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 Page 2 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 Page 3 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