To: Board of Supervisors
From: County Administrative Office
Agenda Section: Consent
SUBJECT:
title
Revised Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Compliance Effective Communication Policy
end
RECOMMENDATION(S):
Recommendation
That the Board of Supervisors:
1. Adopt the attached revised ADA Compliance Effective Communication Policy.
Body
SOURCE OF FUNDING:
ADA Compliance (3552)
All County Funds
DISCUSSION:
On Sept. 7, 2016, the county entered into a consent decree, with the US Department of Justice. The consent decree contains various timeframes and milestones that require the county to take effective action in regards to complying with the ADA. Section F.20. required that within 3 months of the entry of this consent decree, the county will identify sources of qualified sign language and oral interpreters, qualified readers, real-time transcription services, and vendors able to convert documents to Braille. Within this three 3-month timeframe, the county will implement and report to the United States its written procedures, with time frames, for providing and fulfilling requests for sign language or oral interpreters, qualified readers, real-time transcription services, and documents in alternate formats, including Braille, large print, audio recording, and accessible electronic format (e.g., Hyper Text Markup Language, or HTML). The county was able to identify, within the 3 months specified in the consent decree, sources of qualified sign language and oral interpreters.
On March 6, 2018, your Board adopted the ADA Compliance Effective Communication Policy. This policy provides assistance to county departments in providing accessible services and effective communication practices beyond qualified sign language and oral interpreters, and extends to all individuals who may have a need for accessible communication services. Examples of individuals with a disability that may require such services include individuals who have partial or total hearing loss, partial or total vision loss, Dyslexia or other learning disabilities that may make reading difficult, or an individual who is regarded as having such a disability. The purpose of the ADA Compliance Effective Communication Policy is to ensure that an individual with a vision, hearing, speech or learning disability can communicate with, receive information from, and convey information to, any county program, service or activity.
There is a need to make revisions to the March 6, 2018, policy to provide more clear and concise language to ensure the ADA Compliance Effective Communication Policy is understandable to staff. In addition, there is a need to remove Communication Access Real-Time Translation (CART) services from section D. of the policy. CART is a service similar to court reporting in which a transcriber types what is being said at a meeting or event into a computer that projects the words onto a screen. This is not a service the county offers at this time.
FINANCIAL IMPACT:
The recommended action has no significant financial impact
STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK:
This action supports your Board’s Strategic Framework by fostering transparent, accessible, welcoming and user friendly services .
OTHER AGENCY INVOLVEMENT:
Department of Justice
ALTERNATIVES TO STAFF RECOMMENDATIONS:
Your Board could choose to not approve these recommendations, but this would hinder revisions needed to clarify and improve the content of the current ADA Compliance Effective Communication Policy.
ATTACHMENTS:
Attachment 1 - Revised ADA Compliance Effective Communication Policy with track changes
Attachment 2 - Revised ADA Compliance Effective Communication Policy
PREVIOUS ACTION/REFERRAL:
Board Order No.: C7
Meeting of: March 6, 2018
File No.: 18-132