CA AB1116

Requires the Secretary of California Emergency Management to consider the languages and needs of populations with limited English proficiency during emergency preparedness planning, response, and recovery efforts.

Mandates collaboration with ethnic media and ethnic community-based organizations to develop communication strategies for disseminating alert and warning information to limited English proficiency populations.

Directs the Secretary to utilize a registry of qualified bilingual persons in public contact positions to assist with emergency preparedness, response, and recovery as deemed necessary.

Requires incorporation of limited English proficiency population needs into critical emergency training and exercises, including crisis communications scenarios, and into other training to the extent reasonable.

Exempts internal emergency responder documents from translation requirements and allows existing documents to remain unchanged until normally scheduled updates or revisions occur.