LEXINGTON, Ga. – In May, ABM launched an Energy Performance Contracting program for Oglethorpe County Schools in Lexington, with a tailored solution to help generate savings on energy costs and contribute to facility upgrades throughout the county’s school system.

The program is built to provide these facility additions and improvements with no upfront costs, with a projection of more than $9.4 million in energy and operating costs throughout a 20-year period. Now, ABM is bringing this program to another Georgia county.

In June, ABM announced the initiation of an Energy Performance Contracting program for Lowndes County Schools, which is projected to save their schools more than $13.6 million in energy and operating costs over a 15-year period, which the county will use for facility upgrades and funding toward building a new high school.

These energy and operations savings will be accomplished by implementing lighting, HVAC and control upgrades at each of the school system’s facilities. The upgrades are estimated to save Lowndes County Schools approximately $800,000 in energy and operating costs in the first year, which will progress during the lifespan of the program, resulting in the $13.6 million total savings.

“ABM’s Energy Performance Contracting program will help Lowndes County School System recognize its facilities can be functioning more efficiently and create a significant savings, while improving their students’ educational environment,” Mark Newsome, president of ABM Technical Solutions, said in a statement. “By leveraging guaranteed energy and operational savings of ABM’s program, Lowndes County School System will be able to put more funding toward new construction, while upgrading their existing facilities.”

According to the statement, infrastructure at seven of Lowndes County School System’s facilities is aging or coming to the end of its lifespan. Furthermore, the school system plans to demolish and rebuild half of Lowndes High School. The project will allow the school system to distribute additional funding to the high school project, while using the ensured energy savings to fund the other facilities’ upgrades.

The overall upgrades will include retrofitting lighting systems to energy-efficient LED lighting at five of the county’s schools, the Parker Mathis Learning Center, the Board of Education and the bus shop and maintenance buildings. HVAC units at seven different facilities will be rejuvenated and also controlled by state-of-the-art HVAC control systems to maximize energy and operational efficiency. Additionally, refrigeration management programs and high-efficiency hand dryers will be installed at six of the school system’s buildings, along with upgrading ventilation systems at Lowndes County High School and Hahira Middle School.

Ray Jordan, education specialist for ABM explained what energy performance contracting programs mean for schools in the future.

“This program allows school systems to cash flow immediate infrastructure needs with future energy and operational savings. The savings are guaranteed for the life of the program,” said Jordan. “Energy-efficient enhancements can include water conservation systems and hand dryers to help reduce utility costs and product spend, such as paper towels. As technology improves and energy conservation measures increase savings opportunities, more school systems are able to implement these types of programs. Providers that offer energy performance contracting solutions, such as ABM, can help school districts implement similar programs.”

The project launched in June 2018, and is slated for completion in June 2019.

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LEXINGTON, Ga. — Leading provider of facility solutions, ABM, has launched an Energy Performance Contracting program for Oglethorpe County Schools in Lexington, Ga., which will generate savings on energy costs and contribute to facility upgrades throughout the county’s school system.

ABM’s made-to-order solution will assist Oglethorpe County in achieving several large infrastructure and capital upgrades that Beverley Levine, superintendent of the Oglethorpe County School System said they probably would not have been able to fund for several years.

The program will bring these facility additions and improvements with no upfront costs, while also producing what is projected to be more than $9.4 million in energy and operating costs throughout a 20-year period.

Energy efficiency improvements of the facilities will include retrofitting lighting systems to LED lighting, upgrades to all HVAC systems as well as installing state-of-the-art HVAC control systems, improved ventilation systems, roofing reparation, water conservation systems and installation of hand dryers across the entire school system.

ABM Technical Solutions President Mark Newsome said that the program will benefit students by enhancing their educational and extra-curricular activities.

This includes the installation of LED lighting systems at the high school’s baseball and softball fields, allowing the school to host its first after-dark games. The project will also provide funding for a new track, new scoreboards with advertisement opportunities at the football and soccer stadium as well as the softball and baseball fields. Furthermore, there will be renovations to the home and visitors field houses and concession stands, along with repairs to the bleachers.

There are also plans to build a large performing arts classroom by merging to two classrooms and installing new flooring, a ceiling and moving its existing electrical system.

Oglethorpe County School System formerly planned to postpone the upgrades until a bond had been paid in full in 2023, but a meeting with ABM representatives made school administrators realize they would be able to use the savings to address their facility needs immediately. Levine stated that ABM’s expertise provided the county with a financial solution to ultimately improve their students’ learning environment and athletic facilities.

