Cara Latham Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — In an effort to save as much as $350,000 a year, the school board has decided to go with privatizing the custodial services at the district’ schools.
School board members have approved a two-year, $1.8 million contract with All Clean Inc., of Lawrenceville, for those services.
The school board unanimously voted Aug. 28 to hire the company after receiving four bids for the services last month. All Clean sent in the low bid of $1.8 million for two years, which is less than school officials had anticipated.
The move will save the district about $325,000 a year, Superintendent Jack Szabo said last week.
Privatization originally was estimated to save between $200,000 and $250,000 annually, if bids came in around $975,000 a year. All Clean’s services will cost about $899,500 a year, which equals $75,000 in further savings annually.
”The reason for doing this was economics, and we are anticipating that All Clean will be able to meet our needs,” Dr. Szabo said last week.
Before coming to the decision, school officials met with the custodians’ union — the Washington Township Education Association — to discuss the impact of the bids it received for the service, he said.
”We discussed that the district would be terminating the contract of the existing employees with the exception of the two (tenured employees) and that we were doing this because of economic reasons,” he said.
The average salary of a district custodian is currently $28,840 and includes a benefit package from the district and a pension from the state.
Under privatization, the district-paid benefit package and state pension dissolves unless the custodian has been employed in the district for more than 10 years. Those on staff fewer than 10 years will be offered benefits and a pension option from All Clean.
The district is retaining two custodians with more than 10 years of experience with the district, and those custodians with less than 10 years of experience have been offered positions with All Clean, Dr. Szabo said.
As of last week, he said officials believed that five of the 12 current custodians have accepted those positions. The others who don’t wish to seek employment with All Clean will be given 60 days notice with the appropriate compensation, he added.
School officials began discussing the matter in April during the budget process. Bids were sent out in July. The bid specs called for a two-year contract beginning Sept.1 with two one-year renewals.
In June, the board rehired 18 of the district’s 24 custodians to ensure there would be a custodial staff in place for the coming school year. Board Attorney Matthew Giacobbe said then that some of those not rehired had found other jobs.
Some of the remaining custodians then took other positions, bringing the number down to 12, Dr. Szabo said.
”As the Board of Education has now taken action, the association will review all options and resources available to us at this moment in time, and we will take this information and act accordingly in the best interest of our members,” said Cathie Naughton, president of the union.
She said she didn’t have information regarding how many custodians would seek employment with All Clean at this time, and declined to comment further on the matter.
The district’s former custodians were opposed to the idea of privatization, saying they felt privatization would hurt the district’s ability to ensure custodial services are done by employees who had accurate background checks.
School officials have said in the past that under privatization, all of the workers for a given company will have to undergo background checks and fingerprinting, like other school district employees.