Blog Post: $peaking $panish

Did you know that the Phoenix Police is the only agency in Arizona and the entire South Western United States that offers an extra $10 per hour for every hour you translate on duty? No other law enforcement can provide a bilingual incentive that is as good as ours. With our bilingual incentive pay officers can make anywhere between $400 to $800 every month on top of their base pay. "Some of my friends are paying for their cars with their Spanish speaking alone." Says Officer Jesse Dominguez, recruiter for the Phoenix Police Department and certified Spanish translator. Other Valley agencies offer $50 per month to their translators regardless of how much they do or do not translate. Phoenix Officers can make $50 translation benefit in five hours.

But what if I don't speak Spanish? Not a problem. Phoenix Police offers beginning, intermediate, and advanced classes in Spanish for law enforcement. You can take the classes as your work week -- that is 80 hours of instruction over two weeks for every level of instruction. And the department will even pay for it. As if that wasn't good enough, after completing the advanced Spanish for law enforcement, the Phoenix Police will send you to an immersion course in Hermosillo, Mexico for two weeks where you stay with a host family and speak nothing but the language. Oh, and we pay for that too.

What if I'm fluent in a language other than Spanish? The Phoenix Police offers the bilingual benefit to any and all translation regardless of language, including sign language. We've had officers assist task forces translate wire taps in Mandarin Chinese. Our Homeland Defense Bureau has found the need for Farsi translation. And our Gang Unit has used Russian translators in the past.

So let me get this straight: If I don't already translate, you'll pay me to learn, send me to an immersion course, and then pay me more once I become a translator? You got it. For more details on our bilingual incentive pay, or when our next written test to start our hiring process is, go to www.phoenix.gov/police or call us at 602-534-COPS.

You've already got the skill. Isn't it time you got paid for it?