HB 1049

Abstract

Administration of government; language accessequity; report. Establishes the Interagency Language Access WorkingGroup in the Office of the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusionwith the following membership: the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, the Director of the Office of the Children's Ombudsman, the Governor's Secretaries, and six nonlegislative citizen membersrepresenting organizations that represent individuals with languageaccess needs. The Working Group is established for the purpose ofmaximizing state policies, resources, technical assistance, and procurementpractices to further language access and equity in the Commonwealthand its state government agencies. The bill also requires each stateagency to designate a language access coordinator who will be responsiblefor the agency's annual language access report, the requirements ofwhich are set out in the bill. The Secretary of Administration isdirected to establish criteria for state agencies to procure languageinterpretation and translation services and to establish a policyfor compensating multilingual state employees who are required aspart of their job to provide interpretation, translation, or otherbilingual skills at least once a month.