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DENVER, CO – The House State, Civic, Military & Veterans Affairs Committee today passed legislation sponsored by Representatives Elizabeth Velasco and Junie Joseph that would implement a statewide assessment to improve language access within certain state departments. HB25-1153 passed by a vote of 8-3.
“Language access is transformative: the ability to have agency in decisions about your own life, your own body, your children’s lives, your home, your job, your government. Language barriers are also a roadblock to accessing life saving information about health and safety,” said Rep. Elizabeth Velasco, D-Glenwood Springs. “Improving language access is crucial to strong communities throughout our state, and ensuring equity in access to government services. This bill works to identify areas of improvement so we can support our state departments as they comply with language access standards, allowing us to better connect with over 300,000 Coloradans who primarily speak languages other than English.”
“From job training opportunities to rental assistance and understanding legal rights, our state departments provide essential services that help Coloradans save money, build successful careers, and access critical resources. But when this information is only available in English, those who need support the most—Coloradans whose primary language is not English—may not even know these services exist,” said Rep. Junie Joseph, D-Boulder. “I’m proud to sponsor this legislation to improve language access in government programs, ensuring that all Coloradans, no matter what language they speak, can fully benefit from these vital resources.”
HB25-1153 would require a statewide language access assessment to be conducted in certain state departments. This assessment would help identify departments’ needs for compliance with language access standards, identify existing language services, and recommend improvements to ensure Coloradans can access government services, regardless of English fluency.
The bill would require the findings from the assessment to be included in a report by December 31, 2026. The report would include findings and recommendations including:
Improving efficiency, increasing quality of service, reducing costs, avoiding duplicative work, utilizing existing best practices, and minimizing administrative burden when implementing linguistically accessible government services and programs,
Addressing gaps in language access and improving meaningful services,
Identifying potential technological advancements to increase language access, and
Determining what infrastructure is needed to fully implement the standards in the language access universal policy.
Rep. Velasco has been a champion for language access at the capitol, including boosting translation accuracy in insurance policy information and policy documents and creating a study to identify how municipalities, public safety departments, counties, and local 911 agencies can best provide emergency alerts in a non-English language and implement live interpretation during a 911 call.
A December 2024 report from the Office of New Americans found that language access in Colorado state agencies varied and lacked coordination, but nearly all state agencies expressed interest in receiving additional support from the state to address language access needs.