Finance Committee — 09/15/2021 Page 10
Jim Testaverde, Deputy Police Chief
You're welcome.
Mayor Donchess
Alderwoman Kelly.
Alderwoman Kelly
Thank you. Thank you for your thorough, you know, explanation here. | do share some of the concerns
around do we get the grant? Do we don't get the grant? Does the grant come year after year or is it a one-
time grant and then you still have to find room in your budget? | don't want to add more administrative tasks
for people but | think | would feel better if in the beginning we had a little bit more like once a month what's
being happened because as we roll this out, you don't have the grant and you're not for how often your officers
are using It.
Jim Testaverde, Deputy Police Chief
Correct.
Alderwoman Kelly
So do have a plan to kind of keep your eyes on that.
Jim Testaverde, Deputy Police Chief
Yes. Until we understand the status of the funding through the grant, we are going to scrutinize when we use
it. We're going to use it in the most - | hate to use the word “dire” circumstances - knowing and, again, we're
talking dollars and cents. So we'll be blunt -knowing we're getting the most bang for our buck with this
program. That doesn't mean if we are in a situation or responding to a call where there is a language barrier
that we're going to say this is not worth using this application. Therefore we are going to just drive away.
We're going to continue to do exactly what we do today. We are going to contact emergency 911, other
agencies. We are going to find someone in the immediately that can assist us with that but because that can
be time consuming, there can be a time delay, this is something that we can...and again, | want to make sure
I'm wording this correctly. I'm not coming here saying we are having a problem communicating with our
residents and without this, we can't do our jobs. We're saying we're doing it. We can do it much better with
this application and the goal isn't let's communicate better. The goal is the culturally effective organization.
Again, | just say it's one of the facets. The reason | haven't gone through the others, and I'd be more than
happy to, is this is the out of the seven facets, this is the only one that applies to what I'm here for tonight. It's
it's a multifaceted approach to how to be more culturally effective.
Alderwoman Kelly
If | could respond?
Mayor Donchess
Yeah.
Alderwoman Kelly
Thank you and | applaud you for bringing this forward, especially knowing that the other police departments
who have used this and it's been effective and if it can help in situations where someone's unable to interact
because of a language barrier, I'm behind that. Just as a teenager who lived through when cell phone started
and a mom, I've seen the before we get unlimited all of a sudden, you're doing texts and you keep going oh
when you're paying per. So that is just the anxiety that | have is just making sure that you guys have the
effective tools to do this but we don't end up in a situation where we run up a lot of money in a month.
Jim Testaverde, Deputy Police Chief
| totally understand. I've seen over my career, I've seen some very staggering bills from translation services
for - and I'm talking not day to day these 43 minute - I'm talking about a three hour interview with a hearing
impaired person when we needed the services of American Sign Language and we're spending hundreds, and
