and I'm glad that congratulations. I'm sure he deserves it. And many, many more for that and many more birthdays for mom and after the debate the other night, I don't think A doesn't mean so much, it just means that she's sharp and she's good and God bless her. Many more birthdays. Mom, happy birthday and congratulations to Josh.
Terry (02:30):
[00:02:30] Well, we have a different perspective on the debate. If you think age doesn't mean much because I think age sort of showed up to be big, but we won't
Intro Music (02:39):
Go there. Just
Terry (02:41):
Keep this nonpolitical. We go there.
Nicky (02:42):
Let's not get on that. You got things to do today.
Terry (02:47):
Now let's not go there. Got blast coming up. Nikki and plans are beginning to fall into shape, aren't they
Nicky (02:57):
Are. And we're very excited to, we named our keynote speaker [00:03:00] that I saw a few years ago that will get everybody excited with team building exercise and motivational speaker and we're excited about that and people starting to register. And I'll say this again, rooms are going very fast. I don't want to hear, well, I could book my room and your registration's up. And we're very excited about the training, the first two trainings that we did with M-C-S-A-B, cultivating with the training with the attorneys and staff on [00:03:30] the Tuesday before blast. So we're very excited that coming together so quick and so fast and thing that scares me. People are starting to ask about 25 already. Terry Crazy. But yeah, blast is coming. Well, and it's exciting. We haven't done one in a number of years, so it's exciting to do a big blast like that.
Terry (03:49):
Well, it's not just hop. We have literally already four months out increase the room block. So we're really excited [00:04:00] with the reaction. And next up is the convention. Nikki, we won't finish this podcast and next couple of days we'll be headed to Orlando.
Nicky (04:11):
We will. And we put the agenda together and it's almost like speaking of blast, it's almost like a blast type agenda. We'll have Michael Delto social security speaking. We'll have Andy Freeman giving us an update on the Chevron case that just broke yesterday from the Supreme Court and [00:04:30] how it will or will not affect Randolph Shepherd. Lauren McCarney will give us an update on afe. Bill Finley will be there speaking about the 15,000 conferences that he has throughout the state of Florida. I guess he's going to continue from blast that in Orlando. You and I will give updates and then we're going to have elections and it's something to think about that every time we come to 'em. It will be the [00:05:00] time for other people to take over and we'll have some changes on the board and it'll be an exciting time to be in Orlando to see a lot of people see some of the new technology at the exhibit hall too. So looking forward to seeing everybody for a few days down in Orlando.
Terry (05:17):
I would ask you what you're doing for the 4th of July, but we will be in Orlando for the 4th of July, so there may be some fireworks, but give me a chance to sort of look at some of 4th of July trivia [00:05:30] and we'll see how much you know here. And I'm not going to ask some of it. I'm not going to ask you questions, but a few I am. So do you know where the largest 4th of July fireworks display is?
Nicky (05:41):
So nice. They named it twice. New York. New York.
Terry (05:44):
That's right. That's right. Next door to you. Have you've ever been?
Nicky (05:48):
Yeah. Oh yeah. Well, it's not too far that we can see it. It's only 16 miles away. So there's places that we've, I've never been into New York to see it, but I've seen it from the Jersey side, which is just spot to see it [00:06:00] from anyway. And down the shore, we have great fireworks down in Asbury Park too every year and they do 'em on different days and everything down there basic to crowds out. But New York's been a history of that with their music and all that stuff. So they do televised. That's a great show.
Terry (06:15):
Well, cool. That would probably be something fascinating to see. And other trivia is what is it that happens at Coney Island every 4th of July?
Nicky (06:29):
Well, it's going to be different [00:06:30] districts. Joey Chest, not the defending champion's, not going to have his hot dog belt to defend because he's sponsoring a vegan hot dog and they're not allowing them to eat in a hot dog eating contest at Coney Island, which is actually disgusting. But they throw a big crowd and it's been popular for many, many years and we kind of watch it sometimes when we've been at convention in the morning before we start. And maybe we should do one convention sometime hot to [00:07:00] contest.
Terry (07:01):
Okay, don't count me in for that one. Okay. I'm not No, you
Nicky (07:08):
And I. We'll be the judges. We'll be the judges. Okay.
