Rockdale Citizen

CONYERS -- Although the school board approved the outsourcing of 103 custodians last week, many of them went to work for the company now in charge of school custodial services.

"All of our employees who wanted to joined," Phil Budensiek, chief operations officer for Rockdale County Public Schools, told members of the Rockdale County Board of Education.

He said of 106 employees previously on the RCPS payroll, all but four employees signed on with the new company. Four employees retired, and of those, two joined the substitute pool; two other employees are part-time with the company, Budensiek reported to the board.

"If there are additional manpower hours needed, they will hire from our community," Budensiek said earlier this month.

Earlier this year, the board approved a budget that included outsourcing custodial services to save $1 million.

Instead, RCPS is now using the national company GCA Services Group to provide custodial services for the system.

"We are very pleased with the quality of their work," said Budensiek, who added that two managers serve RCPS.

GCA assumed responsibility of RCPS facilities on July 1.

Budensiek said earlier this month that the custodians will receive their same hourly wage and be offered the number of hours they were working. Benefit packages also are available.

"There will be changes in scheduling, processes, equipment used and product with outstanding training in custodial procedures," he said.

Budensiek said the company will provide to RCPS the same work but now with "outstanding training, products, processes and equipment and scheduling of certain types of deep cleaning to allow maximum quality and efficiency in performing."