Two unions supporting members of the West Windsor-Plainsboro school district’s custodial, maintenance, and foreman staff are crying foul about what they say is a sure move by the board to replace these employees with a private company.
While School Board President Hemant Marathe acknowledged that the board is looking into the move as part of a cost savings review, he emphasized that no decision has been made.
In separate letters to the News, Susan Levine, president of the West Windsor-Plainsboro Service Association, and Curtis Meissner, the president of the West Windsor-Plainsboro Foreman’s Association, claim that the board’s finance committee has solicited the services of Edvocate Inc., a Toms River-based consulting company, to study the possibility of outsourcing the work.
Levine said she represents custodial and maintenance employees who “have devoted many years to this district,” and to the taxpayers’ children. “These are the people who assist your children during their regular school day. These are the people who work with the many groups who use our buildings after normal school hours. These are people who your children know and who they can trust.”
Levine said that a “private company cannot provide the quality, security, and safety that our own employees provide. This is an economic decision that places our students, staff, and district at risk.”
Echoing her sentiments, Meissner said that workers brought in by a private company are “substandard” and do not perform the same quality of work as the district’s long-time employees.
Meissner also questioned the savings the district allegedly hopes to find by outsourcing. “In this economy, that may sound appealing,” he wrote. “However, outside companies historically low-ball their initial bids to get the contract, and then transfer the deferred costs to later contract years. The ‘savings’ is just an illusion.”
He said that any initial money that is found will not be returned to taxpayers “since firing employees will result in unplanned unemployment costs, severance costs,” and because the current employees are “entitled to receive accrued sick-leave payments.” Meissner also criticized the board for not holding public discussion on the matter.
Christy Kanaby, the associate director of public relations for the New Jersey Education Association, says that from the NJEA’s prior experience in dealing with school boards that have used Edvocate’s services, the end result is usually outsourcing.
Kanaby said that the knowledge of the possible privatization began as a rumor, but that when the administration was questioned about it, “their response was that it was just an assessment, just a survey.”
She said that Meissner pushed them for further information and received a copy of a packet of information Edvocate has provided to the school district, titled, “Facilities Program Modeling/Assessment, Outsourcing Process and Monitoring Services Proposal.”
In the packet, dated August 18, 2009, Edvocate outlines a 9 to 10-month process for the “facilities program assessment, program modeling, bid process, and monitoring.”
According to the timeline listed in the packet, Edvocate should have draft modeling scenarios delivered to the administration by November, and that analysis of the results should occur in January, 2010. At that time, the timeline states that the board should decide whether it wants to outsource the custodial and facilities services and begin the bidding process.
“It’s been our experience that when Edvocate comes on board, it’s usually to privatize these particular members,” Kanaby said.
She said union representatives “find it very coincidental” that shortly after the packet was given to Meissner, buildings and ground supervisors were called in for a meeting and told that they were not going to be employed as of July 1, 2010.
“By a time an outside contracted service company like Edvocate has been employed, it’s more than just an exploratory process,” she said. “What is generally most disconcerting is that the board of education, to our knowledge, does not reflect that this has been discussed in public session. The question becomes when did they determine they are going to do this, and when are they going to allow the public to provide input?”
“Nothing has been forthcoming to the community or to the employees to let them know this was something that was being considered,” added Kanaby.
However, Marathe said that “it is not true that the school district has definitely decided to privatize.”
Marathe said the district asked Edvocate to perform a study about efficiency throughout the district and how it can “do things better.”
He said, though, that “it’s no secret that the district is trying to spend more money in the classroom, where it matters most, and trying to economize” in other areas.
“I cannot tell you that we will not privatize,” he added. “There has not been an official discussion. I have not looked at the study results, and nobody else on the board has either. Once we look at the study, then we will decide what the next steps are.”
He also said that a few custodians had already contacted him about the matter and he told them he did not know what was going to happen. He also said that when the board looks at the study, there will be an open discussion at a future board meeting, but he does not know when that will be. He did say that the board had approved a contract with Edvocate at a prior meeting.
He also said Kanaby’s claim that the grounds and buildings supervisors were told they would not have jobs come July is “not true at all.”
“I’m 100 percent sure that nobody has been told they would not have a job yet,” he said. “Nobody on the school board or in the administration has ever said somebody will not have a job by a certain date because we don’t know that.”
All together, there are about 100 employees that could be affected, Kanaby said.
Marathe said that either way, people will be affected. “It will be a very, very difficult decision whichever way we decide to go,” Marathe said. “On one hand, we have to worry about the taxpayers and the pressures they face every year. On the other hand, we have human beings we are dealing with.”
Marathe said the decision will not happen overnight. “I can certainly understand people being concerned and worried,” he added. “We are very much aware of how difficult this decision is.”
