Public Safety Commission encourages language accessibility across public safety agencies

The Public Safety Commission encouraged the city’s public safety agencies to continue efforts to improve language accessibility at its meeting on Monday. 

“It seems … hugely important that we grow our fluency across all the departments,” said Chair Nelly Ramírez. “So any little steps that we can take to sort of make public safety in general more accessible across multiple languages is appreciated.” 

Austin Police Chief of Staff Jeff Greenwalt spoke about the department’s language access policies, which largely mirror those of the Austin Fire Department and Austin-Travis County EMS. 

At the 911 call center, each work station is capable of taking calls from deaf and hard-of-hearing callers. Approximately 10 percent of dispatchers are certified Spanish speakers. When they’re not available, the call center relies on an external language line. 

In the case of urgent calls requiring translation services, dispatchers will assign the closest available APD officer, inform him or her of the caller’s needs and assign additional personnel – such as one of the department’s two officers who are certified American Sign Language interpreters – when feasible. 

When such an officer isn’t available, the responding officers improvise or rely on an external interpreter or translator. 

“We can utilize sometimes a notepad, electronic devices or family members or friends to do that translation for us,” Greenwalt said. 

Among sworn police staff, 318 officers – approximately 21 percent – are certified bilingual translators, the vast majority of whom speak Spanish. Other languages include Arabic, Cantonese, German, Korean, Mandarin, Russian and Vietnamese. 

At the police training academy, cadets receive 40 hours of Spanish instruction geared toward what Greenwalt described as getting “through a basic traffic stop” and training on communicating with deaf and hard-of-hearing people and using the language line. 

Commissioner Pierre Nguyễn asked city leadership about efforts to expand the pool of languages spoken and whether bilingual stipends were granted on a per-language basis. 

APD staff responded, saying they’re working to identify the fast-growing language groups in Austin. They added that while the stipends don’t account for multilingualism, the number of languages eligible for a stipend has increased in recent years. 

Austin Fire Chief of Staff Rob Vires also pointed out that the stipend is determined as part of the labor contract process and has remained flat for several years. 

“The actual stipend amount has not changed in quite some time,” he said.

Ramírez also requested more information on the number of critical incidents in which language accessibility is a factor as well as on recruiting efforts among Austin’s growing immigration populations. 

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.

The Austin Monitor’s work is made possible by donations from the community. Though our reporting covers donors from time to time, we are careful to keep business and editorial efforts separate while maintaining transparency. A complete list of donors is available here, and our code of ethics is explained here.