School Custodians

[WatchinU]

I believe this is an area where huge cost savings could be realized. School custodians are notorious for the wages they make in exchange for the very simple and limited work they do. One custodian I know told me that he actually works about 1 1/2 hours a day. They have little or no supervision, and they cover for each other. They regularly leave the building for extended periods of time during their shifts. I've always been amazed that these positions seem to be "untouchable". This is clearly an ideal opportunity to eliminate these jobs and put the school custodial work out to bid to private companies that can better manage their employees.

I've read where hundreds of school districts thoughout the country have outsourced their custodial services. Has Fall River even looked at alternatives?

http://www.aramarkschools.com/facilities/services.php

[justsumoldguy]

I believe this is an area where huge cost savings could be realized. School custodians are notorious for the wages they make in exchange for the very simple and limited work they do. One custodian I know told me that he actually works about 1 1/2 hours a day. They have little or no supervision, and they cover for each other. They regularly leave the building for extended periods of time during their shifts. I've always been amazed that these positions seem to be "untouchable". This is clearly an ideal opportunity to eliminate these jobs and put the school custodial work out to bid to private companies that can better manage their employees.

I've read where hundreds of school districts thoughout the country have outsourced their custodial services. Has Fall River even looked at alternatives?

http://www.aramarkschools.com/facilities/services.php

I just got to read your post. Do you have any children in the FR school system? How come I think you don't.

So you want to place possible ex-felons, drug dealers and possible pedophiles along with illegals inside our schools in close contact with our children. Who will pay to get all the contractors employees vetted before they are allowed to work inside our school system? ranted many of their employees are good dedent people but ex-felons, pedos and illegals work for less $$$ than honest people will that's why small contracotrs use them. And that's why it hasn't stopped.
And you do not control the level of service you get and there is no long term cost savings by contracting out. The Feds started that years ago and have since cut way back on the practice.

What needs to be done is the the layers of management are now ridiculous. My friend worked the FR school system for three decades. They had a bunch of schools, more children, less staff and many more janitors than they do now.

There was three levels of management above him. When he left there were less schools, that were easier to clean, less students (but many more teachers and para-professionals :rolleyes:) and there was five levels of management above him.

THAT is the biggest problem, too many 'chiefs'! Get management down to the bare necessity and then look at who is actually doing work. Just look at the mayor's office staff. He has six figure types tripping all over themselves and no one makes a whimper. His office alone costs the taxpayers better than $800,000. That $800,000 can pay a whole bunch of janitors!

[WatchinU]

So you want to place possible ex-felons, drug dealers and possible pedophiles along with illegals inside our schools in close contact with our children. Who will pay to get all the contractors employees vetted before they are allowed to work inside our school system? And you do not control the level of service you get and there is no long term cost savings by contracting out. The Feds started that years ago and have since cut way back on the practice.


Don't you think that the contractors know that it's in their best interest to scrutinuze employees to prevent any incidents? Who do you think provides airport security and has kept our planes safe since 9/11 ? TSA contract employees.
"and private screeners performed at a level that was equal to or greater than that of federal TSOs" From the TSA report.

Any contract that was awarded to a contractor can include specific guidelines regarding employee qualifications. In my opinion the " felons and drug dealer" argument is just nonsense.

[justsumoldguy]

Don't you think that the contractors know that it's in their best interest to scrutinuze employees to prevent any incidents? Who do you think provides airport security and has kept our planes safe since 9/11 ? TSA contract employees.
"and private screeners performed at a level that was equal to or greater than that of federal TSOs" From the TSA report.

Any contract that was awarded to a contractor can include specific guidelines regarding employee qualifications. In my opinion the " felons and drug dealer" argument is just nonsense.

So you are saying that you believe that janitors for a local cleaning company will have their entire life's background scrutinized as thoroughly as the TSA employees?!?

If you do, I have a building I 'own' that spans 195, and I'll sell it to you real cheap!

[WatchinU]

So you are saying that you believe that janitors for a local cleaning company will have their entire life's background scrutinized as thoroughly as the TSA employees?!?

If you do, I have a building I 'own' that spans 195, and I'll sell it to you real cheap!


The janitors are political hack hires that work for the Buildings & Grounds dept. Are you telling me that Buildings & Grounds scrutinize the entire lives of janitors that they are told to hire by the mayor's office? If you are, I have a big green rusty bridge to sell you, real cheap. You can have the pidgeons for free. :D

[justsumoldguy]

The janitors are political hack hires that work for the Buildings & Grounds dept. Are you telling me that Buildings & Grounds scrutinize the entire lives of janitors that they are told to hire by the mayor's office? If you are, I have a big green rusty bridge to sell you, real cheap. You can have the pidgeons for free. :D

They'll do a much more thorough background check than any private contractor who hires entry level workers will do because he won't do one! He will hire 'direct labor' so he has no payroll taxes, no fica no futa and no insurance to worry about. He pays by check and then 'cashes' those check for his 'direct labor hires' and takes half of it back. The money goes back to him or under the table and never gets taxed also.

What's your angle? Do you have a company that cleans and you got a bunch of illegals working for you? It sure sounds like it.

FWIW I have had to deal with contract employees in a former work place, (Gov't job). It was a horror show. Every time a question got asked, out came the contract, which always seemed to favor the contractor....oddly enough. So now to get someting done right, it had to be done twice. Once by the contractor and then again by an employee, which broke federal laws b y the way. There is no cost savings in that trust me. And the practice ended soon enough.

