01-14-2026 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Safe Harbor Provision (Written Documents) U.S. DOT LEP Guidance provides a “safe harbor” to help ensure greater clarity regarding whether City of Little Canada is meeting its obligation to provide written translations. These safe harbor provisions only apply to the translation of written documents and do not affect the requirement to provide meaningful access to LEP individuals through competent oral interpreters where oral language assistance services are needed and reasonable. The following actions are considered strong evidence of compliance with the Department’s written-translation obligations: (a) Providing written translations of vital documents for each eligible LEP language group that constitutes 5% or 1,000 people of the population of individuals eligible to be served or likely to be affected or encountered. Translation of non-vital documents, if needed, can be provided orally; or (b) If there are fewer than 50 individuals in a language group that reaches the 5% trigger in (a), the vital written materials are not translated, but written notice of the right to receive free, competent oral interpretation of those vital written materials in the primary language of the LEP language group of is provided. The above findings from the graphs on the preceding pages did not indicate any LEP language groups meet the safe harbor threshold. Therefore, City of Little Canada will not proactively translate written documents at this time. However, efforts will be made to reasonably accommodate any language access requests that arise. FACTOR #2: THE FREQUENCY WITH WHICH LEP INDIVIDUALS COME IN CONTACT WITH THE PROGRAM, ACTIVITY, OR SERVICE City of Little Canada should assess, as accurately as possible, the frequency with which they have or should have contact with LEP individuals from different language groups seeking assistance. If LEP individuals access a program or service on a regular, consistent basis, then that program or service provider has greater language access duties than a program or service whose contact with LEP individuals is unpredictable or infrequent. However, even if there are infrequent or unpredictable interactions with LEP individuals, City of Little Canada must be prepared to provide language assistance services to LEP individuals. In applying this factor City of Little Canada should also consider whether outreach to LEP individuals could increase the frequency of contact with LEP language groups and remain mindful of the data analysis conducted under Factor #1 to identify the proportion of LEP population present in the service area. LEP persons may interact in several ways with City of Little Canada, including but not limited to: