New Jersey Language Access Initiative Annual Report

No tags are currently available for this record.

Accountability

The New Jersey Language Access Law requires covered entities to submit yearly implementation reports to the Statewide Language Access Manager. The annual statewide report must be submitted to the Governor and Legislature and must evaluate entity performance, provide recommendations for improvement, and identify covered entities requiring a corrective plan. Entity Language Access Plans must also describe how language assistance needs and services are tracked, how requests are met, whether services were requested in languages beyond the required seven, how services are documented, what translated documents are available, and how annual internal monitoring will be conducted.

The law requires each covered entity’s Language Access Plan to include an employee training plan with, at minimum, annual training on the entity’s language access policies, how to provide language assistance services, and applicable state and federal confidentiality protocols. The report notes that covered entities reported training on legal obligations, language access policies and protocols, obtaining language assistance services, resources and best practices, working with interpreters and translators, recordkeeping, and cultural competence or sensitivity. It also identifies expanded front-facing staff training and guidance as a 2026 priority, including development of a training curriculum and review of standards for bilingual staff supporting in-language communication, translation, and interpreting.

The report does not provide one centralized public complaint form or complaint workflow for the statewide initiative. However, it states that each covered entity’s Language Access Plan must include the manner and means by which the public may contact the entity’s Language Access Coordinator regarding language access issues. It also identifies Language Access Coordinators as responsible for overseeing complaints and corrective action processes within their entities.

The report documents how New Jersey is building statewide language access infrastructure across covered Executive Branch entities. Key features include required Language Access Plans, senior-level Language Access Coordinators, recommended Language Access Liaisons, public notice posters, vital document translation, interpreting by phone, video, in-person, or qualified staff, website language notices, automated translation tools, multilingual taglines, stakeholder engagement, internal monitoring, and annual reporting. It also highlights statewide supports such as a Language Access Coordinator Hub, technical assistance, Community of Practice and Office Hours sessions, vendor readiness review, contracted translation and interpreting vendors, an OIT website translation widget, and a document translation application with human-in-the-loop review.

The report focuses on statewide language access for individuals with limited English proficiency. New Jersey’s law requires covered entities to translate vital documents and information into at least the seven most common non-English languages spoken by individuals with LEP in the state, with the first five due by December 2025 and the additional two in the following year. The report identifies Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, Gujarati, Chinese, Haitian Creole, and Arabic among the top statewide LEP languages, while noting regional variation and additional languages such as Polish, Russian, Vietnamese, Italian, Tagalog, Mandarin, Bengali, Turkish, Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu, and Cantonese. It also notes that written Chinese translation must be provided in both Simplified and Traditional Chinese.