New custodial reporting format presented; committee presses staff on staffing formula and safety follow-ups

District operations staff presented a revamped custodial and maintenance report designed to be more visual and to highlight spot-inspection scores, staffing percentages, and craft-specific work-order volumes.

Julie Siebold, a new staff member credited with designing the new format, helped present spot-inspection results showing the top- and bottom-performing schools for March and the district average inspection scores. Staff noted that repeat inspections for sites scoring below 80% subsequently passed.

Staff outlined a custodial staffing plan and the upcoming custodial solicitation: a base-bid version and an alternate bid that would add additional day custodians at small schools. The staffing plan is currently allocated by square footage, with FTEs listed per location; staff said the solicitation is near release pending final tweaks.

Several committee members questioned the use of square footage alone to allocate custodial FTEs. One member said building usage, program activity, building age and configuration (for example, courtyards or many buildings connected in one campus) should factor into allocation. Staff responded that Ladies Island Middle School is a large, older, disjointed building with interior courtyards and high cleaning needs; staff said a new building will address many of those issues but agreed to consider multi-variable allocation inputs for the forthcoming RFP and staffing plan.

Staff also reported maintenance metrics for March: plumbing and HVAC were the highest-volume craft categories, the district is starting to track monthly work-order initiation and completion times, and overall completion time had improved across the reporting period. The committee flagged a potential safety concern: 44 fire-extinguisher requests were recorded with only part completed for the month; staff committed to investigate and report back to the committee.

On labor issues, staff confirmed custodial employees who choose to work during spring break will be paid and that a spring-break schedule for custodians has been issued. The committee requested a first-quarter custodial report at the next meeting and staff agreed to return with the 8% list, a vehicle-replacement plan, and the requested easement administrative regulation.