Spanish-speaking residents in Montgomery County can now have a bit more involvement in the county’s operating budget process.
Officials will broadcast tonight’s public budget hearing on county cable TV with an option for viewers to select Spanish closed captioning.
County Council spokesman Neil Greenberger said the pilot program might seem like a small pursuit but it could start a much bigger effort countywide to involve the growing number of Hispanics.
“The population of our county has changed so greatly and we don’t want to leave people out,” Greenberger told The Examiner on Tuesday. “(Council President) Marilyn Praisner sees a great future in this.”
According to the latest Census figures, 32 percent of county residents’ primary language isn’t English. And, in the county seat of Rockville, whose population basically mirrors the overall county’s, 14 percent of homes primarily speak an Asian language at home and 11 percent more primarily speak Spanish at home.
This week is jam-packed with sessions in which the public can testify about County Executive Ike Leggett’s proposed $4.2 billion budget before a final budget comes out next month. But Greenberger said the hearing at 7 tonight seemed like the best opportunity to try out the Spanish-language option considering the session is skewed toward education funding and Board of Education President Nancy Navarro is Hispanic.
If the option works well, it could be applied much more broadly on county cable.
The challenge will be to try to get the costs down. Spanish closed caption for today’s hearing will run the county almost $500 an hour, which is significantly higher than the $175 an hour the county pays for English closed captioning on its local channel.
Greenberger said Montgomery officials also are in the midst of conducting more resident surveys so they can gauge how useful the county’s cable channel is.
