LC Maintenance Ad Hoc Committee
Meeting: April 22, 2009, 8:00 Am, Board of Education Meeting Room
Present: LC Members – Dan Amaral, Jan Brookes, Pat Llodra, John Torok
Superintendent of Schools, Janet Robinson: Director of School Maintenance,
Gino Faiella, Board of Education Chair, Elaine McClure; and one member of the
press
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The purpose of the meeting was to obtain answers to the list of questions the committee had created at the March 4th Maintenance Committee meeting about the maintenance of school facilities.
Before the meeting began, Dan Amaral passed out copies of an inter-office memo received by the First Selectman on June 19, 2008 from Kelly Reardon to Dave Grogins titled Research for the Town of Newtown regarding maintenance of school buildings.
The question presented was Can the Town of Newtown take over the maintenance of the Town’s school facilities if the Board of Education fails to maintain them properly? The memo states, “The brief answer is No. The Connecticut General Statutes grant boards of education with the exclusive power to maintain public school buildings. Connecticut courts note that municipalities are responsible for major construction projects on schools, not everyday upkeep.”
Gino Faiella passed out written copies of his answers to the committee’s questions.
Mr. Faiella supervises 55.5 people who perform jobs in four categories: head custodians, custodians, maintenance technicians, and couriers who deliver mail to the schools, Park and Rec, Edmund Town Hall, Fairfield Hills, Town Hall South, Booth Library, board mailings, supply orders, and food distribution. His current budget is 8.4 million. Areas of cooperation between the school and town maintenance workers are snow plowing done by the Park and Rec and Highway Departments, and to a lesser degree by school custodians, excavation done by the Park and Rec and Highway departments, electrical, plumbing and carpentry services all performed by Board of Ed workers. Yearly overtime fluctuates with variables such as the weather and emergencies. Typical categories of overtime include: custodial services for
school related events, Park and Rec activities, civic events, emergency repairs for projects that maintenance specialists can’t complete during school hours, and snow removal during and after storms. Mr. Faiella stated that because the School Maintenance, Parks and Rec and Highway Departments all purchase different supplies, it isn’t possible to cut costs by combining purchase orders.
Mr. Faiella also made the following points:
1. Custodians begin at 6 AM because boilers must be started and systems such as air conditioning checked before the start of the school day. However, an HVAC specialist starts at 5:30 AM to check boilers during cold weather
2. Each building has heat sensors. If the heat goes off at night, the head custodian is called, and he calls the HVAC specialist and Mr. Faiella, if he needs to.
3. Subcontracting work is the last option and only done if the job is too big or his staff doesn’t have the expertise, or if the job is time sensitive and other problems would be caused by taking staff away from scheduled work. If a subcontract is chosen for something that’s not an emergency, Mr. Faiella always does a cost analysis by comparing how expensive it would be to pay his staff overtime versus the cost of the subcontracting the work. He tries to use local contractors, but only if their price is competitive. When supplies are purchased, the bids he receives are often less than those for the state contract. He solicits
at least three prices for everything this department purchases. He knows that some vendors are better than others, and occasionally awards the bid to a more reliable vendor.
4. The only school with custodians on the 11 PM to 7 AM shift is the high school. There are five custodians on that shift with a supervisor.
5. All maintenance people, regardless of specialty, do whatever work needs to be done. No one is sitting around waiting for work in his area of expertise.
6. Specialists are licensed, and receive a slightly higher salary than custodians.
7. Preventative maintenance is done in the summer. Mr. Faiella keeps a record of this work through written work orders.
8. When Mr. Faiella, Carl Samuelson, the head of maintenance for Park and Rec, or Mr. Hurley, the Director of Public Works need work done that is only provided by that department, they call each other and make the request informally. There is no formal documentation of the exchange of work.
Dr. Robinson explained that the relationship between the schools and Park and Rec is becoming strained because each is competing for increasingly scarce funds. The challenge has been to keep the working relationship going despite tensions. For example, sometimes, when Park and Rec uses the schools for activities and events, the school custodians must clean up afterward. However, Dr. Robinson doesn’t want to create a climate where they can’t work together.
Both Mr. Faiella and Dr. Robinson feel that the present system allows them to communicate directly, and respond to maintenance needs quickly and effectively.
Although committee members don’t want to add burdensome paperwork to already strained personnel, they urged Mr. Faiella and Dr. Robinson to create a way to document the exchange of work among the board of education, highway, and parks and recreation, so that there is a better and more complete understanding of the true costs of work and of the collaboration among town departments.
Jan Brookes for the Committee
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