Terry (07:14):
That started out with an argument between four people and who is the most patriotic and I think it was 1916 and they said whoever can eat the most hot dogs would be the most patriotic. And they've done it every year since then, which I think is pretty fascinating. [00:07:30] Gross, disgusting, but still fascinating. Yes,
Nicky (07:35):
Definitely disgusting.
Terry (07:38):
I found it interesting in this trivia. Did you know, you think of the Declaration of Independence, you think there's one copy, there's actually 26 known copies of the Declaration of Independence. I had no idea. Do you know who the first person that signed it was?
Nicky (07:54):
Isn't that when they tell you to sign your John Hancock?
Terry (07:57):
Yep, that's it. John Hancock was [00:08:00] the first one to sign it. And this interesting thing, only two men signed it on the first day on July the fourth and it was John Hancock and Charles Thompson and then it took months to get all the other signatures on the document. So that was, I thought, interesting that And actually, [00:08:30] did you know that the declaration was actually July 2nd, not July 4th. The Continental Congress voted on July 2nd that it was independent, not July 4th, but it was not officially written up and signed until July 4th. Do you know that President Zachary Taylor died after getting sick on the 4th of July and we've had three presidents. I don't know how this freaks me out. Three presidents have died on the 4th of July. [00:09:00] Wow,
Nicky (09:02):
That's unbelievable.
Terry (09:03):
James Monroe, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson all died on the 4th of July. I think that's just crazy. And we had a president, a recent president whose oldest daughter was born on 4th of July. You know who that might be?
Nicky (09:21):
I don't.
Terry (09:22):
That's Barack Obama. That one. Barack Obama. Okay. His daughter was born on the 4th of July and the 50th star was added to [00:09:30] the flag on July 4th, 1960. What state was that?
Nicky (09:35):
Hawaii. Hawaii.
Terry (09:37):
It was. Anyway, that's just some of the trivia from the 4th of July that I thought I would throw out there. And Nikki, before you leave, I got to say, if you remember before I get into the blitz here, you remember back a few months ago we were talking about the number of vendors that we had lost [00:10:00] and I said the over under was 1,425 when the numbers would come out and I said you had to pick the over or what the final number would be. You picked over and the verdict is in and we closed out last year with 14 and 28. How close is that? So we've talked about the numbers dropping from 1,850 [00:10:30] pre pandemic and we thought it was going to drop and I still remember people laughed at us when we said, when it's all said and done, we'll be down to 1300. And you and I were saying that when the pandemic hit and nobody believed us, and here we are down to 1428 and still sliding. So at least you won with the over.
Nicky (10:54):
Yeah, I wish it was higher than that. Didn't get it. But I know that some states locations [00:11:00] haven't gotten down so much and I think next year, in a couple of years we're going to, if we don't get some innovation money where we can't change some things, I hate to see that number going down and down a little bit more. But we have gotten some good news on some military bases lately, but we need to do something and that's one of the things that you'll see in the blitz that we're trying to do things and keep keeping, trying to make it better for keeping this thing alive and [00:11:30] try to get it back on the right track of growing and different types of locations.
Terry (11:36):
Well Nikki, it's Saturday. I know you got a lot to do. I'm going to finish this thing out and get the blitz up and tell everybody everything that's going on, all the exciting stuff and the not so exciting stuff. You have a good rest of your weekend and we will see you in Orlando.
Nicky (11:53):
Terry, before I go to do something, we didn't do WhatsApp.
Terry (11:57):
Oh, we didn't, did we?
Nicky (11:59):
No, [00:12:00] we don't. And I know you have something to talk about on WhatsApp then I'm going to let you make your head a little bit bigger so that's good. But I just want to talk about WhatsApp is it's hard for me to believe how fast, fast everything is gone. It's the 4th of July. We're going to convention, we'll come back from convention and next thing you know it's going to be the middle of July already and then we got some state meetings coming up. I know you're going to Arizona and we got the fly in and next thing you know it's going to be August and then September and there's a lot going on until we get to blast a lot of state meetings [00:12:30] and everything. But it's got to slow down a little bit. It's going way too fast and it's a good fast. There's a lot of things going on, but it's got to slow down a little bit and I hope the summer slows down a little bit to enjoy it for everybody. And I want to wish everybody half a 4th of July and I know Terry, I'm ready for it. We're all ready for it. The world is ready for it. What's up Terry?
