BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 1376
Page 1
Date of Hearing: May 8, 2013
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Mike Gatto, Chair
AB 1376 (Hernandez) - As Amended: April 30, 2013
Policy Committee:
JudiciaryVote:10-0
Insurance 13-0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable:
SUMMARY
This bill repeals the State Personnel Board's (SPB's)
responsibility to update its list of certified interpreters and
establishes standards for state agencies' use of other than
certified interpreters. Specifically, this bill:
1)Eliminates the SPB's obligation to establish and administer
updated lists of certified administrative hearing and medical
examination interpreters, and provides that the lists as of
December 31, 2013 shall be preserved and published for five
years by the Department of Human Resources (CalHR), consistent
with an executive branch reorganization last year.
2)Eliminates annual fees (currently $100) for certification and
renewal of certification by interpreters.
3)Transfers-from CalHR to the Division of Workers' Compensation
(DWC) within the Department of Industrial Relations-the
responsibility for determining the languages for which
certification of interpreters is to be established.
4)Provides that interpreters required for administrative
hearings or medical examinations be qualified, rather than
certified, stipulates that certified interpreters are
presumptively qualified, and provides criteria for
provisionally qualifying a non-certified interpreter if a
certified interpreter is unavailable for a hearing or medical
examination.
AB 1376
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FISCAL EFFECT
1)Minor annual General Fund revenue loss of around $60,000 for
five years from discontinuance of fee collection from
certified reporters on the current SPB list, partially offset
by minor administrative savings from no longer collecting the
fee.
2)The DWC could incur minor costs to determine whether
interpreters are needed in additional languages beyond those
previously designated by the SPB. Costs to develop a
certification test for any additional languages would range
from $10,000 to $30,000 per language.
The DWC asserts that it would incur additional significant
costs to certify interpreters, which would be required because
CalHR will no longer update its existing list, and will not
publish this list after five year. The DWC has already been
provided the authority to certify interpreters through
legislation enacted last year (see below). Moreover, this bill
allows for the use of qualified, in lieu of certified,
interpreters.
COMMENTS
1)Background . According to the author, prior to the
consolidation of the SPB and the Department of Personnel
Administration into the new California Department of Human
Resources (CalHR), SPB was charged with providing testing for
administrative hearing and medical examination interpreters as
well as maintaining and publishing a list of interpreters to
be utilized by the departments when needed. The interpreter
certification examination has apparently not been offered
since 2006, and the administration apparently does not intend
to offer it again. Those who were on the list as of the last
certification in 2006 (630 interpreters) have remained on the
list since then by paying a $100 annual renewal fee.
2)Purpose . Under this bill, the SPB list as it exists at the end
of this year would be preserved by CalHR for five years, and
be available to agencies who wish to make use of it. The bill
would relieve CalHR of the obligation to maintain an updated
list, thus diminishing its value over time, and the bill
provides that CalHR need not maintain the list at all after
AB 1376
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five years. CalHR would also no longer collect the annual $100
certification fee from those on the list. During this
five-year period, and afterward, agencies could alternatively
make use of interpreters certified by the courts as well as
those certified by the DWC. The bill also provides guidance to
state agencies on the criteria to use in the event that a
certified interpreter is not available.
3)DWC . The SPB's inability to update the list of certified
interpreters, apparently due to budgetary considerations,
became a serious problem for the state's workers' compensation
program. SB 863 (De Leon)/Chapter 363 of 2012-the major
workers' compensation reform bill-also granted authority to
the DWC to generate its own list of certified interpreters.
Because CalHR is formally seeking to end its role in
certifying interpreters and updating the list of certified
interpreters, certain functions must be performed by another
agency. AB 1376 delegates to the DWC the responsibility to
determine what languages must have certified interpreters.
Analysis Prepared by : Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081