COUNTYWIDE : Night Child-Support Sessions to Resume

The child-support division of the district attorney’s office will resume Monday evening appointments after a ruling that protesting workers are not owed overtime pay.

A public employees union had accused the district attorney’s office of punishing child-support workers who complained about lack of overtime pay by suspending nighttime office hours.

But the director of the district attorney’s child-support division said Friday that the Monday night hours will be reinstated Sept. 30 after the county counsel ruled that the overtime rules were not violated.

The charge of punitive action was made this week in a grievance filed by the Public Employees Assn. of Ventura County. Barry L. Hammitt, executive director of PEAVC, said Friday that by suspending the nighttime hours, Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury “altered the schedule to avoid the payment of overtime pay.”

Until one of the family support officers filed a complaint last month, the employees who worked at night were instructed to take an equal amount of hours off later in the week, Hammitt said. But state law requires 90 minutes of compensatory time or time-and-a-half pay for each hour worked of overtime, he said.

After the employee filed a grievance, the county suspended the Monday night session Sept. 2.

But the suspension was not meant to be punitive, said C. Stanley Trom, director of the child support division. “We temporarily suspended Monday night sessions so we wouldn’t incur any further liability if the grievance was right and we had to pay overtime,” Trom said Friday. “We didn’t have the money to pay for it.”

But in a four-page opinion issued Wednesday, Assistant County Counsel Leroy Smith said the county was not required to pay overtime by state labor standards or under its contract with PEAVC, Trom said. Public agencies are exempt from many state labor laws, he said.

The ruling will allow the child-support division to reinstitute the Monday night program, which serves clients by appointment from 5 to 7 p.m., he said.

Upon learning of the county counsel’s opinion, Hammitt said the union would pursue its grievance, which is not expected to go to arbitration for another four months.

“We will rely on state labor standards, our agreement and past practices,” Hammitt said. “We’ll go after them.”