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H2973 • 2025

An Act relating to fair compensation for bilingual police officers

An Act relating to fair compensation for bilingual police officers

Active

The official status still shows this bill as active or still awaiting another formal step.

Sponsor
Priscila S. Sousa
Last action
2026-03-30
Official status
Accompanied a study order, see H5312 (under House Rule 27)
Effective date
Not listed

Plain English Breakdown

Using official source text because the generated explanation was unavailable or could not be confirmed against the official bill text.

An Act relating to fair compensation for bilingual police officers

An Act relating to fair compensation for bilingual police officers By Representative Sousa of Framingham, a petition (accompanied by bill, House, No.

What This Bill Does

  • An Act relating to fair compensation for bilingual police officers By Representative Sousa of Framingham, a petition (accompanied by bill, House, No.
  • 2973) of Priscila S.
  • Sousa relative to compensation for bilingual police officers.
  • Public Service.

Limits and Unknowns

  • This entry is temporarily using official source text because the generated explanation could not be confirmed against the official bill text during the last sync.

Bill History

  1. 2026-03-30 House

    Accompanied a study order, see H5312 (under House Rule 27)

  2. 2025-09-17 Joint

    Hearing rescheduled to 09/17/2025 from 01:00 PM-02:00 PM in B-2 and Virtual Hearing updated to New End Time

  3. 2025-09-05 Joint

    Hearing scheduled for 09/17/2025 from 01:00 PM-05:00 PM in B-2

  4. 2025-02-27 House

    Referred to the committee on Public Service

  5. 2025-02-27 Senate

    Senate concurred

  6. House

    Reported by committee to Clerk’s Office for processing, will accompany a study order

Official Summary Text

An Act relating to fair compensation for bilingual police officers
By Representative Sousa of Framingham, a petition (accompanied by bill, House, No. 2973) of Priscila S. Sousa relative to compensation for bilingual police officers. Public Service.

Current Bill Text

Read the full stored bill text
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Bill H.2973

SECTION 1. Chapter 41 of the General Laws, as appearing in the 2022 Official Edition, is hereby amended by inserting after Section 108L, the following section:-

Section 108MMMM. There is hereby established a language proficiency pay program offering stipends, salary increase or other monetary incentive to regular full-time members of the various city and town police departments who speak one or more languages in addition to English which are also spoken in the communities they serve as compensation for their linguistic proficiency and contribution to the department within that skillset.

Police stipends, salary increase or other monetary incentive within this program shall be predicated on the members with linguistic proficiency in relation to a language spoken within the town or city of the police department. The criteria for establishing language proficiency shall include but shall not be limited to: achieving the minimum school of the applicable World Language Assessment Instrument used for the Massachusetts State Seal of Biliteracy or a comparable metric. Satisfaction to this requirement shall be determined by the chief of police or one of similar rank.

Police stipends, salary increase, or other monetary incentive authorized by this section shall be granted within the discretion of the city and town’s administration.

Any city or town which accepts the provisions of this section and provides career incentive salary increases for police officers shall be reimbursed by the commonwealth for one half the cost of such payments upon certification by the Municipal Police Training Committee. The Municipal Police Training Committee shall certify the amount of such reimbursement to be paid to such city or town from information filed on or before the September first of each year with said committee, on a form furnished by it, the chief of police, or one of similar rank, of the city or town police department. Said information shall be filed on a form to be furnished by the Municipal Police Training Committee.

Notwithstanding any other provision of this section to the contrary, the Municipal Police Training Committee shall establish quality guidelines, including but not limited to, standards and review processes.

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