Letter to the Editor

Help our janitors


To the EDN:

Per the Friday, April 25th edition of the EDN, the ELC School Board Minutes show that our superintendent is once again trying to take Emmet County tax dollars out of our school. He won the battle in terms of not buying property in Estherville, so I am not surprised that Dick Magnuson is continuing on with his agenda.

“FBG feels they can save the district $75K and will submit a formal proposal at the next meeting.” Item B on the suggested agenda for the next school board meeting will address this approval. I have no doubt that this presentation will be made to the board and it will be approved with a rubber stamp.

For the record, the Des Moines Public School District, which is in a metropolitan area that has ample temp service agencies, does NOT outsource janitorial services. That school district also is experiencing tight financial times, and just like every other school in the nation, is looking for ways to save money.

The Spirit Lake School District outsourced their janitorial services a few years back and ended up going back to employing the janitorial staff. I spoke with a person within the district about this decision and there were many reasons for going back to the in-house janitorial staff. One of the major contributing factors was COST. On the surface there is a cost savings, but the district realized that the methods used by the outsourcing company could be used by the district itself with their own employees to further reduce the cost. Have Dick Magnuson and the school board explored ways to save money while retaining our employees? Have they talked to any other school district that has outsourced the service only to revert back to their own staff? If so, it would be appreciated if those finding were presented in the EDN.

It appears that the prime motivator in this situation is more than just economics. If the janitorial services are outsourced, then the school district does not pay the benefit cost of the employee, the contractor, FBG pays the benefits costs, if they pay them at all. There is no doubt that IPERS is a generous program and usually is better than most programs in industry. However, that is a benefit entitled to all employees of the school. In terms of the real economics of this situation, this is taking income and benefits out of local taxpayer households. We do not need, as a community of tax payers, to approve of this type of change of the affected employees. We have a superintendent who is renting a school-owned property below market value who is not paying property taxes and contributing to our schools. We have more than one administrator who does not live in the town or county; more bleeding of tax dollars. Am I the only person who thinks it is wrong for someone with this kind of decision making authority to not be contributing to the tax base? And also think it is wrong for him to target positions held by local residents who are providing a good service without fully exploring all cost reduction opportunities?

The next board meeting is scheduled for Monday, May 12th at 5:15 pm. If you would like to help out our janitorial employees with this fight the best way is to attend this meeting and let your tax paying voices be heard.

Lisa Fernholtz,

Estherville