Terry (12:52):
What's up Is that the Tennessee volunteers are the national champions in baseball [00:13:00] won the College World Series. You guys know what a big Tennessee fan I am and how I love the orange and how long suffering we have been. And this is the first national championship since Pat Summit was alive in Tennessee and this whole state has adopted this baseball team. They took the state by storm and we are really, really happy to be the national champions in baseball. [00:13:30] It got scary. I watched every single pitch of the Tennessee played in the championship game there, but really excited, really disappointed though that I was expecting my phone to just blow up with congratulations from you and there was none. So I don't know what to say about that.
Nicky (13:53):
Well, I got one question and a comment and then I'll let you go on with the blitz. So are you going to sing Rocky Topic Convention? Are [00:14:00] we going to get that out of you or something? Oh
Terry (14:02):
Certainly, certainly.
Nicky (14:04):
Okay. And congratulations and like I said, what a way to start off. It's a live bli happy birthday to mom. Congratulations for teacher of year to Josh and congratulations to the Tennessee volunteers.
Terry (14:17):
Thank you Nikki. See you in Orlando.
Nicky (14:20):
See you in Orlando.
Terry (14:22):
Okay, let's get on with all the news. That is the news at Randolph Shepherd. First an update on our efforts to get some funding for Randolph [00:14:30] Shepherd. As we've reported in the past, Nikki and I are working with the National Office of the National Federation of the Blind, trying to get some innovation dollars, trying to get some of the dollars that the state agencies turn back each year and get those earmarked for states to do some innovation projects. It would be quite a bit of money for the states to modernize their program and upgrade their program. And so we are working to try to make that happen. I can't say that if [00:15:00] our chances are 50 50 or 70 30 or whatever those are, the situation in Washington is what it is and everybody's familiar with that so we don't have to get into that.
(15:09):
So trying to get in something different is not the easiest thing in the world. But we are working with Congressman Aguilar's office. His grandfather was a blind vendor in California, so he has a special place in his heart for Randolph Shepherd. So we are Max Duarte, who's one of our board members who [00:15:30] is in California, has established that relationship and is helping us out a great deal and we are working with members on both sides of the house to try to make that happen. When that money comes back in each year, it goes into what's called a disability innovation fund called Diff, and then the Department of Education grants that back out. Historically, it's only been available for state agencies to apply for this money for the first time this year. They have opened it up to nonprofits [00:16:00] and to universities. So there's probably going to be more competition for those dollars when the applications apply.
(16:07):
We really wanted NABM really wanted to apply for those dollars and just didn't have a chance, didn't have the infrastructure and didn't have the time to put something together. We are already working on the possibility of being able to apply next year. These are five year grants, so we will be working next year to see if that's a possibility [00:16:30] to do something in the realm of Randolph Shepherd. I think you'll see some Randolph Shepherd, some people apply for some grants, but that is totally different than what we are talking about in trying to get innovation money to the states themselves. We're looking for innovation money that can actually help states and they can use it to buy some of the new modern equipment. Some of the stuff you'll see at Blast, the maybe buy the Amazon style markets you'll see at Blast. So there's a lot of [00:17:00] good stuff that you'd be able to do with that money.
(17:03):
Convert your cafeteria into hybrid markets, you can convert your vending into micro markets, you can go out and open up new locations, buy food trucks, whatever. So that'd be really exciting if we can get that money. And it is a totally different than although it's coming out of the same fund, it's different than these grant applications that I was just talking about. There has been some pretty big news developed in the last few days. We had mentioned in the past about [00:17:30] a Supreme Court ruling that was expected to come down and it did come down this week. That's the loop of Bright Enterprises versus Raimondo. And basically just to give you the background, this case involves fishing boats that are required to have federal monitors on their ships. And so the Department of Commerce decided that they would make the fishermen pay for the monitors.
