PALMER — Mat-Su school officials looking to slash next year's budget amid a $10 million deficit are weighing a proposal to outsource 240 custodian and nutritional services jobs.
The proposal is only at the concept stage right now: the school board will decide in early February whether to issue a request for proposals.
It's the second time in a decade that the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District has talked about using a contractor for custodians. The district privatized those jobs in 2007, then chose not to renew its three-year contract with NANA Management Services following public objections and lawsuits.
When it brought back the services in-house, the cost was close to that of the NANA contract, according to a story at the time in the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman.
If outsourcing goes through again now, schools from Glacier View to Trapper Creek could lose members of the school community, said Karen Salisbury, president of the Classified Employees' Association, which represents about 1,000 support staff. The union is opposed to outsourcing, Salisbury said.
She provided a personal example of the potential consequences during a school board meeting last week: Her grandson forgot his lunch in her car, so she dropped it off in the cafeteria at lunchtime.
"There's the custodian in the middle of 200 bodies having this conversation with a small group of kids," Salisbury said in an interview Monday. "At the back of the room are the nutrition service workers. And they're greeting each student by name."
The Mat-Su school district, like others around the state, faces steep budget cuts expected from Gov. Bill Walker and the Legislature this session. On top of an anticipated $6 million deficit, the district was also hit with another $4 million in unexpected health-care cost increases, according to assistant superintendent Luke Fulp.
The current prediction on cost savings from privatizing the custodial and nutritional services is anywhere from $1.6 million to $4.3 million a year, Fulp said.
The next step in the decision will come at a Feb. 1 meeting, when the board will decide whether to solicit requests for proposals to do the custodial and nutrition services jobs.
The proposals could help give the board a more accurate picture of the cost savings of privatization, Fulp said.
Collective bargaining with the unions starts this spring. The classified association's agreement with the district expires June 30.
Other options board members heard during a meeting last week included closing Trapper Creek's tiny school, which has 24 students enrolled this year. It would actually cost the district more to lose the per-student funding and pay for busing students to Talkeetna, Fulp said.
Staffing reductions across all job classifications is another possibility administrators briefed the board on.
But realistically, he said, the biggest factor in budget decisions is happening in Juneau, not Mat-Su.
"Everyone is waiting to see what the state's going to do before anyone makes the next move," Fulp said.