The contracts that govern classroom custodians are being discussed by the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education as the debate over living wages for local workers continues.

Board members were briefed last week by William Mullin, the executive director of district services, on work proposals from two companies that provide various custodial services.

Those companies are GCA Services Group, a national building management provider, and Executive Building Maintenance, which Mullin described as a regional cleaning business.

“They’re a very small company, privately owned; the owner and president is our contact person — he’s here on site,” he relayed. “They’re a minority-owned company, and they have a very strong connection with the local Burmese community, from which they hire a lot of their workers here.”

A policy to keep district salaries congruent with living wage estimates was approved in January by board members, who are now considering ways to extend the policy to contractors.

Mullin explained that adding salary stipulations to the contracts under negotiation would increase the anticipated gross cost of hiring both custodial services providers by over $400,000.

“The baseline recommendation for the base contracts for the two companies is $1.6 million — about $211,000 more than what we are currently paying,” he cited. “The living wage component would be over $2 million.”

The topic of legality was broached by Board Member Pat Heinrich, who referenced a state law that prohibits municipalities and counties from requiring contractors to accept living wage estimates.

“I know that [House Bill 2], as I recall, limits us from passing anything legal as a board to require a contractor to pay something, so I’m just wondering: is this language tight enough.” he asked.

With those issues in mind, Board Member Rani Dasi expressed interest in the relative cost of hiring community members to do the jobs for which contracted employees are being considered.

“My bias would be that this is not a core competency, and if we can get folks to pay the living wage, they should do that work, but I think it would be helpful for us to know, and to be able to have a really well-informed conversation with our community and our county commissioners that really helps people feel comfortable with that decision,” she offered.

Board members voted unanimously to continue negotiations with GCA Services Group and Executive Building Maintenance under conditions that were summarized by Heinrich.

“I wouldn’t want to vote on living wage or not until I saw that contract and how tight the language was there and then make that determination, because it’s hard for me; I would be voting blind as to what we were requiring in the contract for an employer to meet in terms of paying  a living wage,” he noted.

The financial details of both contracts are expected to solidify after the district operating budget for the upcoming fiscal year is approved by county officials later this month.

Photo by Marvin Fong/The Plain Dealer.

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