[bouldercouncilhotline] Hotline: janitorial services 2017

[cmosupport at bouldercolorado.gov]

Sender: Morzel, Lisa

Dear Council colleagues,

Tonight we will be asked to continue considering our 2017 budget.

While much of what is proposed in the budget may be fine, one glaring moral and mechanical hole in the proposed 2017 budget is the proposal to keep janitorial services as outside contracted services, despite the fact that janitorial services are services that are a permanent daily need in the city and that for decades these employees were in house (until 2003 when we had a serious economic downturn) and a part of the city organization.  Up until that time, our employees in janitorial services were dedicated city employees and performed their jobs well.

Last spring council discussed and was supportive of pursuing self-sufficiency wages and bringing our janitorial services back in house.  Somehow now, staff’s recommendation is to not bring these permanent and daily needed employees in house.  I have serious problems with that perspective and, in that vein, I ask the following questions:

  1.  Why would we contract permanent daily employees serving a critical need of the city when they are doing permanent in-house services?

     *   What criteria does the city use to determine who is in-house (city planner, parks’ employee, IT, etc) vs contracted (janitorial services, services the city does not have a permanent need or skill for, etc.)?

     *   Does not outsourcing a critical service in the city reduce the city’s accountability, transparency, and clarity?  Is the city trying to avoid responsibility for employing a group of workers who provide a critical, daily, and permanent need of the city?

     *   Has any study or consideration been given to city vs contractor turnover (I know prior to 2003, many of our janitorial service workers were long-time city employees)?

     *   What consideration has been given to improving the city’s Zero Waste goals, what the organization itself is actually achieving, and what the effect of having in-house, well trained with respect to our Zero Waste goals janitorial service employees?  BTW, how well is the organization doing currently in its trash volume?

  2.  What city department hires and interacts with contractors for janitorial services in the city?

     *   How many city staff work with the contracts for the contractors?

     *   What is the total FTE the city spends currently in issuing and renewing these contracts?

     *   Would these same staff continue to work in this area if the city hired a compliance specialist who will monitor and enforce the contractor compliance?

     *   How will this specialist and the city enforce compliance of the contract?

     *   What are the “efficiencies” the city thinks it realizes with contracted janitorial services?  What are the “inefficiencies” the city suggests hiring janitorial services as in house would cause?

  3.  Why are the terms of the contract “negotiated” and not simply spelled out: “the minimum wage will start at $15.67/hour and the minimum benefits are x hours annual and sick leave or PTO (paid time off) and health package, maybe retirement” for a contractor to be retained by the city?

  4.  How many contractor companies does the city use for janitorial services?  Is there more than one and, if so, how are their contracts distributed within the city?

  5.  How much is spent on contractors of janitorial services annually?

  6.  Does the city currently know:

     *   the range of janitorial services used,

     *   types of positions (eg., supervisor, floor maintenance, recycling and trash, bathrooms, plumbing, etc.),

     *   various salaries that these positions earn,

     *   any seniority wages vs new hire wages,

     *   where the employees of janitorial services live and if any use the city’s affordable housing opportunities?

  7.  How many individuals are currently employed by the contractors the city currently uses for janitorial services?

     *   What is the average work week (# of hours) for the employee?

     *   What benefits does the worker earn (health care package, retirement, PTO or sick and annual leave)?

     *   Where do they live?

  8.  Subtracting costs for the janitorial services employees, how much or what percentage of the contract does/do the contractors keep for their “services” (contracting) with the city?

     *   In other words, what do the contractors make in earnings?

  9.  Why cannot the city bring this group of permanent workers in house and provide benefits and fair wages, like our other permanent employees?

  10. Why are we proposing to include funding for a contractor compliance specialist who will monitor and enforce contractor compliance?  How much is this new in-house employee who will garner a high wage complete with benefits going to cost?  Please separate wage from benefits. I won’t comment on my thoughts regarding this “new in house hire”.

     *   Would this individual be doing the “auditing” of contracts?

  11. In the current 2017 proposal is included the hiring of additional in-house staff.  Please provide a summary of the number of additional staff, what departments they would be employed in, and exactly the cost of those hires separated between their salary and the cost value of their combined benefits.

Thank you.

Lisa
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Lisa

Lisa Morzel
Member, Boulder City Council

303-938-8520 h
303-815-6723 c

"We interact with one another as individuals responding to a complex haze of factors: professional responsibilities, personal likes and dislikes, ambition, jealousy, self-interest, and, in at least some instances, genuine altruism.  Living in the here and now, we are awash with sensations of the present, memories of the past, and expectations and fears for the future. Our actions are not determined by any one cause; they are the fulfillment of who we are at that particular moment.  After that moment passes, we continue to evolve, to change, and our memories of that moment inevitably change with us as we live with the consequences of our past actions, consequences we were unaware of at the time." The Last Stand, Nathaniel Philbrick

"Politics is what we create by what we do, what we hope for, and what we dare to imagine."
Paul Wellstone (1944-2002)

"The basic principle in planning a city is that it should be designed for human beings."
Dennis O'Harrow, former long-time executive director, American Society of Planning Officials


<janitorial services 10_16.docx>