Report 2010-106 Recommendation 2 Responses

Report 2010-106: Dymally-Alatorre Bilingual Services Act: State Agencies Do Not Fully Comply With the Act, and Local Governments Could Do More to Address Their Clients' Needs (Release Date: November 2010)

Recommendation #2 To: Employment Development Department

To ensure that they meet their constituents' language needs, state agencies should make certain that they accurately assess and report their clients' language needs to the State Personnel Board. State agencies should also analyze formally their language survey results and consider other available bilingual resources to determine their true staffing deficiencies. Further, state agencies should establish procedures to identify the written materials that the Act requires them to translate into other languages and ensure that such materials are translated or made accessible to the agencies' LEP clients. Finally, state agencies should develop detailed corrective action plans describing how and when they will address their staffing and written materials deficiencies. In addition, they should submit their corrective action plans to the State Personnel Board as part of the state agencies' overall implementation plans.

Annual Follow-Up Agency Response From September 2012

The EDD continues its efforts to ensure it complies with the Dymally-Alatorre Bilingual Services Act and effectively addresses and corrects identified staffing and written material deficiencies. The EDD is fully committed to ensuring all customers, including limited English proficiency (LEP) customers, have equal access to its programs, services, and information.

In an effort to improve the services and administration of bilingual services provided to LEP customers, the EDD adopted a new LEP-Bilingual Services Policy (attached). The policy explains EDD's measures to fully implement the audit recommendations.

The new LEP-Bilingual Services Policy states that each branch within EDD is responsible for determining the need for bilingual services in their offices, identifying increased needs for non-English documents based on client demand, notifying EDD's Business Operations Planning and Support Division when additional documents need translation or additional languages need to be included in the translation process, posting the State Personnel Board's Language Identification Cards (SPB-935 and SPB-937) in all public offices visible to LEP customers, and taking appropriate action to correct staffing and written material deficiencies identified through the Dymally-Alatorre Language (DAL) Survey process.

The policy further states that the Equal Employment Opportunity Office is responsible for compiling the data from EDD's branches, identifying any languages deficiencies, conducting an analysis of the data collected, reviewing and validating the branches' proposed corrective action plans, and conducting follow-up to ensure corrective action is taken and deficiencies are resolved.

The EDD has implemented the provisions of this policy in conjunction with its recently completed 2012 DAL Survey.

EDD's branches are utilizing the Public Contact Employee Bilingual Directory to ensure services are provided to non-English-speaking customers. This directory identifies certified staff in 65 different languages, including American Sign Language and Braille translators available throughout the State. Branches are also actively hiring certified Spanish-speaking staff and certifying current Spanish-speaking staff to correct the staffing deficiency identified in the DAL Survey. Furthermore, EDD has implemented an online process for its Disability Insurance program which routes Spanish telephone calls to offices that have adequate bilingual Spanish-speaking staff.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Fully Implemented

All Recommendations in 2010-106

Agency responses received after June 2013 are posted verbatim.