Building Services

4000 Operations and Maintenance of Plant **Preliminary**

The primary role of the Building Services Department is to provide custodial, operational, planning, and scheduling support the school buildings to help maintain an environment that is conducive to teaching and learning in more than 1.7 million square feet of school space. Building Services also provides support to special school and community events at all Public Schools in Brookline. This is accomplished with a focus on customer service, and driven by the core values of the Public Schools of Brookline.


The FY21 budget summary below reflects 44.9 FTE positions in custodial and operations budget being charged to the general fund. There are 4.5 FTE positions that get assessed to the rental revolving fund. This FY21 request includes level service in the aggregate # of custodians as last year, but transfers a BHS custodian to a vacant house keeper position at Runkle and half-time custodian to cover 2 Clark Road. An additional custodial position for BHS will be needed when 111 Cypress opens as part of the BHS campus. Any reductions to the budget not covered via another funding source will result in a reduction of services. Should those reductions need to occur, we will continue to strive to maintain the quality of service the schools have come to expect.


The Coolidge Corner School opened in time for students and staff for the 2018-19 school year. The new building is approximately 220,000 square feet compared to the 152,000 SF of the space at 345 Harvard Street before the renovation addition. We added one additional custodial staff and the building is designed with different materials and has different equipment that enables more efficient cleaning of the additional SF. Through December, there is no need to add custodial staff to maintain the cleanliness of the building, though we will continue to evaluate how we are doing throughout the school year in a new building with some very different flooring systems to care for compared to our existing schools.



Services

Contracted cleaning services account for nearly 87.2% $569,469 of the $653,319 budget. PSB has long had a hybrid model of staff and vendor provided labor to clean the buildings. The cleaning vendor used in town has union employees with a contract for FY21 still in the bargaining process. The same number of vendor provided cleaning days will continue at the schools as in FY20, with 239 days at BHS and 233 days at the K-8 buildings.


Moving services, hazardous/chemical waste removal, telephone services, equipment maintenance, and shredding services make up the rest of the category and were able to be level funded from FY20.


Supplies

A list of the cleaning products commonly used in the buildings, and the manufacturer’s specification info, can be found at the Building Services web page. The capital budget reflects replacing custodial equipment used for floor care.


Objectives

• Continue to provide a clean and comfortable environment that supports teaching and learning.

• Continue to promptly respond to any cleanliness concerns and health concerns raised by staff and the community in conjunction with the Town Departments

(Health, Water, Facilities, etc.)

• Continue to evaluate and utilize products that are environmentally preferable.

• Continue to evaluate all custodial supplies and equipment with a focus on improving quality, and decreasing long-term costs.

• Continue to explore ways of reducing overtime expenditures.

• Coordinate Devotion Project furniture procurement with School & Town staff.


Accomplishments

• Continue comprehensive cleaning training of all custodial staff.

• Coordinated the clean out and move out of the 30 Webster Street and move into Old Lincoln.

• Maintained schools and provided a high level of customer service to students, staff and guests.

• Submitted, in conjunction with other PSB staff, over 2,500 work orders to Town Facilities staff.

• Successfully supported over 3,000 school-based functions and special events.

• Maintained the use of environmentally preferable "green" cleaning products.

• Early Coordination of new furniture for BHS Project and $100,0000 worth of replacement furniture across PSB.

• Provided analysis for facilities planning for the New Pierce and New Driscoll Projects.