South Lake Privatizes Maintenance, Custodial Employees

Emotions ran high at a South Lake Board of Education meeting Wednesday following the vote to privatize the district’s 12 maintenance and custodial employees.

By a vote of 5-2, the board awarded a three-year contract to Commercial Sanitation Management Services, commonly known as CSM, which is based in Hudsonville, MI. Board Vice President Allan Innes and Trustee Vince Marino voted against the measure.

Innes said he voted against the motion because it goes against one of his core values. The creation of lower-paying jobs seems to be the new mainstream in society, he said.

“We can’t let society do this to us. We need to create careers, not jobs," Innes said.

However, Innes acknowledged that South Lake was forced to make this decision because it desperately needs to cut costs.

“Our hands are tied. It’s been a struggle. We don’t have the money. The savings we’re going to get (by privatizing) are significant, and we need to keep the money in the classroom.”

Marino said he feels that one of South Lake’s duties as a district is to provide decent-paying jobs for community members. Also, the custodial and maintenance employees have already renegotiated their contract to provide cost savings, he said.

“They’ve made great concessions and they’ve been very sincere with us, and I think morally I can’t vote anything but no,” said Marino, who left the meeting shortly after the vote.

Several custodians, students, teachers and parents addressed the board during the public commentary portion of the meeting, with some asking the board to reverse its decision. Several students fought back tears as they talked about how helpful and important the custodians are in their schools.

“Custodians are more than cleaners. They are the first person in the building in the morning and the last to leave it at night,” said Linda Hatch, who has served as a custodian for 12 years. “Custodians are people who make children have a safe, clean, healthy environment.”

Hatch said custodians develop relationships with students and staff, and when the district privatizes its custodians, there will be a “revolving door of individuals” who will not develop those same type of relationships.

“I would like to ask the board to walk in our shoes for one day before making their decision,” she added.

Terrie Campbell, staff representative for Michigan AFSCME Council 25, said privatization is detrimental to communities because most of those employees live in the community and spend a third of every dollar in the community.

Ryan Hildenbrand, president of AFSCME Local 2457, said custodians play a great role in public relations for the district. Many are South Lake graduates and live in the community. With the move to privatize, “all that PR is gone,” he said.

Campbell and Hildenbrand both said the union did not get to see the request for proposals that the district put out for maintenance and custodial services.

District officials disagreed. Following the meeting, Matthew Dishman, director of business and operations, said the union was notified when the district put out the request for proposals more than a year ago. CSM kept its proposal the same from that time, and South Lake’s human resources department notified the union then and now of those figures, he said.

Dishman acknowledged that the district achieved significant savings from renegotiating the union’s contract last December, and it stands to save even more with privatization, although he declined to give that dollar amount.

The union’s current contract expires June 30. Dishman said the employees may apply for positions with CSM if they are interested.

Among the concerns raised about privatization was the potential of having workers with a criminal history. However, Dishman said that all employees, whether they work directly for the district or for a subcontractor, must meet the same requirements, which are to be fingerprinted and background checked by the FBI.

Board members assured the audience that they thoroughly studied the situation before arriving to their decision.

“This was not a decision that was made over one meeting,” said Paula Mack-Crouchman, board treasurer. “We had met for a year-and-a-half to figure out if there is another way.”

“A lot of discussion has been happening. My job, now that this has been implemented, is to support the board,” Innes said. “It’s a tough decision. I don’t like what any of us had to do here, but I’ll back them up once the vote is done.”

“This has broken my heart during this entire process that we came to this decision,” said Board President Karla Anderson as she fought back tears. “Please know that this was not done lightly.”

South Lake Superintendent Pamela Balint said this issue is part of a bigger crisis in the state of Michigan.

“I have a lot of mixed emotions about this," Balint said. "It’s South Lake but it’s really indicative of society and the state of public education.”

Since the enactment of Proposal A in 1994, the funding structure for schools was drastically changed, Balint said. While in the past local property taxes provided the vast majority of school funding, now the taxes go directly to the state, which in turn decides how to distribute the funding to schools.

This big shift in the funding mechanism has adversely affected South Lake, and the district’s unsuccessful election last November did not help, Balint said.

“We have cut $5 million out of our budget over the last five years,” she added. “This decision is for the survival of South Lake Schools.”