SomerViva Office of Immigrant Affairs
City of Somerville FY22 Budget
Mission Statement
To enhance wellbeing and equity through programs, services, and policies that aim to facilitate the successful inclusion of Somerville’s immigrant residents and workers in the City’s civic, economic, and cultural life. Through multilingual, culturally competent program and service design and collaboration with departments and partners citywide, advance the equitable access to municipal services, community resources, information, public discourse, and opportunities for civic leadership and personal advancement of Somerville’s immigrant community members—and thereby strengthen the fabric of our community overall.
Personal Services Changes
FY22 marks the first fiscal year that SOIA is being funded via a dedicated division budget.
A new position for the Director of SOIA as previously approved by the City Council is now included in PS, and a total of 5.25 FT positions and approximately $23,000 in part-time temporary wages have been moved into this division budget out of the Communications & Community Engagement (CCE) Budget.
The part time Spanish Language Community Engagement Specialist Position is proposed as a full time position for FY22 in order to meet growing demand for Spanish-language services.
Changes in salaries are due to negotiated collective bargaining agreements and merit increases based on annual performance reviews.
Ordinary Maintenance Changes
FY22 marks the first fiscal year that SOIA is being funded via a dedicated division budget.
Changes in OM over previous spending included in the CCE budget include a bookkeeping change across departments: going forward Language Line subscriptions from all City departments subscribing will be purchased via one account manged by SOIA budgeted for level service at $44,000 for FY22. An additional $34,000 in P&T and $9,000 across other lines primarily reflects a return to pre-pandemic service levels.
FY22 Goals & Measures of Progress
Goal 1: Strive for and equitable pandemic recovery for Somerville’s immigrant residents through participation in planning, policy development, multilingual communications, and multilingual direct services and service referrals and the interdepartmental tracking thereof.
- Track case management numbers, review equity and inclusion efforts within recovery efforts, and expand multilingual alert and info subscriptions with an assessment of totals counts at fiscal year-end.
Goal 2: With new Director of SomerViva Office of Immigrant Affairs, advance strategic planning by collaborating with SPS and SFLC on multilingual services long-range planning, developing annual and 5-year division strategic plans, and coordinating with the Racial and Social Justice (RSJ) Office on shared goals.
- Delivery of plans, successful engagement of stakeholders, effective collaboration with RSJ Office.
Goal 3: Conversion of existing language access efforts into formal Language Access 5-Year Plan and proposed Language Access ordinance.
- Delivery of plan and successful collaboration with stakeholders on ordinance proposal and submission.
Goal 4: Expand leadership development and leadership opportunities for immigrant community members through recruitment, promotion of opportunities, and coordination of in-language public discourse as well as leadership development programs for persons with limited English proficiency.
- Track persons successfully recruited to boards, commissions, public processes, leadership training, etc, and track delivery of in-language civic discourse opportunities and leadership development programming.
FY22 Budget
