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PSS eyes contracting maintenance services
To address its shortage of maintenance personnel—with some schools having only one paid personnel for their campus—the Public School System is reviewing whether contracting out maintenance services may be more efficient, according to Board of Education chair Herman Guerrero.
“It might be economically better to do it that way and more efficiently done,” Guerrero said.
He said this is something that Education Commissioner Dr. Rita Sablan is looking at for PSS.
Citing the system’s continued lack of funds, Guerrero said that “adding more personnel just won’t cut it.”
He said that PSS does not have enough money as “teachers are the priority.”
“That poses a challenge for us,” he said, adding that contracting out services will make, for example, cutting the grass for school campuses a deliverable service so that payment can be based on whether a task is done or done correctly.
“We just don’t have enough staff to do those things,” he said.
For fiscal year 2014, only a little over $2 million of its local budget of $32 million went to maintenance of operations and facilities, with the rest going to personnel salaries and wages, and utilities, according to an earlier PSS report.
He said they are looking at contracting the maintenance service for groups of schools as opposed to single schools, and that they would like to get a contracted service as opposed to one person who would have to work “all over the place to maintain” school grounds.
Volunteers also assist with school maintenance.
MHS principal Cherlyn Cabrera said the school is getting by on aid from community volunteers, noting that other schools do the same. “I saw one volunteer at another school. He volunteered the whole way from the day school opened until the day school ended.”
She said this kind of help it “not uncommon” to help campuses maintain their grounds.
“We really appreciate their help,” she said, adding that some of these volunteers await opportunities to be gainfully employed.
