Despite a severe state budget deficit and a recent call by Missourians to promote English within government, Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster spent more than $26,000 for a Spanish version of his agency’s website and a Spanish speaking employee to handle phone calls. The move comes less than one year after the citizens of Missouri approved an initiative to require all state government meetings to be in English with 86 percent of the vote, including majority approval in every county.

“The action by the attorney general must be seriously questioned for both its intent and its timing,” said Mauro E. Mujica, Chairman of U.S. English. “The vote last year made it abundantly clear that Missourians expect the state to lead immigrants on the road to English learning, not supply them with a permanent linguistic crutch. While we can all agree with the need for limited linguistic assistance, the establishment of a dedicated Spanish-only line is questionable, especially in these difficult financial times.”
 
Missouri faced a $250 million budget deficit in the Fiscal Year that ended June 30, 2009, with an additional shortfall predicted for FY2010. Facing the state’s largest decrease in revenue in years, Gov. Jay Nixon was recently forced to veto $91 million in university building projects and $48 million in state building repairs. Also cut were 200 state jobs, raising the total number of eliminated state jobs to nearly 1,500 this year.

In addition, U.S. Census figures clash with the Attorney General’s claim that there are 175,000 residents of Missouri  who speak Spanish only. According to Census data collected from 2005-07, there are fewer than 150,000 Spanish speakers statewide and nearly 60 percent of them speak English “very well.”

“Missouri, like the United States, is made up of a diverse group of individuals from all over the world,” continued Mujica. “To single out Spanish speakers for linguistic assistance sets a dangerous precedent that is incongruous with our history of treating all immigrants equally. The Attorney General’s office should revise its policy to providing transitory linguistic assistance for all while heavily promoting English acquisition and English language learning resources.”