Members of the WW-P Foreman and Service associations have come up with a proposal they claim can save the district between $2.13 million and $2.67 million — more than the $1.5 million the school district says it needs to save — as well as the jobs of the in-house buildings and grounds employees.
The plan, an eleventh-hour effort to keep the district from outsourcing the work to a private company, proposes a reorganization of the buildings and grounds department.
It was presented publicly in a two-hour detailed PowerPoint presentation to a crowd of about 75 people, mostly union employees, on April 21 at the Grover Middle School auditorium. The presentation came a day after the unions presented the plan to the school board in closed session.
Union members hope to dissuade the school board from voting on Tuesday, April 27, to approve one of four companies that have submitted bids to provide the service for the school district, virtually ending the group’s seven-month campaign to salvage the jobs for its projected 120 in-house custodians and maintenance employees (the school district claims there are only 104 employees that will be affected should privatization move forward).
“They’re still very much at risk,” said Susan Nardi, the New Jersey Education Association field representative assigned by the state union to help the buildings and grounds unions. She explained that when the school board approved a contract with the WW-P Service Association last month, it damaged the cause because residents thought the battle was over and the in-house employees were saved.
School board president Hemant Marathe said the board’s finance committee would be meeting on Sunday, April 25, to review the proposal. One of the factors that will come into play is whether the plan can continue to provide the savings after the upcoming school year.
“If we find the study doesn’t provide the sustained savings we are looking for, then we will go ahead and vote as scheduled,” Marathe said. “If we do find it is something to work with, the board will decide what the next step of action is.”
“We are not looking for a one-time gimmick,” Marathe added.
Nardi and Curtis Meissner, the president of the WW-P Foreman’s Association, laid out the detailed plan to the audience in which the union also pointed out its perceived flaws with the Edvocate assessment as well as the invitation sent out to bidders. Edvocate, the private consultant hired by the district to study the issue, recommended a move to privatization. In that case, Edvocate would be hired by the district to oversee the services of the private company.
The union also looked at the bids — focusing on low-bidder Aramark, which is the most likely to be awarded a contract if the district moves toward privatization. They compared the services that would be provided by Aramark to those currently offered in-house.
The unions’ proposal includes re-arranging shifts, cutting three foreman positions and four maintenance personnel, implementing zero salary increases for the next two years, consolidating the HVAC and electrician employees, and changing the work week for some employees.
The re-organization calls for one director of buildings and grounds, one coordinator for custodial services, which would have a work shift of 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., and one assistant director for maintenance and foremen.
In the elementary and middle schools, the plan proposes changing the lunch shift, currently from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., to a new time of 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. The day maintenance person — or what is equivalent to the job of the day maintenance person at Millstone River elementary and both middle schools — would be removed. One foreman would be removed from Wicoff, and there would only be one foreman to cover both Wicoff and Town Center. One foreman would also be removed from Dutch Neck and Maurice Hawk, and there would be one foreman working at Village and Dutch Neck. One maintenance foreman would cover Maurice Hawk.
At the high school level, the proposal also calls for a change in the lunch shift from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. to a new time of 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., and the day maintenance person would be removed.
The HVAC and electrician would work together as a team with a crew of three maintenance personnel, who will work from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. The proposal also calls for only one mechanic and two maintenance personnel for all grounds issues. There would be one warehouse person, and the position would be expanded to include all building-related consumables.
There would be a staff of three grass cutters to cut all large field areas at all buildings, and the shift would be from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and include a lower compensation. The grass cutters would assist grounds maintenance personnel when they are not grass cutting. Their work week would be from Tuesday through Saturday, eliminating the need for overtime to be paid on weekends.
The proposal breaks down a list of savings the unions’ estimate the district can save under their plan. The figures
combine the savings from the re-organization of the Buildings and Grounds department as well as some of the givebacks included in the contract approved earlier this month.
