Delay Urged on 4-Day Workweek for County : Employment: The personnel director asks supervisors to give workers about a month longer before the switch in order to arrange for child care.

Ventura County supervisors on Tuesday will consider a request to delay switching to a four-day workweek until June 20 to give employees more time to make child-care arrangements.

Although the supervisors agreed several weeks ago to rearrange most county office hours to four days a week, from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., Personnel Director Ron Komers is urging the board to postpone the start date for about a month. The switch is now scheduled to begin May 23.

“This would provide for implementation after the end of the present school year and eliminate problems associated with finding alternative child care for the last few weeks,” Komers told the supervisors in a memo.

Specifically, some parents say it will be difficult to line up baby-sitters to watch their children in the early morning and then take them to school.

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Supervisor Maggie Kildee and several union representatives have signaled their support for postponing the change in schedules.

“It makes some sense to me,” Kildee said. “The idea of holding off on it until school is over allows people a little flexibility.”

Barry Hammitt, executive director of the Service Employees International Union, Local 998, added: “It’s probably better to implement it at a time when there are fewer problems with it.”

Faced with large cuts in state funding next year, the supervisors voted 3 to 2 March 23 to implement a compressed workweek as an effort to save up to 40 jobs and reduce spending by at least $650,000.

Although officials have yet to announce which day offices will close, they probably will shut down on Fridays.

The shorter week will not affect the county’s court system or operations of the Sheriff’s Department and the Fire Department. But citizens seeking building permits or marriage licenses will have to contend with the shorter week.

While the compressed week has gained the support of the majority of the county’s leaders, it has come under sharp criticism from Supervisor John K. Flynn and from the county’s single parents.

Linda Vesper, a county secretary who spoke against the plan when it came up for review by the board last month, said the delay only temporarily solves her child-care problems.

When school starts again in the fall, she said she still will have the difficult task of finding someone to care for her children before school.

“It’s a matter of getting up at 5 a.m. and getting children out of the house by 6:30 a.m. so you can be to work at 7 a.m.,” Vesper said. “People with partners will at least have some help. But I’m a single parent.”

Although the supervisors have said employees will be allowed to work fewer hours to offset the child-care problems, Vesper said she cannot afford a pay cut.

“It’s just not an option,” she said.

Flynn said he plans to urge the board on Tuesday to abandon the plan altogether. He said the $650,000 the county would save is simply not worth the inconvenience.

“I’m getting a lot of letters and phone calls from people who wonder why the county is making a major policy change on something that only saves a little bit of money,” Flynn said. “We just cannot justify it.”