Budget freezes routine maintenance
Custodian Wayne Higgins sprays down the inside of one of Westview’s trash cans. The cans need periodic cleaning now that the district’s freezing of funds has forced the custodial staff to go without using trash bags in recent weeks.
The roof is leaking. The lights have bad ballasts. The pool pumps are broken. And the chances that they’ll be fixed soon are remote. Due to a small budget, the custodial department lacks the resources to tackle school maintenance problems that were solved easily in previous years.
“Budget cuts are a big contributor to why we can’t get things fixed quickly,” Custodial Supervisor Art Wolfe said.
Because the district has frozen most of the custodial department’s funds, the custodians can no longer order the trash bags that lined the trash cans.
“No trash bags means more work,” Wolfe said. “We have to hose them out often and it brings in more critters.”
Some bathroom soap dispensers were also not functioning for several weeks because the custodial department switched to a less expensive soap brand.
“We were trying to save money because the foam soap is $42 for only two cases,” Wolfe said. “The soap we were using was gumming up the soap dispensers, so we had to go and change the type of soap dispensers in some of the restrooms to keep using the cheap soap.”
When something on campus requires attention, the custodial department sends maintenance work orders to the district. Then, personnel from the district office come to work on repairs.
Over February break, a plumber from the maintenance department repaired the drinking fountains in the library, which had been broken for a couple of months.
Regardless of the problems and budget setbacks, Wolfe said his team tries to repair the things that they can for now , because maintenance problems exist almost everywhere.
“For the most part, these are issues that have been around for the 23 years that I have been with the district,” Wolfe said. “Things get used continuously and wear down.”