(17:58):
Well, the law doesn't say anything about [00:18:00] that. So they went to court and the law, there was a case back in the eighties, I think it was the Chevron case, which says that the courts must defer to the federal agency's interpretation of the law if the law is vague or unclear. And so we have actually relied on that Randolph Shepherd, some of our biggest cases, they relied on what the Department of Education's interpretation of the law was. So it is a big case. Well-known case in the legal [00:18:30] circles. And so what this case has done is it has said no longer do courts have to defer to the judgment of the federal agency that it is the constitutional responsibility of the courts, not federal agencies to interpret the law. So if the law is vague or unclear, then the courts will interpret it and not the federal agency.
(18:58):
So it's going to really [00:19:00] have a far reaching impact and the intent here is to, I guess take power away from federal agencies who are sort of this separate little branch of government out there that can really impact the way the government operates. So they have stripped these federal agencies of their power. So what does this mean for Randolph Shepherd? Well, it means that in just the most recent case that we had an arbitration case, they used [00:19:30] this Chevron deference as they call it in making the ruling. Now I'm not saying it's a huge part of the decision, but it was part of the decision and so without having to rely on the Department of Education, then the courts will be able to make their own decisions. An example, does the Randolph Shepherd priority apply to military dining contracts? The law doesn't say that, but the Department of Education says it does.
(19:58):
Somebody can come along now [00:20:00] and say it doesn't apply to Randolph Shepherd contracts and it can be a judge that can decide whether it does or not the Department of Education. So that part is a little scary. On a scale of one to 10 how scary this is with one being the people who think it has no effect and 10 being the people who think it's going to have a huge devastating effect, I'm probably at a three or a four. I think we have the advantage in that Congress is very explicit [00:20:30] in that they gave the Department of Education the authority to determine how the priority is to be applied to cafeterias so that it's not vague. They gave that strictly to the Department of Education. They strictly gave them the authority to determine what a satisfactory site is. So ours isn't as vague as maybe some other statutes would be.
(20:54):
So I feel a little better about that, but you can bet we're doing attorney and staff [00:21:00] training at Blast and I just go ahead and tell you this will be one of the topics that the attorneys will be discussing at Blast and just to get a plugin, please encourage your state attorneys to attend that conference. Some initiatives that are happening I want to update you about that. We've been working on, we did participate in the National Council of State Agencies for the Blind Spring conference that was in Bethesda and presented on a panel [00:21:30] there talking about getting into the private sector. We're also happy to be sponsoring along with the National Council of State Agencies for the Blind, these six monthly webinars that we've been doing, the parts one and part two have been completed. They were on DOD contracting and they were actually quite good.
(21:49):
We will be coming up with one each month leading up to blast. So you'll be getting notifications of those. You will have different [00:22:00] topics each month, so look forward to seeing for you to be on the lookout to see what's coming up and hope you will participate in those monthly webinars. Just to let you know, we have finished our active participation protocol. It's a draft protocol that we have developed sort of to give states and committees of blind vendors a roadmap on how active participation should work. It is about an 11 page document [00:22:30] and it really goes into a lot of detail about active participation. Anybody wants that they can contact either me or Nikki and we will get that to you just so it's not on our website, at least not yet. We're having to do some things and update our website, so we apologize for any inconvenience that has caused, but I've also working with one state and we have gone in and actually converted that protocol into an actual [00:23:00] policy, shortened it a little bit, but made it an actual policy that's not gone into effect yet, but so it can be done in a couple of different ways.
(23:11):
So if you're interested in seeing that, then reach out. We've also updated the model BEP rules that again, these are not on our website either, but if you want to see those then please reach out to us and we can get you a copy of those. These are rules that we have developed [00:23:30] based on our experiences with other state agencies and the rules that have gone through and been approved by RSA. So we really lack the rules. They were created with the idea that you would have a policy manual. So I am working with a couple of states now Illinois and New Mexico in helping rewrite their rules and creating policies that go along with those rules. So anybody wants to see those model rules, they can get in touch [00:24:00] with us. We talked a lot about the on a previous podcast about the tac and I continue to get lots and lots of questions about the TAC and I just want to emphasize a couple of points about that.
(24:15):
The question I keep getting, what does it have to be a new vending facility? The answer is no. It does not have to be a new vending facility for you to be able to provide initial inventory and other supports [00:24:30] for the blind vendor. So if a vendor goes into an existing facility, it can be treated as a new facility for purposes of providing initial supports. So it does not have to be a new facility, it does not have to be a new vendor, it just has to be a vendor going into a different vending facility. I've had a lot of questions about being able to provide the support for employees up to six months. [00:25:00] I just want to emphasize it is up to six months and that's for any of the supports that are provided, initial inventory or help paying employees or whatever it is up to six months.
