Work-Study Interns Help Ease County’s Belt-Tightening

When Cal Lutheran University junior Dave Barker signed up for an internship in county government, he figured he’d spend most of his time photocopying documents and fetching coffee.

His boss, however, had other plans.

Struggling to keep up with his workload in the face of a countywide hiring freeze, Public Defender Kenneth I. Clayman wasn’t about to squander his intern on mindless chores. He immediately put Barker to work interviewing suspects, tracking down witnesses and serving subpoenas.

And when payday came around, Clayman passed the buck to Sacramento.

A state-sponsored work-study program for students on financial aid picks up 60% of Barker’s $7.54 hourly wage, leaving the county with 40% of the tab. As department heads seek new ways to cut costs and tighten belts, more and more are clamoring to join the work-study program and put interns such as Barker to work.

“It’s a great deal for the taxpayers--the interns are doing full-time stuff at a fraction of the cost,” Clayman said. “It’s really a good bargain for the county.”

The 5-year-old program subsidizes internships for students at 15 colleges statewide, including Cal Lutheran in Thousand Oaks, one of only three private schools to receive the state funds.

Cal Lutheran sends about 30 students a semester to jobs in various county offices, with duties that range from working in a juvenile detention facility to the Solid Waste Management Department, program coordinator Melanie Hudes said.

“With the county laying off people, the students are taking on quite important responsibilities,” Hudes said. “It wasn’t hard to sell the county on taking interns. We just got on the phone and said, ‘Have we got a deal for you,’ and all the employers jumped.”

Participating students, who must be California residents and must maintain a 2.5 grade-point average, say they’re getting a good deal as well.

Along with their salary--which is substantially higher than the minimum-wage rates paid in on-campus jobs--the students get a first-hand look at county government. If an academic adviser approves, they can earn college credit as well, picking up the equivalent of one course for 15 hours a week of work.

Before he heard of the work-study program, sophomore Ramy Antoun spent his afternoons punching the cash register in a women’s clothing store. Now he’s responsible for evaluating criminal suspects for the county’s Corrections Services Agency and recommending to the judge whether they be held in custody or released.

“It’s amazing how much power they give you right off the bat,” Antoun said. “I can follow cases from bail review right on through to the court date, and I’m actually understanding them.”

Barker, a clean-cut Ojai native who keeps a photo of his dog on his uncluttered desk, agreed.

“They say, ‘Here’s the case, go for it--you’re a big boy,’ ” he said. “At first, I was uptight because I thought everything had to be absolutely perfect. Now I know that if you make a mistake, you can cross it out. Yes, it’s serious work, but you can breathe while you’re doing it.”

Except for a few isolated cases--such as a female student who insisted on wearing skimpy lingerie-style clothes to her job in correction services--most interns stay in their jobs for at least a semester, working up to 20 hours a week, coordinator Hudes said.

Dividing about $40,000 in state funds between 45 students, Hudes places her charges in internships in retail stores, accounting firms and other private-sector fields as well as in county government.

Technically, paychecks are supposed to go toward tuition or to repay loans. But because they usually need cars to get from campus to work, students often end up using their salaries for gas and other incidental expenses.

“Tuition is so colossal now, that this money pays only for books,” said sophomore Richard Elias, a political science major who works for Supervisor Vicky Howard evaluating youth-service programs in Simi Valley.

Although the job might not be worth much as financial aid, Elias said he’s thrilled with the experience, and pleasantly surprised that he’s managed to avoid traditional intern tasks such as envelope-stuffing.

For her part, Howard said without her two student interns, her office could never have tackled the labor-intensive task of reviewing youth services.

“It’s very cost-effective for the county,” she said. “We get young people with a lot of energy and enthusiasm, and we get them at a low cost.”