The new contract calls for an increase of 3.55 percent for the 2008-’09 year; a 3.41 percent increase for the 2009-’10 school year; no increase for the 2010-’11 school year; and an increase of 2.9 percent for the 2011-’12 school year. In that year, the salary is frozen for custodial and maintenance employees unless parties
negotiate an increase.
Those salaries are broken down and allotted differently based on the type of employee. Specifically, custodians and maintenance workers receive an increase of 3 percent for 2008-’09, 3 percent for 2009-’10, and zero increases for both 2010-’11 and 2011-’12. All other members, however, received a 3.8 percent increase for 2008-’09 and a 3.6 percent increase for 2009-’10, as well as a zero increase for 2010-’11. In the year 2011-’12, they will receive a 2.9 percent increase.
The contract included “cost containments” in prescription and dental insurance premiums through increased co-pays and higher dental deductibles. In addition, the service association agreed to a reduction of two floating holidays and the elimination of the NJEA conference days as paid leave days for custodial and maintenance employees.
However, it also included severance package for custodial and maintenance staff was also approved in the event the board decides to go with privatization.
Meissner said he offered many suggested to Larry Shanok, the assistant superintendent for finance, and Russ Schumacher, the district’s attorney, in May, 2007, to help improve efficiency in the Buildings and Grounds department, but none were taken. “In fact, one of the assistant directors of Buildings and Grounds has been doing everything in his power to make the department fail,” Meissner alleged.
“No leadership, poor hiring practices, no discipline for contract or policy infractions” by the management “has been the cause for the department failure for the past five years,” Meissner added, referring to the Edvocate report, which stated poor efficiency as a reason to move toward privatization.
“This new plan would increase productivity through a partial team approach,” said Meissner. “The correct leadership would have to be in place for this to happen.”
“With this plan, the district would retain complete control of the more than $200 million invested in our schools,” Meissner added.
Marathe denied that district officials did not examine any prior suggestions.
Meissner pointed out various statements in the Edvocate report. The report stated that 47 percent of the time that schools are open, they are used for non-academic use. Meissner said that these uses, most prominently of which are athletic programs, are uses and services that taxpayers want to keep. Meissner also pointed out that the Edvocate
report compares school district Buildings and Grounds employees to countrywide numbers not specific to the area. The report also compares it to the cleaning of private companies.
Due to the nature of its use, “there is a lot less mess in an office than there is in a school” to clean up at the end of the day, Meissner said.
He also said that Edvocate, which charges a fee for serving as the district’s consultant, promotes privatization in the report because it is a for-profit company that would not stand to make any money overseeing a private company if the district were to keep the in-house employees.
With regard to the bidding process, Edvocate created bid invitations that dictated the number of full-time employees, the wage, number of hours prevailing wage for trade, number of hours for overtime, and the wage for overtime. For this reason, “the four companies that bid on this basically all came back the same,” Meissner said.
The invitation for bids also required a contractor to offer single and family healthcare plans with 65 percent paid by an employer, while the remaining 35 percent would be the burden of the employee making $12 an hour before taxes, Meissner said. “Once you take the 35 percent out of the wage, they’re not making much of anything,” Meissner added.
In addition, the employee will have to pay a $1,000 in-network deductible for an out-of-pocket maximum of $10,000. Only 20 percent of their hospitalization would be paid after the deductible, Meissner said.
With a maximum of $14.10 an hour, the salary translates into under $30,000 a year, and the plan requiring the employee to pay such high costs would not be attractive to an employee, Nardi explained. “This entire thing is set up to prevent these employees from accepting healthcare,” she said. “They will choose not to.”
“It also concerns us who is willing to accept those wages,” she added.
The union’s presentation also questioned the qualifications the employees of a private company would have, and pointed out that the contractor will also outsource some of its work.
Nardi also said that in the bid specifications, officials allowed for a 24-hour lapse in safety when it stated that an outside company can place a new employee into the schools for up to 24 hours before it is required to notify the district. “There are 24 hours where you have no idea who that person is,” she said.