(25:12):
That does not mean a state has to do six months, so keep that in mind. Maybe it's two weeks, maybe it's a month, but that's something that can be decided on the state level. And the third thing that I keep getting asked about is do you have to open up a VR case [00:25:30] in order to provide these services? The answer is no. These are management services that can be provided to blind vendors during the first six months. It's coded as management services. These are management services, so they do not have to open up a VR case. Okay, so hope that clarifies. Those are the questions that I have gotten a lot of over the last few weeks. Another question, I probably get this question every few months [00:26:00] and so I thought I would go ahead and address it here. Do committee bylaws have to be approved by RSA?
(26:06):
The answer to that is no, not typically. Now I say not typically. The exception would be if they are part of your policy manual or part of your rules in any way, then yes and obviously the rules that deal with your committee have to be incorporated, have to be approved. And one thing I tell people, you cannot create rules in your bylaws. The bylaws only [00:26:30] talk about how the committee is going to operate and that's all they do, but as long as they're not part of your policy manual or anything, they do not have to be approved by RSA rules do policies do. On a recent call where we had Jesse Hartle was on and he gave some updated numbers, so the numbers are out for the fiscal year [00:27:00] 23, which ended September 30 of 23 and I thought there was a lot of interesting stuff in here and you can give him credit for putting these numbers together with Jesse Harle with RSA. I just want to hit some of the high spots of some of the information that he provided. I hope you find it interesting too. Our sales increased last year to $747 million. That's pretty significant. That was a jump of $113 million. So significant [00:27:30] increase in sales up to 747 million.
(27:39):
A vendor income out of that was 147 million average earnings per vendor. Now this is a significant jump. We've now topped the a hundred thousand dollars mark. The average earnings per vendor after SETA aside in this state in this country is $103,000. [00:28:00] That's a jump of $19,000 from the previous year. Pretty significant. So even though we may be struggling in terms of numbers of facilities, the individual vendors seem to be doing pretty well in terms of the income, those that are still functioning because we've lost a lot of opportunities. When you look at the number of facilities, the number of facilities on federal property are down. We have 635 [00:28:30] and so that's down from 681 last year. There are 1,145 facilities on non-federal property and that is down as well. As you heard earlier on when I was talking to Nikki, the number of vendors has dropped to 1428 and we were at 1850 pre pandemic, so that's a pretty significant drop.
(29:00):
[00:29:00] We have 65 cafeteria contracts across the country. These contracts, mostly DOD contracts do $429 million. That's 57.4% of the sales in our program comes from these cafeteria contracts, mostly military dining. Jesse also provided some interesting information about the interstate [00:29:30] rest areas. Eight states do not report any activity on the interstate rest areas. Now we understand Hawaii and Alaska, but there's still six others that report nothing as far as interstate rest areas and I think a couple of those may be in the northeast where the turnpike sort of control 18 states use a mix of blind vendors in third parties. So they have some rest areas that are run by blind vendors. They [00:30:00] have some areas that are run by third parties. You have 12 states where only blind vendors operate. They have no third parties, so that's 12 of the states and congratulations to those 12. I think that's great. 13 only use third parties. So you see there's a mix. So the good news is that at least 30 states do have blind vendors present.
(30:30):
[00:30:30] 30 30 states have blind vendors involved in operating if the vendings of these at rest areas, either some of the rest areas or all of the rest areas. So the latest number that was reported was there's 1,057 rest areas out there. 64.6% are operated by blind vendors. [00:31:00] 347 blind vendors operate rest areas in this country. Now it's not mean that they're standalone operations, but a lot of them are. So 347 vendors are affected by the cane amendments that allow us to operate in rest areas. That is 25% roughly of our vendors. So you can see the impact that the cane amendments have had on our program. I always like to look at the money [00:31:30] that's being spent. They always say follow the money. Well this is very interesting. $80 million was spent by the states in 2023 on Randolph Shepherd. 57% of that came from correction.
