The Alisal Union School District Board of Trustees pulled a consent-agenda item for a contract to provide interpreters and translation equipment for a parent summit scheduled for Sept. 6 after trustees questioned the vendor's rates and asked staff to explore in-house alternatives.
Trustee Guadalupe Gilpin Barrera raised detailed cost concerns during discussion, noting the vendor's $190-per-hour rate with a two-hour minimum and an additional charge for equipment. "They're going to charge a $190 an hour, but their minimum is 2 hours even if the meeting is only 30 minutes," she said. "That's $400. I mean and then if it's more than an hour, it's 2 interpreters." Barrera asked why the district was contracting out when classified staff and special-education interpreters might be available.
District staff responded the contract was specifically to support the parent summit and that a recently advertised in-house interpreter position had interviewees but might not be filled in time for Sept. 6. Staff said the district has two sets of translation equipment in Educational Services. Trustee Barrera suggested offering overtime to bilingual classified staff as an alternative and asked staff, including Julio Castro, to explore that option.
The board chose to pull the item from the consent agenda for later consideration; a motion to table was recorded, and the roll-call vote on the consent agenda otherwise passed 3-0 with Trustees Roberto Ocampo and Beatriz Perez absent. The meeting record shows no contract was approved at that time and staff were asked to return with alternatives or justification for the vendor costs.