City Council OKs Bilingual Police Bonus : Salaries: Officers who speak Spanish, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean or Japanese will receive an extra $150 a month.

The City Council has tentatively agreed to give bilingual police officers a $150-a-month bonus, despite an ongoing controversy over whether such stipends are fair to other employees.

The bonus is part of a new contract with the Monterey Park Police Officers’ Assn. approved by the council last week. Starting next year, the pact would add $150 monthly to the salaries of officers on the 78-member force who speak Spanish, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean or Japanese.

The council’s action came in closed session July 8; officials cited a provision of the state’s open meetings act that allows labor matters to be decided in private.

The bonus still requires final approval by the association and the City Council. It is the latest step the city has taken to improve service to its immigrant population.

Last month, the Fire Department adopted a new hiring policy to give preference to bilingual job applicants, with the long-range goal of having one Chinese- and at least one Spanish-speaking firefighter on each shift.

Earlier this year, the City Council voted to give a $150 monthly bonus to 911 emergency dispatchers who speak Spanish, Cantonese or Mandarin, and to establish a hiring program for dispatchers virtually identical to the Fire Department’s.

However, an employees’ union has tried to block implementation of the dispatchers’ bonus and hiring program, saying it would discriminate against those who speak only English, and is unfair to bilingual employees in other departments.

The city’s Personnel Board--which must give final approval to the dispatchers’ bonus and hiring policy--was scheduled to vote on the matter Wednesday night. (The outcome of the meeting could not be reported by press time).

The police bonus need not be approved by the Personnel Board, since it was negotiated as part of the new police association contract.

Bilingual police officers currently receive a $50-a-month bonus, while firefighters do not receive any bilingual pay. Most other bilingual employees receive a $25 bonus.

All five council members gave tentative approval to the police bonus. The more controversial dispatchers’ bonus, however, was approved earlier this year with votes from only three council members: Fred Balderrama, Judy Chu and Sam Kiang.

Mayor Betty Couch and Councilwoman Marie T. Purvis voted against the dispatchers’ bonus because they said it was excessive and had not been discussed with the union beforehand.

In recent weeks, several residents have accused Kiang, who proposed the bilingual dispatchers’ bonus, of opening Monterey Park up to all kinds of frivolous requests for extra pay.

Kiang said, however, that innovative recruitment programs and bonuses for language skills are needed to help the city combat a severe shortage of bilingual employees.