The human-resources governmental agency known as Cooperative Personnel Services (CPS) hosted the first of three meetings of an Interpreter Advisory Panel in San Jose on April 16 and 17. Attending the panel discussion were CFI, BACI, CCIA, two Judicial Council representatives, Gregory Drapac, administrative hearing and medical interpreters, a federal interpreter and several California court interpretation school directors. The stated aim of the panel discussion was "to increase the number of qualified interpreters available to the state through recruitment, training, and certification." The discussion was facilitated by a CPS representative and a test development specialist.

From the outset, CPS stated that there was no intent to lower the requirements necessary to pass the certification test. In the same breath, CPS proceeded to delve into the knowledge and skills of administrative hearing interpreters, equating their skills with those of court interpreters. A CPS representative later called for a unanimous agreement from the panel on the fact that both administrative hearing interpreters and court interpreters have the same set of skills. CFI pointed out that there was a $120 difference in pay for the very reason that the skill level nor the skill itself was the same.

The UCLA Court Interpreter School director asked CPS to clarify what they meant by "interpreter shortage." CPS responded that they did not research past pass rates or test scores. They had no information to share with us except that fewer candidates were taking the administrative hearing and medical interpreting tests. The Long Beach director pointed out that the interpretation test passing rates are traditionally low, even in other countries. Because no screening of test candidates is done in advance, almost anyone can take the test and most people do fail.

In a discussion on administrative hearing (WCAB and EDD) settings, those panel members who interpret for administrative and medical hearings explained in detail the problems that exist, the types of issues these hearings cover, and the concept of interpreter fatigue. They also informed the panel of the insurance corruption and blatant favoritism that exist in their daily work. CPS dismissed these factors explaining the shortage and steered the panel towards testing problems.

Following the general debate on the nomenclature used in the testing for administrative hearing and medical certifications, there was a dialogue on the actual requirements for administrative interpreters. Nestor Wagner, director of the Southern California School of Interpretation, gave a presentation on his survey of interpreters, agencies, and others related to this field. This led to discussions on the real reasons why some interpreters prefer to be only minimally certified, while JC court-certified interpreters are considered better skilled and qualified.

Shireen Advani of the JC noted that they wanted to recruit more trainers in the various certified languages and were expanding JC workshops for those who had "almost passed" the oral exams. She added that both CPS and the JC are working together to identify candidates who are close to passing the certification tests. The SPB is going to propose that samples of the oral and written Spanish administrative hearing certification tests be made available.

CPS asked the school directors to share their curricula with them so that CPS might verify that local schools were adequately preparing candidates. This led to a reaction from the directors, especially one from a school with an 87% pass rate, who assured CPS that there was no problem with the schools.

Although the three representatives from CPS initially sought to present the field of medical and administrative-hearing interpreting as a viable and attractive career, the professional interpreters on the panel made it very clear that the current shortage is in fact due to other adverse factors. Various panel members observed that they were dissatisfied with CPS's premise that testing or training programs were the source of the interpreter shortage both in the courts and for medical and administrative hearing interpreters. It was continually noted that overall bad working conditions, low pay standards, non-employee status, and the use of unqualified workers were keeping interpreting from being recognized as an attractive profession, and gave otherwise excellent interpreter candidates little incentive to join their ranks.