School Board considers another option for janitors
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“This is just another option to consider,” said Holland. “It would leave custodians as system employees and would require cuts, but not as much as the private companies. Any way we go is not going to be a win-win situation.”
Over the past two-and-a-half months, the School Board’s Personnel Committee has been considering outsourcing the custodial services of the entire school system as a money-saving measure in the wake of the state’s budget crisis. During this time they heard proposals from 10 custodial and cleaning services.
Committee chairman Edd Cantrell said last week contracting out the services to a private firm could save the school system between $300,000 and $400,000 a year.
Should this option be taken, all current custodians would be given the opportunity to work for the private company. However, the savings to the system would come from the increased efficiency of the private firms, meaning less people would be needed to do the same job. Additional money would be saved by giving the custodians only one week’s paid vacation a year. System custodians currently receive two week’s paid vacation as well as paid holidays, personal and sick days.
Under Holland’s alternate plan, the custodians would remain system personnel, though 24 part-time (some of whom work two hours a day) and substitute positions would be eliminated. Tennessee law requires one custodian for every 21,833 square feet of building space. As the school system has 934,877 square feet of buildings, it only has to employ 41 custodians instead of the 65 now on payroll. By his estimates, these cuts would save the system approximately $218,040 in wages and supplemental payments like health insurance, FICA and Medicaid.
Another component of his proposal would require custodians to be employed for five years before they become eligible to receive such benefits as paid vacation, sick and personal days. The savings from this, Holland said, would be $39,436. Days already earned by those with less than five years would not be taken away, though they would not be able to earn more until they reached the five-year mark.
An additional $57,000 could be saved, he said, by renegotiating how much the system pays for cleaning supplies and chemicals. Holland said an addition $77,736 can be saved if 30 days in the summer are removed from the work calendar of the custodians. The savings total from all listed potential cuts is $392,212.
“This is just something else to look at,” said Holland, noting none of the figures he gave are set in stone and could be amended however the board wishes.
No action was taken at Wednesday night’s meeting other than to table further discussion until the Personnel Committee meets again at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, June 6 at the central office.