Quick Action Urged on Child Care : Services: Thousand Oaks Councilman Schillo calls for the city to stop studying and start acting on programs.

Thousand Oaks Councilman Frank Schillo says a city-commissioned report on child-care needs that took a year and a half to complete states the obvious, and that the city should act immediately to help provide more quality and affordable care.

High costs, inconvenient operating hours and a lack of temporary or emergency child care for sick children were among the chief concerns expressed by the 868 respondents to the survey.

The city retained Child Care Planning Consultants of Irvine in February, 1992, to determine if child-care needs in central Thousand Oaks were being adequately met. The city also wanted to know whether there was justification for some city assistance to help lower costs. The $21,000 study was paid for with federal grant money.

The City Council at its meeting on Tuesday will discuss the findings and decide whether to approve the second half of the study, which would offer recommendations for the types of services that could be provided with city support.

But Schillo said the city should stop studying and start taking steps to help reduce the cost of child care--the main concern expressed by those surveyed.

Schillo suggested that the city use federal grant money to help child-care providers acquire space in the central area of the city, particularly along Thousand Oaks Boulevard.

“I would like to see something started right now,” he said. “We need to get going on this. It’s way overdue in terms of the need.”

Schillo said he found no major surprises in the consultant’s report, and he was critical of the time it took to complete. The report was actually finished in September, but because of other business the council is only now able to review it.

Officials at Child Care Planning Consultants could not be reached for comment Friday.

Those surveyed for the report included 186 randomly selected residents and 682 city and private business employees. Two-thirds of the surveyed parents who have children under 13 said they now use child care.

“I was a professional working woman before the birth of my two children,” one woman wrote. “I now only work two days because child care--good child care, that is--is so expensive that it would be ridiculous for me to work full-time just to pay for it.”

“I’m having a difficult time finding child care,” another respondent wrote. “The schools that still have child care (programs) have no room for new students. I’ve tried.”

The consultant found that one in four of those surveyed had particular difficulty finding care for children under 2, and about half had problems finding temporary or emergency care. More than half of those interviewed said finding child care for sick children was especially difficult.

The report recommended that the city support cooperative relationships among businesses, child-care providers, educational institutions and public and private organizations to develop more child-care services. The consultant also advised that the city form a task force to find ways to help raise the quality of care while reducing costs.

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Geri Haili, president of the Conejo Valley Day Care Assn., said there is a great need for more home care centers as opposed to commercial centers, which tend to be more expensive and less personal.

She said her organization helps recruit, educate and train child-care providers and would welcome any support it could get from the city.

As for the cost of service, Haili--who takes care of six youngsters at about $100 each per week--said she is not sure what can be done to bring those costs down.

“People are always complaining about child-care costs being too expensive,” she said. “That’s a bunch of malarkey. It’s a hard job. Not just anybody can do this.”