Board Pushes Takeover of Job-Training Policy Agency : Employment: Because of potential liability, the county wants to begin administering the council’s grants next month.

Ventura County supervisors are moving to take immediate control of a local job-training agency plagued by problems in recent years, rather than delaying action until next year.

The county wants to take charge of the Job Training Policy Council, which oversees millions of dollars a year in federal grants, because of a new law that makes the county liable for misspent money, officials said.

“We have the liability without having the responsibility to administer programs,” said Ron Komers, county personnel director, who has been selected to coordinate the transition. “That doesn’t make sense to us.”

The supervisors agreed in March to begin administering federal JTPC grants next month and to start direct monitoring of the council’s job contracts by July, 1996.

But Komers said the county now wants to assume all operational responsibilities by Oct. 31. He said this will put the county in a better position to deal with proposed state and federal legislation that calls for consolidating welfare and job-training programs to trim costs.

The supervisors will consider approving the proposal at their meeting Tuesday.

“We want to get the maximum [federal] dollars for Ventura County,” Komers said. “If we’re not active, those dollars that come here may go somewhere else.”

Supervisor John K. Flynn, who proposed the takeover, said the move would also help economic development efforts by bringing together businesses and welfare recipients in need of jobs.

“We want to create a welfare reform program that will get people real jobs,” the Oxnard resident said. “I want to help people, in my district especially, . . . to become part of mainstream society and have a better quality of life.”

Flynn and Supervisor Frank Schillo have called a press conference today to discuss their proposals for reorganizing the county’s welfare system.

Meanwhile, the JTPC takeover has yet to be approved by the council’s 19-member board. Representatives of the council did not return calls Thursday. Approval by the jobs council is needed for the transition.

Komers said the council is scheduled to consider the county’s proposal June 27. He said if the council declines to cooperate with the county, then state officials would intervene.

Both Flynn and Komers said the county’s takeover has nothing to do with past problems of the jobs council, but is meant only to protect the county against legal action.

“We’re responsible for protecting the citizens’ tax dollars,” Komers said.

The JTPC spends about $11 million in federal grants each year to train low-income people throughout the county. At monthly meetings, the council awards federal contracts to schools, cities and private agencies that promise to put people to work.

In August, 1993, the U. S. Labor Department found that the council’s former executive director, John Chase, had improperly spent at least $500,000 during the 1980s. Chase was fired by the department in 1990.

The Labor Department, however, settled the case last month after concluding that only about $1,200 in federal money was misspent.

In a separate matter, the state Employment Development Department is conducting an investigation into complaints that JTPC has favored friends and associates in awarding job contracts.