Townwide Facilities Management Unit Under Consideration

By John Voket

Councilman Daniel Amaral can tell you a hundred reasons why Newtown should consolidate its school and town facilities maintenance into a single department. But the driving concern behind his nearly year-old proposal to study its feasibility has always been the same.

“I want to save the town money,” he told fellow council members Jan Brookes and Patricia Llodra, as the newly formed Municipal and Schools Facility Committee held its first meeting February 4.

“If we can save the town money, I’m going to pitch in as hard as I can,” responded Ms Llodra.

The committee volunteers have so far worked in tandem, sharing ideas in a brainstorming format. The three original appointees will be joined by Councilman John Torok moving forward, as Mr Amaral’s proposal is fully vetted.

In just under 20 minutes, the first meeting established two important goals. They will begin formulating questions that will be submitted to town Public Works Director Fred Hurley, and school district Facilities Manager Gino Faiella.

The panel will then visit with each separate department manager to discuss their individual responsibilities for school and town buildings and facilities, as well as staffing levels, staff certifications and licensing, compensations structures, even the extent of overtime required.

At the same time, the committee will be speaking with officials in other Connecticut towns that have established such departments.

“A couple of local towns have combined these services — maintenance and custodial,” Ms Llodra confirmed. “Bethel for one.”

Mr Amaral told Ms Llodra and Ms Brookes that he expects such a unit would centralize under a single manager or department head.

Ms Llodra then explained that state statute gives the ultimate say to the school district, which must agree to partner with the town or towns it serves. Without the school district agreeing to such a merger, the proposal cannot go forward, even if the council formally recommends it.

“It’s a good idea, especially if we can eliminate duplication of services or redundancies,” Ms Llodra said.

Ms Brookes went as far as to suggest hiring an outside consultant, if interviews with current town personnel became difficult to complete because of their individual workloads. But Ms Llodra was confident that the council committee could thoroughly investigate and determine if the current delivery of maintenance, trade, and custodial services townwide is cost-effective.

“If not, we can make recommendations to see about consolidation,” she said.

Mr Amaral said another important responsibility would be prioritizing, and sticking to, projects once they are planned. He was frustrated by hearing repetitively year after year about budget money being targeted toward school building maintenance, only to learn later that funds were reallocated to other needs with the facilities projects put off.

“Those allocations should be dedicated to those assigned facilities’ projects, not moved to cover other things,” he said.

He was reminded by Ms Llodra that the committee could only recommend the consolidation of services, if it was warranted, without getting into management directives of such a department.

“We have to ask a lot of questions and reach some consensus. We have to look at other towns and determine if they think the idea is working,” Ms Brookes said.