Wichita ? Two Wichita companies that provide jobs for the disabled have had to get creative a year after federal regulators banned local vocational programs from referring clients to them.

A regional administrator for the U.S. Department of Education, in a letter sent to Kansas Rehabilitation Services last October, said Envision and Center Industries didn’t meet federal requirements.

Those requirements are designed to keep disabled workers from being limited to dull, low-paying and low-skilled jobs.

Envision, which primarily works with the blind, and Center Industries, which was started by the Cerebral Palsy Research Foundation, say they have disabled employees working side-by-side with able-bodied workers.

In fact, Center Industries has defense contracts and makes, among other things, window frames for the Boeing 737.

But the department said the companies didn’t do enough to “integrate” the disabled workers with the nondisabled population. The decision meant Wichita’s vocational programs couldn’t send graduates to the companies.

“What we have is a federal program that creates jobs for blind workers and a federal regulation that prohibits state counselors from referring blind workers to those jobs,” said Linda Merrill, president and chief executive of Envision. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

Envision has tried to get around the ruling by offering $1,000 hiring bonuses and sending employee recruiters as far away as Louisiana, where state restrictions are more lenient.

“I’d been looking for a job since I finished up at a rehab center,” said Louisiana native Mark Adams, 46, who came to Wichita and Envision earlier this year. “I earn enough to pay my own bills. I have health insurance. I have my own apartment. I love it here.”

Both companies are lobbying lawmakers in Washington to overturn the ruling or change the law.