City rolling out interpretation language service

In an effort to better communicate with its customers, the City of Lodi is offering an interpretation service for non-English speaking citizens that can accommodate a wide variety of foreign languages.

The Language Line Program will allow customers to be able to call in or visit city departments and request a language they would like to use. Once the language is requested, a third party from the service will be brought on via conference call to interpret the conversation in the requested language.

According to Julia Tyack, Lodi’s transportation manager, the city must meet certain requirements in order to receive federal funding for the service. Compliance with Title 6, a statue provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibits discrimination, exclusion or denial of any program or activity receiving federal assistance due to race, color or national origin, was one of those requirements. Tyack said the new service is an effort to meet the Title 6 requirement.

Tyack teamed up with Tiffani Butorovich, an administrative secretary in the Public Works Department, to coordinate all the training for the new program.

“I’m really grateful that she was willing to get on board with this,” Tyack said. “We needed to implement the program citywide so Tiffani just took it upon herself to do the training for everyone.”

So far, Butorovich said 80 city employees have been trained on the program with only two more training classes to go.

During the training, city staff members are gathered in small groups and given the background on why the program is being offered. They are also given information on Language Line, provided with training materials and take part in a call demonstration.

“Every department in the city should have some one available that can use the service,” Butorovich said.

The program translates over 240 languages such as Spanish, Hunjabi, Farsi, Arabic, Bengali, Cantonese, Mandarin and Japanese. Tyack said the most common foreign languages in Lodi are Spanish, Tagalog, spoken by Filipinos, and Urdu, which is spoken in Pakistan and India.

“Our residents that have the most difficulty communicating a lot of times are our Spanish speakers or those speaking Urdu,” Tyack said.

“I haven’t personally come across anybody speaking Tagalog, but it’s been found as one of the more common languages in Lodi.”

Tyack said the city will receive reports on which languages are requested in which departments to get a solid idea of city’s language needs.

The city has a language guide with at least 100 languages on it to help the customers communicate which language they would like to use.

“I’m really glad that we have it available, and the overall response from our employees is very positive and they’re very excited that they will be able to better help our customers going forward,” Butorovich said.

According to Butorovich, the city is already using the program for walk-in customers and is working on offering the service over the phone.