County to Survey Employees in Reserves

Ventura County officials plan to survey county employees today to determine how many are in the military reserves and face a possible call-up to active duty.

With 6,800 employees, county government is the county’s largest employer, said Ron Komers, county personnel director. “I think we’re more affected because of our size and the nature of our employees.”

“We’ll probably be hit heavier in the hospital, law enforcement and firefighting areas,” Komers said. He said the county has 1,200 health-care workers, 800 employees in the Sheriff’s Department and about 400 in the Fire Department.

Lt. Steve Giles, a personnel officer in the Sheriff’s Department, estimated that 3% to 5% of sheriff’s employees are military reservists. A call-up, he said, “would impact us but not put us out of business.”

If county employees are among the 49,703 reserves authorized for activation because of the Persian Gulf crisis, “there will be lots of impacts,” Komers said.

“There’s the financial impact of paying for work you’re not getting,” he said, adding that the county provides 30 days of pay per year to reservists who go on active duty. “You have to refill some positions with either overtime or by hiring new employees. In some critical occupations we may not be able to find the necessary workers.”

Dene Jones, Oxnard personnel director, estimated that 25 to 30 of the city’s nearly 1,100 employees are reservists. “I don’t think it will have a major impact,” she said, except possibly in the understaffed Police and Fire departments.

“In police and fire, we can’t bring in someone on a temporary basis,” Jones said. “It would put a burden on their fellow officers in terms of overtime. Those are two departments where there is a burden already.”

Reservists employed by the city of Thousand Oaks were called to a meeting last week after some of them asked whether a call-up would cost them their jobs, Greg Eckman, Human Resources manager, said. He said the employees were assured that their jobs were guaranteed with no loss of seniority.

Eckman said the city’s 500 employees include six to 10 reservists, mostly in public works, utilities and maintenance.

When a reservist is activated, the federal government pays the normal full-time salary for his or her rank. Civilian employers are not required to make up any difference, but some employers do so during a reservist’s two-week summer camp.

The government provides insurance benefits for an activated reservist and the reservist’s family.

Reservists sometimes have only 24 hours to report to duty, and they are not required to give notice to their employers. Civilian employers are required to rehire a returning reservist in the same job or a comparable job with no loss of seniority or pay raises.