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 Rate of $0.15 to $0.17 per word, plus
Services $39.50 per hour for desktop publishing,
for a minimum of three languages
(2) Oral Interpretation Rate of $53,400 per 1,000 hours
Services 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.
Office of Legislative Services Legislative Budget and Finance Office
State House Annex Phone (609) 847-3105
P.O. Box 068 Fax (609) 777-2442
Trenton, New Jersey 08625 www.njleg.state.nj.us
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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.).