Doing More With Less-Cost Effective Language Access

About the Program

Category: Human Services (Best in Category)

Year: 2013

As the largest and the most diverse jurisdiction in the State of Maryland, Montgomery County has experienced a rapid increase in its foreign-born population, doubling since 1990 to account for nearly 31 percent of the community’s 1 million residents. At the same time, the County has been facing a tight budgetary environment in recent years. In order to meet the growing needs of the limited English proficient (LEP) customers, we have learned to do more with less by both improving language access work and government cultural competency AND cutting costs and improving efficiency at the same time. Some of the cost-conscious strategies we have used as part of our redesigned language access framework include re-negotiating contracts with vendors, certifying and training bi-lingual employees, conducting staff-led training, digitizing different forms of data and putting them online, sharing resources across agencies, and leveraging community resources. Montgomery County has gone above and beyond the federal mandate to make its information and resources linguistically accessible to all communities, making us a leader in both the State of Maryland and the capital region.