They also pointed to the bids, which specify that the floors would be mopped, the recycling would be emptied, and the chalkboards would be cleaned, all on a weekly basis, less frequently than in-house employees currently perform these tasks.
Meissner and Nardi also looked specifically at Aramark, which submitted a bid of $4.61 million for the first year of service and the same amount for the second year, specifically because it was the lowest of the bids from all four companies. Those included Pritchard, based in New York, which provided an estimate for the first year of service at $5.7 million; All Clean, of Lawrenceville, which provided an estimate of $4.7 million; Aramark, based in Philadelphia, which provided an estimate of $4.6 million; and GCA Services Group, based in Cleveland, which provided an estimate of $5.5 million. All of the bids fall beneath the $6.2 million estimate — a $1.5 million in savings.
In the submitted bids, Aramark asks whether the school district would be amendable to lowering the number of required black seal licenses for its staff members at the start of the contract to cover all buildings from 45 to 20, with the remaining phased in. The board allowed the phasing approach. “This is another example that Aramark has a lower level of acceptable standards than West Windsor-Plainsboro,” said Meissner. “Currently, West Windsor-Plainsboro employees hold 48 black seal licenses.”
Aramark also stated it would subcontract the relevant work to a licensed plumbing contractor.
Comparing the Aramark bid to that of GCA also showed drastic differences, Meissner showed. In the area of employee healthcare, the Aramark Employee Health Care Benefit Charge would be $94,563.60, while it would be $360,002 for GCA. “The difference between health care benefits is $265,438.50,” Meissner said. In employee payroll taxes, Aramark showed a tax charge of $287,91028, while the GCA tax charge was $527,831 – a $239,920 difference.
Differences in contractor management fees proposed by Aramark and GCA total $268,000, while start up costs differ by $15,0666, and on-going operation charges differ by $62,712.
With a total of $851,137.12 in differences, “how responsible can a low bidder be?” Meissner asked.
Meissner and Nardi also distributed a stapled list of the work responsibilities of every position in house and compared them to the list of work Aramark would perform, which was significantly less in many areas. “Subcontractors must make a profit and pay taxes,” Meissner said. “In order to maximize profits, companies look to cut corners, resulting in decreased quality and quantity of services.”
Nardi and Meissner argued, among other things, that once the district decides to go with outsourcing, it is extremely difficult to go back to having in-house employees handle the work if problems arise. This is because districts lacking personnel are not in a position to terminate subcontractors with poor performance, giving the subcontractor the upper hand.
“You can’t hire 120 people back if you don’t like the service,” Nardi said. “There is no quick switch back; once you go into it, you’re stuck.”
Nardi said that if the board accepts the unions’ proposal, there would need to be adjustments in the contract. Nardi said the union indicated to the board that it would hold an emergency meeting to vote to put the plan into place, if need be. “Our custodians have told us they would be willing to make some more sacrifices to keep their jobs,” she
said.
When asked whether school board members indicated their feelings on the proposal, Nardi said: “The board was extremely attentive. They listened to us.” But she said they did not verbally give her a response.
Marathe said the decision comes down to providing savings in the budget, which has been approved and includes $1.5 million in savings in the area of Buildings and Grounds. “We have to find that money somewhere,” whether it comes from outsourcing or other options, Marathe said.
“At this point, we looked at every other cut we could possibly look at, and we haven’t found much,” he added.
If it comes down to outsourcing, there are some luxuries the district currently has that may have to be sacrificed to prevent more cuts to teachers and the actual academic programs, he said, referencing the comparison the unions made between the work responsibilities Aramark said it would provide and that of the in-house workers.
“We would certainly look at their criticism,” Marathe said. “If it’s valid, we will decide what sort of actions we need to take, but that doesn’t mean that we will throw out the whole bid.”
“It doesn’t mean we can throw out the whole bid because somebody doesn’t mop the floor everyday,” he added.
Marathe said the board has to consider all sides of the issue, including those taxpayers who have supported outsourcing and entrust the board with the responsibility of providing a quality education at an affordable cost.
