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The purpose of Presidential Executive Order 13166: Improving Access to Service for Persons with Limited English Proficiency (LEP) was to clarify Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by ensuring accessibility to programs and services to otherwise eligible persons who are not proficient in the English language.
The US Government has a very informative website: www.lep.gov. Its FAQ page addresses many issues including LEP background, LEP enforcement, English Only States (No, this does not reduce any responsibility), and minimal LEP requirements.
Not only do all federal agencies have LEP Plans, but as a condition of receiving federal financial assistance recipients must comply with Title VI and LEP guidelines of the federal agency from which funds are received.
In other words, any organization that receives direct or indirect federal funding including ‘grants, cooperative agreements, training, use of equipment, donations of surplus property and other assistance’ is subject to these requirements, including sub-recipients of Federal funds. Examples of recipients of federal funds include:
- A city or county received Federal STP funds from MoDOT,
- A city received a Federal Safe Routes to School Grant from MoDOT,
- A county health department received operating funds from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services,
- A county received Homeland Security Grants for handheld radios,
- A county received Federal FEMA disaster funds for ice storm clean up,
- A transit agency received Federal Funds from the Federal Transit Administration,
- A police department received funds for sobriety checkpoints, and
- A county received a Community Development Block Grant for industrial infrastructure.
CAMPO has developed a LEPP because it receives Federal Funds via a cooperative agreement. The money from the FHwA and FTA is passed through MoDOT, therefore CAMPO is a sub-recipient of federal funds. Link to the CAMPO LEPP. The www.lep.gov/guidance/guidance_index.html webpage provides ‘guidance’ to federal fund recipients, based on the source of funds. In CAMPO’s case, the US DOT Guidance was used exclusively. The US DOT also provided an implementation handbook, from which the CAMPO LEPP was developed.
The US Department of Justice LEP Guidelines, the basis for most Federal Agency LEP Guidelines states:
“Recipients are required to take reasonable steps to ensure meaningful access to their programs and activities by LEP persons. While designed to be a flexible and fact-dependent standard, the starting point is an individualized assessment that balances the following four factors: (1) The number or proportion of LEP persons eligible to be served or likely to be encountered by the program or grantee; (2) the frequency with which LEP individuals come in contact with the program; (3) the nature and importance of the program, activity, or service provided by the program to people's lives; and (4) the resources available to the grantee/recipient and costs. As indicated above, the intent of this guidance is to suggest a balance that ensures meaningful access by LEP persons to critical services while not imposing undue burdens on small business, small local governments, or small nonprofits. After applying the above four-factor analysis, a recipient may conclude that different language assistance measures are sufficient for the different types of programs or activities in which it engages. For instance, some of a recipient's activities will be more important than others and/or have greater impact on or contact with LEP persons, and thus may require more in the way of language assistance. The flexibility that recipients have in addressing the needs of the LEP populations they serve does not diminish, and should not be used to minimize, the obligation that those needs be addressed.”
Factor 1 - The number or proportion of LEP persons eligible to be served or likely to be encountered by the program or grantee.
Depending on your organization, this can be a simple or complex task. The above Consumer Product Safety Commission plan simply uses phone logs to accomplish, while other plans require use of US Census Bureau information. To access the basic Census maps and data for each CAMPO member jurisdiction, click here.
Factor 2 - Frequency with which LEP individuals come in contact with the program.
This information must be gathered by surveying staff about their contact with persons who may not speak English well. The samples plans provide a couple methods of how this was performed. For CAMPO, this task was relatively easy due to the small number of staff members and level of citizen participation in CAMPO activities. Transit organizations, a health department or 911 call center would all have different ways of collecting this information and may have different results.
Factor 3 - Nature and importance of the program
The more critical the program the more important support of LEP persons is going to be. Development of a plan for the next 20 years or determining the need of a new road in a general area is not as urgent a situation as acquiring ROW for a road project or a frantic mother calling 911 and speaking a foreign language trying to help save the life of her child. The DOT guidance states “The more important the activity, information, service, or program, or the greater the possible consequences of the contact to the LEP individuals, the more likely language services are needed.”
Factor 4 - Resources available to the grantee/recipient and costs
This last step in the four-factor analysis will allow your agency to weigh the demand for language assistance against the agency’s current and projected financial and personnel resources. The Guidance states “A recipient’s level of resources and the costs imposed may have an impact on the nature of the steps it should take in providing meaningful access for LEP persons. Smaller recipients with more limited budgets are not expected to provide the same level of language services as larger recipients with larger budgets. In addition, ``reasonable steps’’ may cease to be reasonable where the costs imposed substantially exceed the benefits.”
Federal law provides a “Safe Harbor” stipulation so that recipients can ensure with greater certainty that they comply with their obligations to provide written translations in languages other than English. A “safe harbor means that if a recipient provides written translations certain circumstances, such action will be considered strong evidence of compliance with the recipient’s written translation obligations under Title VI. Please review the CAMPO LEPP’s Safe Harbor section to see how we applied it to the MPO’s situation.
Additional Resources
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