[WatchinU]

http://www.sodexousa.com/ $8 BILLION annual sales

http://www.aramark.com/Industries/SchoolDistricts/ $16 BILLION Anual sales

justsumoldguy,
With all due respect, you may need to educate yourself about the companies that provide municiple and collegiate facility services. These are not some local cleaing guy with a van. I doubt that these public stock exchange traded companies that provide services to school districts and major college's in every country, will be cashing their employees checks and collecting kickbacks. They also provide food and facility maintainence to government military bases all over the world. I think that they can probably handle the Fall River School department buildings without too much challenge.

The 2 providers above have annual sales of about $24 billion dollars. I think they probably have HR departments that can conduct adequate background checks. If it gets too difficult, I'm sure a city hall secretary can bail them out.:rolleyes:

As far as you past experience with government contractors and them "pulling out" the contract when there was an issue. What else would you go by other than the contract? It dictates the behavior by both parties. If it "always seemed to favor the contractor" than obviously you were asking them to perform a service that they were not hired or getting paid for. You as the purchaser had the right to specify what you wanted in your contract, or not award the contract at all.

[justsumoldguy]

http://www.sodexousa.com/ $8 BILLION annual sales

http://www.aramark.com/Industries/SchoolDistricts/ $16 BILLION Anual sales

justsumoldguy,
With all due respect, you may need to educate yourself about the companies that provide municiple and collegiate facility services. These are not some local cleaing guy with a van. I doubt that these public stock exchange traded companies that provide services to school districts and major college's in every country, will be cashing their employees checks and collecting kickbacks. They also provide food and facility maintainence to government military bases all over the world. I think that they can probably handle the Fall River School department buildings without too much challenge.

The 2 providers above have annual sales of about $24 billion dollars. I think they probably have HR departments that can conduct adequate background checks. If it gets too difficult, I'm sure a city hall secretary can bail them out.:rolleyes:

As far as you past experience with government contractors and them "pulling out" the contract when there was an issue. What else would you go by other than the contract? It dictates the behavior by both parties. If it "always seemed to favor the contractor" than obviously you were asking them to perform a service that they were not hired or getting paid for. You as the purchaser had the right to specify what you wanted in your contract, or not award the contract at all.

If the playing field for bidding on these contracts was fair I would not have any complaints, but it never is when employees are pitted against these so called 'contractors' when they have to bid against the contractors.

The Pentagon got rid of all their janitors back in the 80's EXCEPT in the public areas. There was one gentleman there that never got his trash emptied nor his carpet vacuumed. Do you know why? Because when the contract was written up his room number was not on the list of rooms to do!

Do you know what he was told to do? That's right do it himself. He told them I don't think so and he just let it pile up outside his door where it stayed for months. The janitor said his super said that room is not on the list soo, no trash gets picked up from that room ...no matter where it ends up!

Then if a hallway window was left open and cherry blossoms, leaves, or newspaper bits were blown into the building they stayed where they landed. The contractor stated I don't pick that up it's not in the contract! I talked to many military officer that would tell you endless stories about the horrors of having these 'contractors' doing anything for them.

The problem is even worst with these large 'service' companies. They get people elected to high office.

That is why the Military doesn't even feed themselves anymore or supply their own fuel. They get it from the contractor who seems to get caught quite often clipping the Gov't for billions of dollars, (Halyburton for one on several occasions) and does not get punished for these infractions that cost us billions.

Blackwater is a private company full of military misfits, ex-cons and Rambo wanabees that now are hired guns to protect gov't and military officials. Why not use active duty military for these tasks. BECAUSE they didn't get the good senators/congressmen elected.... that's why. There is no savings but there is plenty of tax dollars being wasted.

I'll give you another simple example of bias avoring contractors. Grass cutting on a local military base in the 80's.

The gov't labor shop had to bid on the contract for a grass cutting. Every time the grass got to a certain length it had to be cut. They actualy had an ensign go check the frass for length with a ruler. The grass must be picked up also. Some weeks that meant two cuttings.

All shrubbery throughout the base open areas was to be kept trim and neat again picking up all materials dropped to the ground.

Empty garages were strewn all about this base which was large but the gov't employees could not use these empty buildings for storage of the large grounds equpiment. It had to be hauled some distance in many instances, every day back to one specific place. That was how the gov't labor shop had to bid the contract and there was much more inequities than just these few I mentioned.

The contractor bid against us and won, naturally. And I had to seek employement elsewhere there or I was going out the door.

His bid was for ten cuts, maximum, a season, at a time of his choosing if he felt the grass was long enough in his opinion. So every time he cut the grass he just scalped the lawns so they would burn. He does no shrubbery, does no pickup of clippings and gets to use ANY empty storage facility the gov't is not using for storage.

THEN when the brass saw the grounds on this base turn to shit guess who they called?!? The laborers shop! But my boss was no dummy. The day we were notified that we no longer had the grounds to take care of he immediately DX'd all of our grounds equipment, expecting the phone to start ringing off the hook quite soon, which it did.

The very same high brass who rigged the bid in favor of the contractor or was so stupid that they could not know what the contract should stipulate now wanted us to continue doing the work anyway!

He told the navy brass that even if he was allocated unlimited funds he could not buy any grounds equipment or do the work because it is against federal law to pay twice for the same work. Then he suggest that they use active duty personnell to clean up after the contractor. That didn't go over too well trust me.
The same would happen in FR if these multi million dollar outfits bid on any position currently filled by long term employees.

[WatchinU]

I think we have to agree to disagree on this one, since we're both pretty well dug in on our positions. A lot of good points though. :)