School board set to vote on building maintenance bids Tuesday
By: John Saccenti – Staff Writer
In a bid to save jobs, members of West Windsor-Plainsboro’s Service and Foreman’s associations are proposing a plan they say could save the district between $2.136 million and $2.666 million.
Curtis Meissner, president of the Foreman’s Association, met with the school board Tuesday and with the public on Wednesday to respond to a report by Edvocate, which says the district pays approximately $1.5 million more than other districts to run its Buildings and Maintenance Department.
On Tuesday, the school board will vote on whether to accept bids to outsource the department. If accepted, buildings and grounds work would be outsourced to the lowest bidder and the staff of approximately 120 employees would be laid off.
Bids received by the district include the low bidder, Aramark, which bid $4.611 million for one year and $4.611 million to provide the service for two years; All Clean, which bid $4.736 million for one year and $4.827 million for two years; GCA, which bid $5.475 for one year and $5.558 million for two years; and Pritchard, which bid $5.718 million for one year and $5.820 million for two.
However, Mr. Meissner said restructuring the department would provide the long term, sustainable savings the board is looking for, as well as top level service by employees who know and love their work.
The proposal calls for three fewer foremen for a savings of $255,000, four fewer maintenance personnel for a savings of $240,000; a $100,000 savings by having HVAC and other mechanical work done in-house; $30,000 from a new grass cutter’s salary; $10,000 for a new coordinator for custodial services and more.
Mr. Meissner also said that outsourcing would mean higher than expected costs because some services such as HVAC, plumbing and electrical work would have to be "outsourced" yet again.
In addition, the district would lose control over who is entering and working in its buildings and it would be difficult to remove "troubled" employees, since an outside vendor would be in charge of staffing, he said. Many of those employees would be in possession of master keys. He said bids received by the district include a provision that vendors do not have to notify a district of a change in staff for at least 24 hours.
"You can have someone in here working for 24 hours without the district knowing there has been a change," he said. "That’s 24 hours when you have no idea who that person is."
He also said outsourced staff would not clean the rooms or carpets daily, as they are now and would not clean lunch tables as frequently, opening up opportunities for germs to thrive and endangering those with asthma or peanut allergies.
According to the proposed changes, the district would have one buildings and grounds director, one coordinator for custodial services and one assistant director for maintenance and foremen. In addition, changing the lunch shift from11 a.m. to 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. at all schools would allow the district to cut two maintenance personnel.
There would be one foreman for Wicoff and Town Center, and one for Village Road and Dutch Neck schools where there currently is one per school. The plan calls for one maintenance foreman to cover Maurice Hawk School. It also calls for a heating ventilation and air conditioning expert and electrician to be on staff with a crew of three maintenance personnel. The district would have one mechanic and two maintenance personnel for all grounds issues.
Mr. Meissner also is proposing to centralize the purchasing of supplies to allow for discounted bulk buying. The district also would have a staff of three grass cutters to cut all large field areas at all buildings. Those workers would assist Grounds and Maintenance personnel when not engaged in grass cutting.
School board President Hemant Marathe said district administrators are analyzing the proposal and that any savings in the Building and Maintenance Department would have to be more than a one-year fix.
"The proposal has to save at least as much as the lowest bid that we would receive. If it doesn’t we would have to find savings in other cuts and we are running out of things to cut at this point," he said.
Mr. Meissner’s report also listed a variety of things that current buildings and grounds workers do that bid proposals say will not be done. Among those things are most HVAC and mechanical work and troubleshooting, plumbing work that doesn’t include repairing and replacing faucets, drinking fountains and lavatory hardware, and unclogging urinals, all electrical work other than replacing light bulbs, repairing playground equipment roof repair, fire safety system work, daily carpet vacuuming weekend custodians and more. jsaccenti @centraljersey.com.