Disabled Get Jobs Cleaning Polling Booths : Labor: Workers with mental disorders are also inspecting the balloting machines under a contract with Ventura County.

Mentally disabled workers are helping prepare for November’s election by cleaning polling booths and inspecting balloting machines--a jobs breakthrough that advocates hope could lead to more county contracts in the future.

The Ventura County elections office has contracted with ARC-Ventura County for disabled workers to wipe smudges and dirt from 4,000 polling booths and to make sure ballot punch machines are working properly, said Alisa Mahrer, who heads up the jobs program for ARC-Ventura County.

It is the first time that ARC has subcontracted its workers for jobs in county government, Mahrer said. She hopes it will open the door to more county jobs for the mentally disabled.

“I would love to see our workers used more often by county government,” Mahrer said. “The possibilities are wonderful.”

Sheila Mahon is among four adults who work in the election office’s warehouse Monday through Thursday from 8:30 to 2:30 wiping grime from polling booths and reboxing them.

The work is repetitive, but Mahon said she is glad to have it. She saves every penny she makes in a bank account, Mahon said.

“I want to go to Disneyland,” said Mahon, 40, who lives with her parents in Ojai. “I’ve never been there.”

Andre Dunbar, 22, of Santa Barbara said he, too, is grateful for the work.

“It gets boring at home watching TV all day,” Dunbar said. “I used to do that for two years, but then I got the hang of working.”

Maintenance on the polling booths and ballot machines is routinely done after each election, said Georgia Dennehy, an elections department supervisor. It traditionally has been farmed out on contract to warehouse workers, she said.

But after a friend told her about ARC’s work program, Dennehy decided to check it out. After talking to ARC officials and touring its Ventura assembly plant, Dennehy and elections chief Bruce Bradley decided to award the contract to ARC workers.

Altruism was not their only motive, Dennehy said. The county also saved money: Contract warehouse workers are individually paid $7.68 per hour, but ARC agreed to supply workers at $6.35 an hour and make the deal even sweeter by only charging the county for two workers, instead of the four actually assigned to the cleaning job.

The theory behind that agreement was that the disabled workers’ productivity may not be as high as a worker who has no disabilities, Mahrer said. She said the workers themselves do not suffer from the arrangement because ARC reimburses them to make sure they receive a minimum wage of about $5 per hour.

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But warehouse supervisor Danny Lopez said he is impressed by what he’s seen so far. The ARC workers started on July 18 and are scheduled to finish the job by the end of August.

“I’ve had good workers in the past,” said Lopez, who has run the warehouse for five years. “But the people from ARC are very concentrated on the task at hand. They are very efficient.”

Bradley agreed, calling the workers the “Forrest Gump Brigade.”

“Their ability to concentrate is like his,” said Bradley, referring to the fictional movie hero who overcomes mental slowness to live a life of success and achievement.

“These guys just don’t goof off,” he said.

Mahrer said ARC teaches the disabled how to perform simple tasks at five ARC-owned job sites spread throughout Ventura County. Then the group tries to match a person’s abilities with the job requests it receives from 38 employers countywide.

ARC workers find short-term and permanent jobs at grocery stores, flower shops, pet stores and clerical offices. But until this year, the 40-year-old agency had never placed workers in a county government job, she said.

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Mahrer said she hopes the success of the workers in the elections division will spur other county department heads to hire workers, either directly or through a subcontract with ARC.

ARC usually supplies a “job coach” to supervise the disabled employee’s work, she said.

But some workers become so good at their job that the coach is no longer necessary, she said.

ARC serves about 300 developmentally disabled adults in Ventura County. Most of them suffer from mental disorders that occur at birth, such as Down’s syndrome, cerebral palsy and mental retardation, she said.

ARC’s ultimate goal is to encourage independence in disabled people and help them find permanent jobs, she said. Other county jobs that ARC workers could do include stuffing and labeling envelopes, stocking equipment and performing janitorial work, she said.

“I truly believe there is a job out there for everyone,” Mahrer said. “But it has to be the right job for the right person.”