Ventura County Will Take Over Responsibility for Job Training Programs

Low-income youth and adults and this area’s laid-off workers will be counting on the Ventura County Board of Supervisors for employment help beginning Nov. 1.

That’s when the county’s job training and placement program, which for the past 10 years has been handled by the private, nonprofit Job Training Policy Council, becomes the responsibility of the county.

In a move designed to more closely link job training with countywide economic development and welfare reform programs, the Board of Supervisors in September elected to run the program through its Workforce Development Division, a newly formed part of the county’s Personnel Department.

“‘It will provide the county with a more consolidated effort under one roof,” said Tom Nikirk, a senior program analyst in the personnel department. “This is the ideal situation, as far as having a more uniform approach to meeting the needs of the county.”

The Ventura County job training program over the past three years has received an average of $13 million in annual funding through the federal Job Training Partnership Act.

The job training council trained nearly 1,400 adults in the fiscal year that ended June 30. The trainees either had low income, had been laid off or were out of work for another reason. The agency also served 900 young people in its summer youth employment program and another 442 in its year-round job skills training program.

In addition to providing its clients with such on-the-job skills as computer literacy, the council taught participants how to look for jobs, how to handle a job interview and how to keep a job once it has been landed.

Nikirk said the new Workforce Development Division will have goals similar to the job training council, but will pay more attention to meeting the needs of local employers.

“In the past, the intent of the program has been to serve low-income and dislocated workers, but we feel it’s important to also serve the employers within the market,” Nikirk said. “If we provide local employers with the labor pool they need to maintain or expand their businesses, then job opportunities will increase and labor demand will increase.”

Phil Bohan, assistant director of the program, said its funding will likely be cut by more than $3 million for the 1995-96 year, with federal plans to drop the summer youth and job skills programs. The job training council spent about $3 million annually on the summer program and as much as $1 million on job skills training.

Lea Harrington, 21, went through the job skills program beginning in August. Last week, she was hired by the Ventura County Medical Center as a phlebotomist, drawing blood in the county hospital lab.

Harrington credits the job training program for providing her with the necessary background, such as computer training and job interview techniques, to land her position.

“I had my son three days after my 18th birthday and I’ve been on welfare since I was 18. I don’t have a strong academic background--school isn’t my thing,” she said. “They got me into working at the county, with absolutely no previous job experience. There would have been no other way.”

The future of the Job Training Policy Council as a corporation is uncertain, Bohan said. But he said the council’s board of directors will serve in an advisory capacity to the county-run program, and many JTPC employees will be hired by the county to staff the program.

“JTPC will be mainly an advisory body,” Bohan said. “It will make policy recommendations, provide guidance, identify demands within the county.”

At the same time the transition is being made, the company that has contracted with JTPC to provide job training skills for youth in western Ventura County since 1990 has received the contract to serve the eastern portion of the county as well.

Oxnard-based Tomkinson & Associates recently was awarded $900,000 through next June to provide classroom instruction, work experience, internships, job placement and counseling services throughout the county. Arbor Incorporated Training Center previously covered the east county, but its contract with JTPC lasts only through December.