Ventura County school officials began advertising this week to recruit the next county superintendent, requiring all applications be submitted online, where they will not be subject to any immediate public review.

The Ventura County Board of Education signed off on a list of candidate qualifications and a job posting at a meeting Monday — Charles Weis' last official day as county superintendent. After 15 years, Weis has taken a job as Santa Clara County superintendent, and county trustees plan to appoint a successor to serve until his term ends in 2010 and an election is held.

Candidates will be told that their applications "will be held in strict confidence," according to recruitment information approved Monday. Applications will be submitted online at http://www.edjoin.org, and two trustees appointed to a screening subcommittee will have access to the password-protected site. Trustees Marty Bates and Mary Louise Peterson have said they intend to forward all qualified candidates to the board as a whole, at which point their names, and possibly other information, would be made public.

"I think because of the reputation of the Ventura County Office of Education, which is very good, you can expect there to be a lot of interest," said Glen Thomas, a Sacramento consultant hired by the county board to help with the selection process.

Thomas, former executive director of the California County Superintendents Educational Services Association, said Monday he had already started to receive phone calls from potential candidates. Applications must be turned in by 4 p.m. July 31, and a final decision is expected by late August.

More information, including a full list of qualifications and application requirements, is expected to be available today at http://www.edjoin.org.

In other board business, trustees voted in favor of renewing contracts with its state and federal lobbyists Monday.

The county board has contracted with Capital Venture of Sacramento and Anchor Consulting of Alexandria, Va., since April 2007. Those contracts cost about $288,000 through June 30, when they were set to expire.

At Monday's meeting, however, trustees voted 3-1 in favor of entering into new contracts, at reduced rates, with the lobbyists. Anchor had agreed to drop its price by 10 percent, to about $9,000 monthly, Trustee Dean Kunicki told the board. He still is discussing prices with Capital Venture, which charged $10,000 a month this past year.

Peterson, who has criticized the expense for the past year, cast the dissenting vote, saying she has asked several times for proof of how the lobbying has helped the county and has yet to receive any.

Kunicki, one of two trustees on a subcommittee working with the lobbyists, read through two reports Monday written by the companies, outlining their efforts over the past year.

Included in the report, Sacramento lobbyists wrote that they had put trustees in touch with officials in private businesses such as Wal-Mart, which could potentially help support local programs in the future, and had formed alliances in reform efforts for vocational education funding, a long-standing issue in the county. In Washington, lobbyists listed potential earmarks for the county office and said that while it would have preferred to achieve "funding success" this past year, "we believe we have established a firm foundation that promises to yield substantial future returns."

Board President Chris Valenzano said he supported the agreements because he didn't want to thwart efforts that could be close to fruition, including federal appropriations legislation that could provide as much as $3 million for the county office to develop a pilot preschool program geared for children of U.S. military service members.

Valenzano, a member of the Air National Guard, has pushed for the program to be developed locally. But if that initiative doesn't move forward shortly, Valenzano said he likely would reconsider his decision regarding the federal lobbyist.

Both agreements can be terminated, with notice, throughout the year, he said.