Custodians latest casualty of cutbacks in Atlanta schools
Facing a budget crunch, Atlanta Public Schools wants to replace about half its custodial staff with contract workers.
Staffers were told of the plans this week. "We were informed that our facilities department had to be downsized by 100 employees," said Dorothy White, a custodian at APS for 28 years.
"We were told it's cheaper for them to contract out our jobs," she said.
School system spokesman Keith Bromery placed the number of job cuts closer to 75 of the 150 custodians on staff. "It's a recommendation from the superintendent that about half of the district's custodial positions be abolished, and we're going to bring in custodial contractors," he said.
School systems across metro Atlanta have been cutting spending to make up for revenue shortfalls. Teachers and other staff have been cut. Now APS has targeted custodians.
Bromery said Superintendent Erroll Davis wants to keep custodial staffers only at elementary schools, and only during the day. Contractors will clean overnight at all schools and during the day at middle schools and high schools, he said.
Charles Carey, chief executive officer of the Atlanta Association of Classified Employees, said several custodians had called him saying they thought the cutbacks were triggered by the expense APS incurred in connection with alleged cheating on the statewide Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests.
Davis said last year that none of the roughly 180 educators named in a state investigation into cheating would be allowed into the classroom. He ordered them to stay home -- with pay -- pending termination proceedings. At one point, APS was paying them as much as $1 million a month not to work.
"I feel that Superintendent Davis is trying to make the lower level employees pay for the cost of the cheating scandal," Carey said.
Asked about this, Bromery said the custodial cuts are part of Davis' system-wide reorganization, which also affected central office staff.
"All of his reorganizations so far have been for efficiency sake more than to save money," Bromery said.
The school system does have a budget problem, though. Last month, the district released plans for a $565.8 million budget for the 2012-13 school year. The plan called for furlough days and job cuts to trim about $47 million.
White said she earns $44,000, which she said was more than most APS custodians. She said custodians who gathered at Martin Luther King Jr. High School for the announcement Thursday were told by an administrator that the job cuts would save $5.7 million.
Bromery said he could not confirm that. He said the school board will be presented with the proposal at a meeting Monday.
APS has been employing contractors for overnight cleaning for several years. White, who works at Gideons Elementary in southwest Atlanta, said the contractors do a poor job.
"When I come in the next morning, I'm still having to clean up and prepare," she said. "We sometimes find feces left in the stalls."
Bromery said inspections have shown that the contractors do a "comparable job" to what the staff does.
About the Author
Ty Tagami is a staff writer for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Since joining the newspaper in 2002, he has written about everything from hurricanes to homelessness. He has deep experience covering local government and education, and can often be found under the Gold Dome when lawmakers meet or in a school somewhere in the state.
