March 6 Update: WE DID IT!

Our hard work reaching out to Representatives and Senators paid off! Both the House of Representatives and the Senate included the interpreter shortage proviso in their final budget. All that’s left is for the Governor to sign the budget and make it official.

Below is the proviso language in the budget submitted to the Governor’s Office. (5950-S.E AMC CONF H3501.2, Page 280-281):

• “$926,000 of the general fund-state appropriation for fiscal year 2025 is provided solely for the office of the deaf and hard of hearing within the department to establish a workgroup to address the statewide shortage of qualified and certified American sign language interpreters and ProTactile interpreters.”

• “The work group shall focus on developing training and certification standards, developing strategies for increasing interpreter numbers across all communities, for enhancing professional development, and for creating pathways to allow interpreters to be financially supported to work statewide.”

• “The work group shall primarily be comprised of individuals who identify as deaf, deafblind, and hard of hearing who use American sign language or protactile, with priority for members from historically marginalized communities.”

• “The work group shall provide a final report including recommendations and a plan for implementation, to the governor and appropriate committees of the legislature by June 30, 2025.”

ODHH (the Washington State Office for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing) will oversee the workgroup. TerpsWA will continue working with ODHH and advocate for the workgroup to be community-based.

Next Steps

• The Governor has 20 days to sign the budget bill, and typically waits until the 20th day to do so.

• Please email or call your legislators to thank them for supporting the proviso and HB 2221.

• Please email Representative Tina Orwall (tina.orwall@leg.wa.gov) a BIG THANK YOU for endorsing the proviso and HB 2221. Please CC Mary Soderlind (mary.soderlind@leg.wa.gov), too.

• TerpsWA will reach out to ODHH to:

  • Advocate for ODHH to include our community members in the workgroup process.

  • Provide feedback on incorporating trilingual interpreters.

  • Make sure the proposed points from the HB 2221 draft bill will be used in the workgroup.

What Now?

Give yourself a pat on the back! Thank you to everybody who reached out to your legislators, shared news with your family, friends, and peers, and attended meetings for the past five months. This was a statewide community effort.

Our community still needs us. Let’s take some time to celebrate, and then get back to work!

The interpreter shortage workgroup will take place approximately July 2024 to June 2025. It’s up to us as the community to stay informed about ODHH’s decisions and advocate for our needs.

The workgroup is a huge win, but we don’t want to wait until 2025 to improve the situation. We are setting up a separate community group to focus on short-term solutions to the interpreter shortage. If you are interested in joining this group, please email us at TerpsWA@gmail.com.  We will meet on mostly Mondays at 6:30 pm PST for an hour.

Thank you all again for your time and energy on HB 2221 and the proviso.