(31:43):
57% of that came from VR dollars set aside dollars made up 13%. State unassigned made up 13% state dollars made up 12% and federal unassigned made up 4.5%. So that's [00:32:00] where the funding sources come in and that state dollar figure is inflated because I know Michigan reports a huge chunk of money that goes in because they fund their vendor retirement plan, they're treated as estate employees and that's with state dollars. And so really there's not as much state money going in as you would think. As a matter of fact, 31 states have no state dollars whatsoever in their program. That's incredible to me [00:32:30] that the states who are not investing back into their program and only 13 states only are using state dollars to pay for staff. So there you 44 states are not putting any money, any state dollars in their program other than to pay their own staff. So that's quite remarkable. I think that's something that needs to be [00:33:00] addressed.
(33:04):
I thought something else I'll mention real quickly, 30 states trained no vendors last year. 30 states had no vendors that they trained and sometimes these numbers don't really match up with what we're doing with the Chicago Lighthouse, but this is what the states are reporting. I just thought those statistics were interesting and I wanted to share those with you always got to hit the DOD Department [00:33:30] of Defense News and there's a lot going on. You are aware of our lawsuit against the Army Air Force Exchange service. Those cases that case is moving rather slowly, but that's not unusual. The secretary of the Department of Defense and the secretary of the Army had they are to respond by early July. So maybe we'll get a, we anticipate they're going to ask that the case be dismissed [00:34:00] and the exchange itself, there were some problems getting that one served so it may be a little longer before they have to respond.
(34:09):
So let the case is moving forward. What that case is about is that the exchange is blocking the rights of blind vendors to get onto these military bases. We think that if we can win this case and open up the military bases for our vendors, for our traditional Randolph Shepherd type facilities, that it'll be as [00:34:30] big or bigger than what the cane amendments were I was talking about earlier. For interstate rest areas, congratulations to Arizona. They just won the Fort Huachuca arbitration case. The Army had ruled that they were technically not acceptable and out of the competitive range and the Arizona filed for arbitration, Scott Weber is the blind vendor there and by the time you read this, that will not be the case or the time you hear this. That will not be the case [00:35:00] because he has retired as of June 30th and he has done a great job, has operated it himself without a teaming partner out there, but he is retired, they have selected a new vendor and interestingly they are not allowing the vendor to use a teaming partner.
(35:20):
So this is a large military contract and the state is providing the supports to help with the payroll, which is one of the big things that is a stumbling block [00:35:30] or barrier for blind vendors to take over these military contracts because of the large expenses they have in paying employee salaries while you wait on the army to pay you well the state is going to set up a process to whereby they're going to help with that and they say there's no need to have a teaming partner. So Tim Mead is the blind vendor going in there and we wish him the very best and look forward to see how that works. Congratulations also to the state of Alaska.
(36:00):
[00:36:00] Fort Wayne Wright is directly negotiating. That'll be a new location for us. Alaska had that years ago, but it will be new for them now. So we are really excited for the state of Alaska. We thought we were going to have good news at Schofield in Hawaii. We thought that contract was about to be awarded to the state of Hawaii and a blind vendor. Then there was a protest and now I understand they are recomp competing that [00:36:30] opportunity, so it's going to be a little while longer. We're still optimistic that eventually a blind vendor will get in there. Fort Stewart, Georgia looks like they will be going to arbitration. This is a frustrating case because they went to arbitration last time. They did not recognize the Randolph Shepherd priority for what they call dining facility attendance services. They went to arbitration and one, the arbitration panel says it applies and [00:37:00] so the army comes around and rebids it and they still leave out the Randolph Shepherd priority.
(37:04):
Their position is that the priority does not apply to DFA contracts except in the circuits where the courts have specifically said otherwise. So it's the ninth circuit and I think maybe the fifth circuit, don't hold me to that where the priority applies. Any place else it does not. That is part of the reason that Wright decided to directly negotiate with Alaska because the courts up there had decided [00:37:30] in the ninth district that the priority applied. So they aren't fighting it up there. So going to go through the arbitration again in Georgia. It looks like at Leavenworth, the prison there, the state of Kansas took that over on June the first and we haven't heard of any prison rights as of yet. So the state is telling me that they are up and running and things are going well. That's another case of where they've taken over [00:38:00] a dining contract without a teaming partner.
