Official Returns $290 in Baby-Sitting Costs

Under fire for billing the Ventura County Area Housing Authority for child-care expenses, housing commissioner Sharon Pfeifer on Monday returned the $290 she was reimbursed for hiring a baby sitter to watch her children while she attended board meetings.

Pfeifer, appointed in April to represent Camarillo on the 15-member board, had billed the agency $10 an hour for baby-sitting services, listing the brokerage company she and her husband operate as the provider.

But after a storm of protests, Pfeifer said Monday it was premature to collect that money without having a local policy in place approving such expenditures.

“Even though it’s perfectly legal, I wanted to wait until we adopted some policies and procedures on this issue,” said Pfeifer, who handed over a $290 check along with a letter of explanation to Housing Authority officials.

“Whether we ever do that, who knows?” she said. “But I just wanted to make sure I felt comfortable about it.”

According to agency records, Pfeifer billed the agency for baby-sitting services for her two children while she attended meetings in August, September and October.

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Although the bill she submitted said her family-owned finance company, Regency Brokerage, provided the child care, Pfeifer said she paid someone to watch her kids in her home, which doubles as an office. She recently said that reports that it was her husband who was paid for the child care were “absolutely ridiculous.”

Pfeifer said the reimbursement went to the brokerage because payment for the baby-sitting came from the company.

She said she billed for child care only after discovering that she was putting in 20 hours a month on agency business for a position advertised as requiring two hours a month.

And Pfeifer said she did so only after clearing it with the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Nevertheless, affordable housing advocates and some elected officials were outraged by the move, saying that even if child care was a legitimate expense it should not be paid at this time of shrinking budgets and a growing housing need. HUD officials said Monday they have not completed a review of the situation.

Pfeifer said she hopes the issue will now be put to rest.

“It’s become such a mess,” she said. “Not ever being appointed to a position, I never thought this backlash could happen to me. We’re just going to leave it alone and concentrate on the good things we’re trying to do.”

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The baby-sitting controversy is one of several issues that has plagued the Housing Authority, which owns 350 units of public housing from Thousand Oaks to Ojai while administering a federal rent subsidy program that encompasses 2,800 units.

In recent months, the agency’s executive committee has voted to double board members’ pay for showing up for committee meetings, from $25 to $50. Board members also started buying dinner for themselves at monthly board meetings, including a $210 lasagna dinner in October.

Housing Authority attorney Dave Cunningham--with Ventura-based Ferguson, Case, Orr, Paterson & Cunningham--said he believes Pfeifer’s action will help get the agency back on track.

“This is a good-faith effort on her part to resolve what is a somewhat sticky situation,” he said.

“She is putting the good of the Housing Authority ahead of her own monetary gain. And I think she’s trying to take the heat off of the agency, letting it get back to the business of providing housing for the poor.”