Tonight will be the third meeting the board has reviewed the proposal to terminate most of the district’s custodians.
Chief Operating Officer, Andreu DeGraw had told the board the district is spending about $9 million now on cleaning, and would contract a janitorial service for about $6 million.
“Think about staff cuts that we will look at and staff cuts that we will be forced to look at to fill that 6 million gap. 9 million if we don't choose to contract custodial. I guarantee there will be direct classroom cuts to our school district.”
Last year the district lost 32 teaching jobs and closed a Ben Eielson Jr./Sr. High School. Declining enrollment and flat state funding has left the district with expenses $16 million more than expected revenue. To close that gap, the district administration is considering the consolidation and closure of five schools.
DeGraw says the administrative team has drawn up a scope of work that is more people cleaning more schools more often than what the district’s employees are doing now. That’s the scope the district would ask contractors to promise.
“We’re acquiring significant amount of savings, at the same time we're preserving and expanding the services the schools are receiving,” DeGraw said.
DeGraw spoke at a worksession last week.
As an example of how a janitorial contract would work, the board heard from a team of executives from Anchorage and out-of-state .. from ABM, or the Alaska branch of Building Maintenance and Facility Services, a national company. The company has been the janitorial contractor for University of Alaska Fairbanks and Fort Wainwright.
Myron Luckenbach, ABM senior vice president of operations, says it would be ABM’s intention to hire all Fairbanks North Star Borough School District’s custodians.
“In y'all's case, when you have an in-house conversion, we're figuring about 80 percent of those people will come over to us. Our desire is to have 100%. Anybody that wants to come and can pass the background is willing to come at their current pay rate, okay? We will not cut any of the existing pay rates when we bring them over.”
Luckenbach said he has researched the district and the board worksessions and wanted to correct misinformation.
“I’ve already read some of the things that are out there. I've watched a lot of video of y'all. There's a lot of stuff out there that's not accurate. And it seems like to me, it's a perception that they don't have jobs. They all have jobs if they want to be here.”
But some board members, like Meredith Maple, had questions for the potential contractors.
“How do you presume to be able to maintain the pay rates that our custodians that would come over to ABM? Just looking at positions you have advertised in the community right now, they seem to be on average lower than what we're paying at the district?” Maple asked.
“Well, I will match everything that they make because I want that industry knowledge. What we'll have to do is find efficiencies to offset some of that if we need to. And that's what I'm saying for the existing staff that's here. We're not going to be bringing in new people at that same rate," Luckenbach said.
School board members asked about new hiring the company might make, the benefits offered to the workers, and if current district custodians would have their public employee retirement disrupted by being dropped from the district payroll. Member Morgan Dulian asked about overcoming hiring gaps.
“I'm looking at the numbers and assuming that you have an 80 percent come over rate from our staff and our vacancies are greatest in evening custodial. But how are you going to fill a 30 percent gap in a workforce that already has help wanted signs on every single door. I just don't see how that's squaring out, ” Dulian said.
“So I can't answer all of those, and I, I feel, um, that I'm not giving you more concrete information,” Jones said.
Leslee Jones, AMB vice president of education sales said there are career growth opportunities beyond janitorial jobs in her company.
“But I can tell you that we have no vacancies at UAF. And I can tell you that we have a plethora of applications that have already come in for the locations, um, that we're doing a temporary contract with.”
Terminating the janitors and contracting out the service is only the first step the board might take to cut into the deficit. In January, Superintendent Luke Meinert will release a list of five schools he is recommending for consolidation and closure.
The board meeting begins tonight (Tuesday) at 6:00 p.m.
