ASSEMBLY APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE

STATEMENT TO

[First Reprint]

ASSEMBLY, No. 4134

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

DATED:  SEPTEMBER 23, 2024

      The Assembly Appropriations Committee reports favorably Assembly Bill No. 4134 (1R).

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

FISCAL IMPACT:

      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 to 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.