The project launched on May 1, and is expected for completion in April 2019.

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CONNELLSVILLE, Pa. — As energy performance becomes increasingly important in modern times, schools nationwide are jumping on board to find ways to save on energy usage and costs. The Connellsville Area School District in Pennsylvania is no exception and is now making energy efficiency a reality in its schools.

The Connellsville Area School District entered into an energy-performance contract with New York-headquatered ABM — a facility solutions provider serving the education industry — that launched in July 2017 and is scheduled for completion by October 2018. The energy-performance contract is projected to save the district more than $26 million in energy and operating costs over a 15-year period.

The energy-performance contract is not Connellsville’s first effort to create energy savings. Earlier in 2017, the district consolidated its eight elementary schools into four in a continued effort to align its operational budget with enrollment and improve the learning environment for its students.

Since then, the district has been using the energy-performance project to further cut operational costs without sacrificing educational opportunities as part of a three-year strategic financial recovery plan. In addition to savings, the project will enable the district to implement improved educational and technological initiatives.

The energy-performance program came to the Connellsville Area School District at a good time, as the school had accumulated a $6 million deficit between 2015 and 2016, according to Robert Geletko, the district’s assistant to the superintendent for finance and operations.

“The district was already in the process of getting things in order, looking at everything we were doing and what could be improved,” said Geletko. “We had to find a solution that enabled us to leverage resources that we were already putting in. That’s when ABM showed up — during the tail end of this process — and began discussions with us in January 2016. I can only see more districts taking advantage of this opportunity in the future.”

ABM worked with Connellsville Area School District schools “very collaboratively” from the beginning, according to Geletko, and helped the school to figure out where they can find the most value for what Geletko described as “declining infrastructure,” what the school spends on a daily basis and how best to reinvest those dollars.

The energy and operational savings will be achieved by implementing infrastructure upgrades to multiple facilities in the district, which includes the newly consolidated four elementary schools, the Connellsville Area High School, Connellsville Area Middle School, and the Connellsville Area Career and Technology Center.

Some district-wide improvements that will be made to Connellsville schools include the replacement of fluorescent lighting fixtures with new energy-efficient LED lighting, building envelope upgrades as well as upgrading security and safety features such as cameras and automated door lock systems. New HVAC systems designed to function at high efficiency will be installed to upgrade and rejuvenate old systems, with state-of-the-art nonproprietary controls. Upgrading water conservation measures will take place district-wide as well, with three schools benefiting from tankless hot-water heaters.

The district will install 37 new rooftop air-conditioning units at its four elementary schools as well as install new roofing overlayed at Bullskin Elementary and West Crawford Elementary schools. Additionally, upgrades will be made in six of the district’s kitchen areas with new walk-in coolers and freezers, and kitchen hood controls.

To read the entire article, check out the March/April issue of School Construction News. 

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The new reality for K-12 schools is one undermined with increasingly uncertainty, but the responsibility of providing quality education for every student demands effective budgets and hard decisions. To meet their goals, administrators are considering every cost-cutting measure available, including custodial outsourcing, as a way to reduce spending and safeguard funding for educational priorities.

Superintendents, school boards and parents are right to worry that custodial outsourcing sometimes delivers attractive prices while falling short on quality issues and community concerns. Schools in the market for budget relief shouldn’t have to let the operational costs of providing an education hamper the real work of education, and that’s where outsourcing can help. The critics of custodial outsourcing often get it right when they say that chasing low-price contracts can end up costing the district more in the long run. But the bigger picture is more positive.

Mounting budget pressures on schools continue to feed the trend toward outsourcing. From 2003 to 2015, the number of Michigan school districts outsourcing custodial climbed from 34 to 2,831. And it is working for schools: In a 2012 white paper by Smith Weaver Smith Inc., a consulting firm that specializes in education, the company found “the preponderance of research data, in contrast to anecdotal evidence, in support of outsourcing if the school district exercises due diligence in negotiating and managing the contract with a for-profit service provider.”

The question is now how school leaders can advance beyond the usual conversations about outsourcing and earnestly evaluate whether the savings promised will responsibly address the needs of their schools. By focusing on shared goals and values, schools and custodial partners can ensure savings and services that responsibly address the unique needs of their learning environments.

