20 County Workers to Get USC Degrees

Twenty Ventura County employees will graduate today with master’s degrees in social work from USC, as part of a county program that pays for workers’ education in exchange for seven years of mandatory service.

But commencement will be bittersweet because this graduating class could be the program’s last. Faced with ever-tighter budgets, the Board of Supervisors eliminated the $126,000 annual expense last month. A proposal to revive the program at one-fourth its current size is pending.

“On one hand, it is sad,” said nurse Addie Lara, who today will become the first Filipino with a master’s in social work in Ventura County government. “On the other hand, we understand it’s tight. . . . And I would rather see money spent on programs like the Fire Department, the Sheriff’s Department and the libraries.”

The county spent $376,000 over three years to subsidize most of the tuition and book costs for 21 employees. All but one will receive degrees today at a 4 p.m. ceremony at the County Government Center.

The program was unusual because full-time employees were taught at the government center, which was equipped with a USC reference library, and because the county requires seven full years of service after graduation.

If employees leave county service before then, they must repay the $12,000 picked up by the county, county Personnel Director Ronald Komers said.

Because of a statewide shortage of social workers and high housing costs locally, the county has consistently failed to fill many of its 200 jobs that require professional social workers.

The three-year USC program has now helped the county grow its own crop of social workers, including many who speak a second language and understand the problems of the county’s fast-growing minority communities.

About 27% of the county’s population is Latino and 5% is Asian. “Social workers who are multicultural and multilingual are almost nonexistent,” Komers said.

Six of the new USC master’s graduates are Latino and Lara is a native of the Philippines. Filipino residents in the county doubled to about 13,500 during the 1980s. “Now I can say to the community, ‘Hey, there’s a social worker available to you, who understands your culture,’ ” Lara said.