(38:03):
So going to be watching that to see how that works. So much discussion about the 10 vendors at Fort Jackson in South Carolina since our last podcast. The 10 vendors have officially taken over, they took over in April and so the jury is still out on how that's going to work out. I don't want to really get into it. Everybody on this [00:38:30] knows how I feel about it, know how Nikki feel about it. The early returns are not good in terms of how they're doing it, but they are moving forward and the 10 are in there and so let's see how it goes. And it may be the best thing that ever happened to Randolph Shepherd or it may be a terrible disaster. We shall see Kentucky is following South Carolina's lead, however, they just announced that they're putting four vendors into Fort Knox. [00:39:00] So that is a situation where the Kentucky SLA and the Committee of Blind vendors, I think everybody agreed this is not something that is being crammed down the vendor's throats.
(39:14):
I think the vendors see the opportunities too. So Kentucky has elected to put four vendors at Fort Knox. Great news at Fort Moore in Georgia. It used to be Fort Benning where we have Bob Matus [00:39:30] and Wayne Dye who partner there at that location and they just got a new five-year contract and I know they are over the moon excited about that. That is the largest military dining contract in the country and congratulations. I think they went in there, there were some issues, they cleaned it up and really did a great job and really, really happy for those guys. Still waiting on word from Fort Sill in Oklahoma to see if Randolph Shepherd's going to [00:40:00] get that back. We thought there should be a decision by now but still nothing. So we still wait anxiously to see if that one's going to be back in the family. The marine contract. You've heard us talk about the marine contract over the years. Well the contract is a multi-state contract. They do two contracts, one for the west coast, one for the east coast. The West Coast contract is California and Arizona. The East Coast contract is South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, and I think [00:40:30] DC. And so they are going to be bidding on these two contracts. So Arizona has taken the lead in California and they have selected their blind vendors already. Arizona has selected their blind vendor.
(40:52):
It's my understanding they have selected the teaming partner out there. So although this contract doesn't [00:41:00] expire until 2026, everybody's getting lined up and ready to go and go after this and really, really optimistic that it's going to work out on the east coast. They're not as far along. I think Virginia is going to take the lead there. They haven't quite got their model fixed on how they're going to do that. They don't have their vendors selected yet, so they're a little further behind. But it's basically going to be the same thing where Virginia takes the lead and bids on behalf of the other four [00:41:30] states. And so we are anxiously awaiting that one on the state news front. New Jersey, I find this very interesting. A new law has been introduced in New Jersey directly aimed at Randolph Shepherd and the fact that they're not opening up the facilities, vendors are not going back to work, but they say there's not enough money.
(41:52):
So this new law, if a facility remains closed for three months, they can turn it over to a disabled owned [00:42:00] company. If it remains open for six months, they can turn it, offer it to a veteran's owned company and if it remains open for nine months, they can turn it over to any business they want. So this gets at the heart of what we've talked about in the past, blind vendors who don't want to go back to work because they don't think there's enough money to be made. Well in New Jersey, if this law comes to pass, these opportunities are going to be lost forever. So we need to see where that goes. [00:42:30] Sad news out of South Carolina, a long time vendor there. Lonnie Hart passed away. I knew Lonnie and was really hated to hear that news. So we wish him condolences to his family and just terrible news in Florida. James Parkman retiring after 58 years in the program. Congratulations to James. You've heard us talk about the Mississippi jail [00:43:00] commissary. They're getting closer. It has really been slow process. The bureaucracy seems to get in the way of progress sometimes and that's what's happened in Mississippi. But they are making progress and they're getting very, very close to getting equipment installed and actually up and running.
(43:18):
Nikki and some of the others have been, and I have been involved in some of the state meetings that you've had since the last episode. See I was in Maryland and he was in Ohio and Indiana. We did [00:43:30] Hawaii. That was virtual. I spoke to the main committee of blind vendors. I did some training for the Georgia Committee of Blind Vendors. So if you are one of the subscription states and you're going to have your annual training conference and you want a speaker there, you need to reach out to Nikki Kos and make that happen. I will be in Arizona in July and in Oklahoma [00:44:00] in August. And then in the fall when we get into the fall, things really, really start to pick up. We do have some new directors across the country. Cynthia Gonzalez is the new director in Texas. She took over for Jim Divas in Hawaii, finally filled their position in which had been vacant for some time. And it is Barney HIA who is the new director. So congratulations to those two. We still have vacancies [00:44:30] in Illinois, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Georgia, Kansas and Tennessee and I may have missed some there. We did have some retirements. William Merchant in Mississippi, William's been around for some time and was the trainer then the director, he retired on June 30th. Theresa Eckelston in Georgia, she was the director down there. She retired on May 31st.
