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August 14, 2007 11:27 pm
City prints budget in Spanish
Lawrence became the first city in Massachusetts to translate its operating budget into Spanish.
The Spanish translation of the budget also will soon be available on the city's Web site (www.cityoflawrence.com).
By Yadira Betances
CNHI News Service
LAWRENCE, Mass. — It's not "Don Quixote," but the city's budget can now be read by Spanish-speaking residents.
Tuesday, Lawrence became the first city in Massachusetts to translate its operating budget into Spanish.
About 20 copies were printed and others will be printed based on the number of requests received for them. The Spanish translation of the budget also will soon be available on the city's Web site (www.cityoflawrence.com).
"I certainly welcomed the idea of printing the budget in Spanish. It's the right thing to do," Mayor Michael Sullivan said yesterday. "It's a good idea anytime you open government up for people by breaking down language barriers."
Sullivan goes before the City Council this week to get approval of his proposed $238.8 million budget for the fiscal year that began July 1, which is already more than a month late. The council has approved two 30-day budgets to keep the city running.
Lawrence has 82,191 residents, of which an estimated 68 percent are Latinos, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The majority of Hispanics living in the city come from Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Guatemala.
The idea to print the budget in Spanish was proposed by City Councilor Nilka Alvarez-Rodriguez at the end of July, after she said she became frustrated when residents were calling the Spanish radio station with misinformation about items on the budget.
"It's a matter of providing access and opportunities," Alvarez-Rodriguez said. "How can there be taxation without representation? They have the right to know what is going into the budget and say how the money is going to be spent."
Alvarez-Rodriguez and Personnel Director Frank Bonet, who are both of Puerto Rican descent, worked 12-hour days for a week translating the document. They used computer software and their own knowledge of Spanish to translate the document.
"It was hard to translate because of the subject matter," Alvarez-Rodriguez said, noting there were some words, including "city clerk," that were difficult to find in Spanish.
She also was careful about the dialect she used.
"We couldn't use Castilian Spanish because people in Lawrence would not understand. We used a common language familiar to people from the Caribbean."
Their first attempt was marred by misspellings of Spanish words, misplaced accents and simple words including "center" and "other" that were not translated from English into Spanish.
Sullivan said state Rep. William Lantigua, an independent from Lawrence, took a copy of the Spanish version to Gov. Deval Patrick.
In addition to Spanish, Sullivan said next year's budget will be translated into Vietnamese and Kmer.
The 20 copies of the 129-page document were printed by the Lawrence School Department for just $10, Sullivan said.
Alvarez-Rodriguez said translating the budget does not mean she approves it.
"My goal was to make people aware of what he is proposing so they can ask questions and make their own decisions," Alvarez-Rodriguez said.
Yadira Betances writes for The Eagle-Tribune of North Andover, Mass. E-mail her at ybetances@eagletribune.com
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