Performance Assurance

A price for custodial outsourcing is only right if it’s based on an honest assessment of the costs involved. For example, a solution that cuts custodial work hours or on-site supervision will likely only give schools new, and maybe worse, resource management problems than they had before.

A well-designed custodial program should minimize — among other costs — administrative overhead, but those gains could be undermined by quality and communication issues. When the responsibility to address these shortfalls lands on school principals, the hidden cost can be enormous: Every hour principals and key staffers lose to logistics is time and energy lost to educational initiatives, losses multiplied by each student they serve.

On the other hand, an hour saved for educational priorities is multiplied by all the faculty and students they affect. Principals already spend at least 15 percent of their time on internal school management and maintenance, according to an online survey administered to members of the Ontario Principals’ Council. A custodial services provider should be able to leverage efficiencies in supervision, quality measurement and reporting that free principals from day-to-day operations while empowering them to ensure quality for their community.

A custodial outsourcing contract should focus heavily on accountability and results.  A prospective custodial service provider should be fully able to address these questions:

• How do you assure adequate on-site supervision?

• What metrics do your supervisors use to test quality?

• What reporting do you provide to principals and superintendents to ensure standards are met or exceeded?

• How do you secure open, streamlined and responsive communications?

• How inclusive is the scope of work, especially considering the school’s event calendar and other community needs?

Responsible service providers will back up their answers to these questions with performance assurance, a contractual agreement to sacrifice a portion of their management fee if they fall below a mutually agreed upon standard. By asking for performance assurance, schools can feel confident that the provider’s proposals rely on actual efficiencies that drive quality service and cost savings, without sacrificing one for the other.

Smooth Operations

Transitions aren’t always easy, but changes implemented for cost savings need to avoid excuses and the expenses that soon follow. Service providers should have transition plans and training programs ready to deliver positive change without burdening district leaders with growing pains and unforeseen headaches.

One issue service providers should anticipate is community concern over the effect on long-term employees and the school environment. The National Education Association reports that K-12 support personnel (including custodians and other staff) are remarkably loyal, staying an average of 12.7 years. Providers experienced with K-12 schools will have strategies ready to keep district custodians in schools. Retaining institutional knowledge and cultural continuity are nice to have, while the must-have is a service provider that can answer these questions:

• Do they have dedicated resources for transitions?

• Will the transition team stay on site and be available until the transition is complete?

• Are their transition plans specifically tailored for K-12 schools?

• Do they have training and retraining programs unique to learning environments?

• Will they commit to retaining staff the district wants to keep?

In fact, instead of seeing custodial outsourcing as adversarial to school employees, service providers can help districts facing budget issues that are forcing cuts to their own custodial departments. Service providers can propose plans that allow a district to retain custodians they would otherwise be unable to keep on full-time, and experienced partners should be able to help districts retain staff while still producing cost savings that free up budget for other needs.

To read the entire article, check out the July/August issue of School Construction News.

Andrew Canicatti serves as the northeast regional vice president of education for ABM, a New York-headquartered facility management provider.

The post How the Critics of Custodial Outsourcing Are Right appeared first on School Construction News.

The energy and operations savings will be achieved by implementing energy-efficient infrastructure upgrades to the Todd Grant Elementary School, McIntosh County Academy, McIntosh County Middle School, and the McIntosh County Board of Education and Maintenance Offices — all located in Darien. ABM has been monitoring energy use, inspecting facility equipment of the schools and and talking to key school staff to identify the school system’s major infrastructure challenges, seeking opportunities to cut costs through energy-efficiency improvements. Projected savings for the first year alone are expected to be more than $263,000.

Some planned improvements already in the works include upgrading all HVAC units at McIntosh County Academy as well as units at other facilities to high-efficiency, state-of-the-art HVAC units. All district HVAC units will be controlled by advanced, web-based direct digital control (DDC) systems to maximize energy and operational efficiency. LED lighting will also be installed at all of the facilities, while irrigation wells will be installed at all three schools in order to provide a more cost-efficient means of irrigating the campus and athletic fields.

Amongst other improvements, the Todd Grant Elementary School campus will receive two complete, age-appropriate playgrounds and a covered outdoor classroom area as well as the renovation and expansion of three buildings on campus to serve as the administrative complex for the school district. All restrooms at the McIntosh County Middle School will be renovated, and aging roofs of two buildings will be replaced. The McIntosh County Academy will have its building envelope sealed from outside air as well as gain new refrigerator management, in addition to other improvements.

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