LEGISLATIVE FISCAL ESTIMATE

[First Reprint]

ASSEMBLY, No. 4134

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

221st LEGISLATURE

 

DATED: JUNE 26, 2024

 

 

SUMMARY

 

Synopsis:

Requires homemaker-home health aide and nursing assistant certification examinations to be translated into multiple languages.

Type of Impact:

Annual State expenditure increase.

Agencies Affected:

Department of Health; Department of Law and Public Safety.

 

 

Office of Legislative Services Estimate

Fiscal Impact

Annual

 

State Cost -

 

 

(1)Document Translation Services

Rate of $0.15 to $0.17 per word, plus

$39.50 per hour for desktop publishing,

for a minimum of three languages

 

(2) Oral Interpretation Services

Rate of $53,400 per 1,000 hours

for a minimum of two languages

 

 

 

 

·         The Office of Legislative Services (OLS) determines that the Department of Health and the New Jersey Board of Nursing in the Department of Law and Public Safety will incur indeterminate annual costs under the bill in order to: 1) translate certain certification exams into a minimum of three newly added languages; and 2) provide oral certification exams in a minimum of two newly added languages.

·         The OLS is unable to estimate the total costs of the document translation services and oral interpretation services required under the bill because of various unknown factors, such as the length of the documents requiring translation and the number of oral exams administered annually in the newly required languages.  Moreover, the number of languages that will be mandated under the bill is uncertain as the bill only provides guidance on a minimum number of languages to be offered.  The cost of the bill will increase proportionately to the number of languages in which the examinations, both written and oral, are translated.

 

 

BILL DESCRIPTION

 

      This bill requires that the written and oral homemaker-home health aide and nursing assistant certification examinations are available in multiple languages.  The bill requires that at a minimum the certification examinations are available in English, Spanish, Haitian Creole, and Tagalog.    

 

FISCAL ANALYSIS

 

EXECUTIVE BRANCH

 

      None received.

 

OFFICE OF LEGISLATIVE SERVICES

 

      The OLS determines that the Department of Health and the New Jersey Board of Nursing in the Department of Law and Public Safety will incur indeterminate annual costs under the bill in order to: 1) translate certain certification exams into a minimum of three newly added languages -  Spanish, Haitian Creole, and Tagalong; and 2) provide oral certification exams in a minimum of two newly added languages - Haitian Creole and Tagalong.  Currently, written examinations are only available in English, and oral examinations are available in English and Spanish.  The bill requires that at a minimum the written and oral certification examinations are available in English, Spanish, Haitian Creole, and Tagalog.   

      The OLS is unable to estimate the total costs of the document translation services and oral interpretation services required under the bill because of various unknown factors, such as the length of the documents requiring translation and the number of oral exams administered annually in the newly added languages.  Moreover, the number of languages that will be mandated under the bill is uncertain as the bill only provides guidance on a minimum number of languages to be offered.  The cost of the bill will increase proportionately to the number of languages in which the examinations, both written and oral, are translated. 

      For context, the OLS solicited translation rates from one provider serving State government entities.  That provider charges $0.15 per word to translate documents into that vendor’s 12 most requested languages of Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese), Arabic, Russian, Farsi, Vietnamese, Swahili, Somali, Korean, French, Portuguese, German, and Italian.  A language such as Tagalog, Hindi, Gujarati, or Polish would cost either $0.16 or $0.17 per word.  Document translations also incur an additional cost of $39.50 per hour for desktop publishing.  That same provider charges $0.89 per minute for video remote interpretation services.

      Using the above rates, a 2,500-word document that takes six hours to translate from English into three languages, at $0.17 per word, would cost $1,512.00.  Additionally, an oral exam that requires 3.5 hours to administer via remote methods would cost $186.90. 

 

Section:

Human Services

Analyst:

Sarah Schmidt

Lead Research Analyst

Approved:

Thomas Koenig

Legislative Budget and Finance Officer

 

This legislative fiscal estimate has been produced by the Office of Legislative Services due to the failure of the Executive Branch to respond to our request for a fiscal note.

 

This fiscal estimate has been prepared pursuant to P.L.1980, c.67 (C.52:13B-6 et seq.).