County OKs Creation of Child-Care Panel : Supervisors: The group will draft priorities to help the state decide how to allocate federal funds to area programs.

A Ventura County child-care council will be formed to establish countywide spending priorities for money provided by the nation’s first program to help working families care for their children, the Board of Supervisors decided Tuesday.

The ground-breaking legislation adopted by the federal government last year will provide Ventura County child-care providers with about $1.5 million in grants annually. The grant money is to be spent on child care for low-income families and for families with two working parents.

At the recommendation of Supervisors Vicky Howard and Susan Lacey, the supervisors voted unanimously to form the council, which will include representatives of schools, parents’ groups, employers’ organizations and county child-care agencies.

The council’s job will be to draft a list of child-care priorities to help state officials decide how to allocate the federal money to programs in Ventura County. The priority plan must be submitted to the state Department of Education by Aug. 28.

The supervisors’ action makes Ventura County one of the first counties in California to take the initial step of forming a council so the county can receive the federal money, county officials said.

A spokeswoman for the County Supervisors Assn. of California said many large counties, such as Los Angeles and San Diego, have said they will form such councils but so far have not done so. Only a few California counties have taken such action.

“Ventura County is not the leader, but it’s among the early ones to get started,” Judie Fertig, a spokeswoman for the association, said.

The California Assembly is considering a bill by Jackie Speier (D-South San Francisco) that would require each county to form a council to set priorities for spending the federal money.

“We just decided we couldn’t wait any longer,” Lacey said.

The first meeting of the council is scheduled for June 19 at Ventura City Hall.

The federal legislation sets aside about $110 million for child-care programs statewide for 12 months beginning in July.

The money will be split among the 58 counties based on a formula that takes into account population, the number of families receiving welfare benefits and the amount of state money already provided in each county.

The federal money can be used for an array of child-care services provided by schools, churches or private day-care providers. The money also can be used to improve programs by strengthening regulations and increasing teachers’ salaries.

Once the child-care council drafts its list of priorities, public and private child-care providers can apply for the federal money through the state Department of Education, which will allocate the money based on county priorities.

Jane Goldschmidt, executive director of the Boys & Girls Club of Ventura, said the federal money is desperately needed.

The money could be used to pay for much-needed transportation to bring children to and from child-care facilities, she said. Or, she said, it could help subsidize infant day care, which is usually more expensive than other child care because it requires a higher ratio of day-care workers to children.

But in general, Goldschmidt said Ventura County lacks enough child care for lower-income families.

“What is lacking is affordable child care, especially in Ventura County, where the cost of living is very high,” she said.

For example, five weeks ago her group opened a new child-care center on Johnson Drive in Ventura with a capacity for 35 children, she said. The program already has a waiting list of 28, she said.

Julie Irving, a spokeswoman for Child Development Resources of Ventura County, a private nonprofit group in Oxnard, agreed.

“I think there is a great need to increase child care throughout the county,” she said.

Her program, which provides day care and referral services, accommodates 350 children and is funded by the state, she said. The program has a waiting list with about 1,000 names, she said.

If parents cannot afford day care or are stuck on a waiting list, they usually find a family member to take care of the child, or one of the parents will quit working to care for the child, she said. If the family has only one working parent, the parent sometimes will quit work and go on welfare rolls so that he or she can stay at home and care for the child, Irving said.