Ventura County Child Support Office in a Bind

Dozens of Ventura County child support workers could find themselves out of a job and clients could wait longer for service if the office doesn’t receive a $3-million boost in state funding for the new fiscal year, the department’s chief said Thursday.

Stan Trom, head of the Department of Child Support Services, said he would have to lay off up to 55 workers if his office doesn’t get the extra money in the 2004-05 fiscal year, which begins July 1. The money is needed to cover increased retirement costs for the department’s 280 employees.

Because the department receives the bulk of its $20.9-million budget from the state, it is subject to the state’s budget woes. Therefore, any increase in funding is unlikely.

The department has already weathered a 5.5% cut in the current fiscal year by trimming 62 jobs through attrition, Trom said. If forced to lay off 55 workers, the department would be left with a staff of 225, he said.

“We haven’t been that low for a decade,” Trom said. “And at that time, we were collecting about $21 million.”

Last year, he said, the department, which handles about 33,000 cases a year involving more than 100,000 parents and children, took in more than $53 million.

The department’s caseworkers and lawyers help establish paternity, get court orders, locate parents and enforce payment schedules. They also make sure children receive medical insurance, Trom said.

The department has a better than 50% collection rate, higher than the state average, he said.

Even with layoffs, Trom said, the amount of money collected probably wouldn’t decrease. However, he said, “the rate of increase may go down. In 2003, our increase in collections was up over $3 million from the year before.”

And clients would find themselves waiting longer for help, he said. “We offer a very high level of service,” Trom said. “People can walk in and be seen right away. People can call us and get to a caseworker within a matter of minutes.

“There will, unfortunately, be a decline in this type of service. It’s not going to affect our expertise or the fact that we care about what we do. We’re still going to work very hard. But there are not going to be as many of us, so it’s going to take us longer to do things.”

Although revised budget predictions are due in May from the state, Trom doesn’t expect prospects to improve. In the next two to three weeks, Trom said, he planned to identify where layoffs could be made, then outline his plan to the county Board of Supervisors.

The county could decide to dip into its general fund to make up the nearly $3 million needed for retirement funding and to keep staffing levels the same, but Trom does not expect that to happen.

“The only way they could change things would be to devote county funds to it, and we all know the condition of the county,” he said. The county is facing a potential $34-million budget shortfall.