(45:00):
[00:45:00] Kock, if you know Champ headed up the nominee in Virginia and he recently retired. So we wish all of those guys and gals the very best in their retirement. Upcoming events. July 6th, the NFB convention will be in Orlando for that. July 23rd through 24th, the NAMA fly-in will take place October 7th through 10. The National Association of Convenience Stores in Las Vegas. The ACE Conference, [00:45:30] the Atlantic Coast Exposition is October 10th through the 12th in Myrtle Beach. November 19th through the 22nd in Nashville. There's this conference called Blast You don't want to miss. And December 11th through the 12th, you have the coffee, tea and water show in New Orleans in regards to the NAMA flying, just so you know, as I know some of you will be attending, a couple of things are going to be really working on is the delay [00:46:00] or repeal of the corporate transparency tax that is on the agenda and course snap trying to get where what we call food stamps.
(46:11):
Are you some of your old timers like me trying to get to where vending machines and convenience industry can start accepting snap benefits. So those are two of the issues that they will be addressing. If you didn't catch it, go check out the Robo [00:46:30] Burger. They appeared on Shark Tank in April, and so I think the shark Michael Rubin bought into it, but you can check that episode out. Robo Burger, you may have heard them. They were in Orlando and I don't know that they're going to be in blast. I hope they are. I think they are, but I can't announce that because I don't know a hundred percent.
(46:59):
And [00:47:00] want to close out with just some of the stats from the information from the National Associated Convenience Stores trend report. I thought this was interesting. With convenience stores, what's happening now, prepared foods make up 27% of store sales in convenience stores. That's hot food. That's up 12% over the previous year and that now 56% [00:47:30] of Americans consider convenience stores as an option when they are looking for something to eat. And the biggest percentage of those sales, 66% are sandwiches, wraps and paninis with breakfast items leading the way. I think it is interesting that 65% of people now [00:48:00] see convenience stores as an option over a coffee shop instead of stopping at the Starbucks. They're happy to stop at the convenience store and 49% of Americans report that they eat while they drive. So that's good news for our folks.
(48:19):
At the rest areas I mentioned the beneficial ownership, the Corporate Transparency [00:48:30] Act, and we've told you that you have to file, if you are incorporated, you have to file a report for 2024. There was a federal judge that ruled it unconstitutional, but it only affects the states. It only affects plaintiffs in that particular lawsuit. So everybody else, the law is still applied. So if you're a member of the National Small Business Association [00:49:00] then and you are a member on March the first, then the courts have stayed. You're having to file that. However, that's one to 2% of the businesses in this country and the Department of Treasury is appealing that. So we'll see how that goes. But as of right now, most of you are still going to be required to file that annual report [00:49:30] that we talked about earlier. And also the Department of Labor issued their final rule on overtime and anybody making under $43,800 and that's going to jump to 58,000 6 56 if you have them on salary. They have to be making that as the minimum amount that they can be making. So that's a lot [00:50:00] of stuff to take in and I'm going to close it right there and wish you a great month and we will see you next month and hope to see some of you in Orlando.
Sponsor Info (50:18):
The We are Randolph Shepherd Podcast. Would like to thank our sponsors, the National Association of Blind Merchants, Coca-Cola, Blackstone Consulting, Southern [00:50:30] Food Service, Siteline Wealth Management, Sodexo Tyler Technologies, F-S-I-G-R-S-A Management Group. You selected Cantaloupe, Keurig, Dr. Pepper.
Terry (50:46):
If you would like to support the We Are Randolph Shepherd podcast, we would love to have you on board. Corporate sponsors may contact Nikki gecos@nikkicolorado.netscape.net. [00:51:00] Individuals who would like to support the podcast may do so by donating to the National Association of Blind merchants@www.blindmerchants.org. We would love to have your support.