Back in 2006 or 2007 I think it was, a previous school board decided to subcontract the custodial services for the school system rather that maintaining the service with their own employees. The reason for the change was cost savings. When all was said and done, The cost savings proved to be substantial.

Now after all these years it appears some school board members are wanting to leave the contracted custodial services and go back to the old system. Part of the reason is that there have been complaints that GCA, the company currently providing the services, aren't doing a good enough job. That may be right and improvements may be needed. But to go back to the old system would be a very poor financial decision. Just simply do the math.

GCA's current contract to provide custodial services for all nine schools is $823,824.00 per year. Conservative estimates to go back to in house custodial services range from $502,000.00 to 658,000.00 in increased annual costs to the school system. It would also require nearly 35 new employees to be added to the school system payroll. I'll admit I'm no mathematician, but I can add and subtract pretty good and it doesn't take a mathematician to understand that spending an extra half million dollars per year for the same services doesn't make a lot of sense.

I don't doubt there could be problems with the current contractor and improvements may be needed but seems to me the first step would be to sit down with the current contractor, outline the deficiencies and demand improvements. If improvements don't come then rebid the contract.

Just throwing money away isn't the solution.