News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The Putnam County Schools has seen improvement in the care of schools after a semester using its new custodial service.
The major issue with the previous contract was that there was not enough personnel to meet the needs of schools, according to Putnam Schools Deputy Director Tim Martin.
“The company has been able to hire new employees,” Martin said. “We did specify a $12 minimum wage for this contract so that has helped them attract some more employees.”
The school board approved the new $3 million contract in November. Martin said that over the summer, the schools perform a “summer clean-up.” This will be the biggest indicator of any changes from the previous service.
“When a cleaning service comes in like this takes over, they’re coming in and until the next summer, they’re working on what the previous people have done,” Martin said.
One summer focus, Martin said, will be floors.
“You may not notice it, but the floor makes a big difference in a commercial building,” Martin said.
Martin said they’ve also had to work out an additional smaller contract with the group to accommodate cleaning for summer classes occurring that they haven’t needed to do before. The current plan is a one-year contract that is renewable for five more years. The contract was an additional $600,000 more than with the previous agreement, but the increase in cost helped to pay for the increase in personnel.
Martin said that in using the new custodial service for Putnam County Schools, they also have less complaints from principals worried about the conditions of their schools.
