California Pays Its Own Court Interpreters $216 a Day Less Than the Federal Government
Summary
The Court Interpreters Program spends $135 million a year so 6.4 million limited-English Californians can be heard in court. The state's largest interpreter job classification still sat 30% vacant in 2026 — up from 28% the year before — and the on-call "pro tempore" tier ran 75% empty.
The jobs sitting empty
The state tracks court interpreter staffing the same way it tracks any other civil-service job: funded positions () against filled positions, twice a year, by classification. Three classifications exist, and in the Judicial Council's own workforce study, all three got worse between fiscal years 2023–24 and 2024–25 — not better.
View data as table
| Court Interpreter Pro Tempore | 75% | 6.7 of 26.2 funded FTE filled, FY 2024–25 (71% vacant FY 2023–24) |
|---|---|---|
| SB 371 Interpreter | 30% | 361.7 of 519.6 funded FTE filled, FY 2024–25 (28% vacant FY 2023–24) |
| Interpreter (employee) | 29% | 148.1 of 207.8 funded FTE filled, FY 2024–25 (27% vacant FY 2023–24) |
The on-call "pro tempore" tier — brought in when no certified staff interpreter is available — is nearly three-quarters empty: 6.7 of 26.2 funded positions filled. The largest classification, "SB 371 Interpreter," carries more than 500 funded positions statewide and is now 30% vacant, up from 28% the year before. Even the core "Interpreter" employee class crept from 27% to 29% vacant. Statewide, courts logged 728,332 interpreted court proceedings in FY 2023–24 — 698,877 in person, 22,078 by video, 7,377 by phone — against that shrinking bench of staff.
Why the seats don't fill
The study's own diagnosis is pay. California funds the Court Interpreters Program at roughly $135 million a year, appropriated from the General Fund and passed through the Trial Court Trust Fund to the counties. Contract interpreter rates are capped by statute at the rate the federal courts pay — but state courts don't come close to that ceiling.
View data as table
| Federal certified interpreters | $566/day | federal judiciary |
|---|---|---|
| California certified & registered | $350/day | state contract rate |
| California noncertified/nonregistered | $220/day | state contract rate |
A certified interpreter working a full day in federal court earns $566; the same credential in a California courtroom earns $350 — a gap the Judicial Council's own report puts at 61.7%. Staff interpreter salaries tell the same story from the other direction: a full-time California court interpreter employee earns about $95,664 a year on average, against a recent federal court posting in San Diego offering $131,889 to $171,452 for the same certification. The state's fix so far is modest next to the gap — a five-year, $6.8 million Workforce Pilot Program (2024–2029) that reimburses training and exam costs for aspiring interpreters who commit to three years of court service, a fraction of what closing the pay gap across 500-plus positions would cost.
The takeaway
- The program is a pass-through, not a shortfall of money alone. $135 million a year funds interpreting for 6.4 million limited-English Californians, but the money moves through a pay scale the state itself set below the federal ceiling it's legally allowed to match.
- Vacancies are getting worse, not stabilizing. All three interpreter job classifications the state tracks lost ground between 2023–24 and 2024–25 — most sharply in the on-call tier courts lean on when staff interpreters aren't available.
- The state's own remedy is small relative to the gap. A $6.8 million, five-year pilot program is the current legislative response to a pay differential that runs into the tens of millions annually if applied across the workforce.
Figures cover California's statewide trial courts as reported in the Judicial Council's December 2025 workforce study; vacancy data reflects Schedule 7A staffing snapshots as of July 1 of each fiscal year and may not capture mid-year hiring or attrition.
Sources
- Judicial Council of California, California Court Interpreter Workforce Study (Dec. 17, 2025) — the report mandated by Government Code section 71900 (AB 1032), and the source for all funding, salary, contractor-rate, vacancy, and interpreted-proceedings figures in this piece, including the $135 million Court Interpreters Program appropriation (p. 18), Table 9's classification-level vacancy data (p. 28), Tables 4–5's state-vs.-federal contract rate comparison (pp. 20–21), and Table 10's interpretation-method counts (p. 29). languageaccess.courts.ca.gov
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Every hearing with a limited-English-proficient defendant, witness, or party needs a licensed interpreter in the room, or the hearing doesn't happen. California funds that requirement through a single line item — the Court Interpreters Program — and just finished the first workforce census the state has ever been legally required to produce. The picture it drew, in a report the Judicial Council of California delivered to the Legislature on December 17, 2025, is a program serving nearly 6.4 million limited-English residents with a workforce that is emptying out faster than the state can fill it.