Update on Outsourced Custodians Prompts Comment from Union

Montville schools are clean and that last school year after services have been ironed out, according to a district update.

Superintendent Dr. Paul Fried said monitoring the outsourced custodial service is one of the district's goals for the year.

"Things are moving ahead in a very, very positive way," Fried said. "And I've heard that opinion  given to me by parents, by teachers, by almost everyone connected to the school system about how clean our schools were at the open of the school year."

The president of the union that represents district employees said he had heard some complaints about the custodial service, including about an employee who no longer works at Montville schools at the district's request. Fried said he was appalled by the way the union president, Tony Varuolo, raised the issue.

A year ago, the Board of Education voted to outsource custodial services to Tennessee-based GCA Services to save about $617,000 a year after state aid was cut and the school budget was defeated.

Fried at Tuesday's Board of Education meeting. During the public comment portion after the presentation, Montville Township Education Association President Tony Varuolo raised concerns he heard about some members of the custodial service leaving certain tasks to Montville's in-house maintenance department. Fried said he was not familiar with the issues.

Varuolo also said he heard one of the custodians was "fired" and there were rumors it was for something "disturbing." Fried said the district asked the company to stop sending one employee, but there was no safety issue to any children. He said there was one worker who, once the district felt wasn't a good fit for the school setting, asked the company to stop sending the person, which happened right away. He said it was a luxury for the district to be able to have an employee removed on a whim instead of starting a more drawn out process that likely would have been required for union employees.

Responding to Varuolo at the meeting, Fried said he was appalled Varuolo walked up to the microphone to "randomly present various potential scenarios of what happened." Fried said outsourcing custodial services mid-year was very difficult situation based on budget being defeated and was one of strong recommendations of Township Committee. He said the comment and innuendo was "less than professional."

While Fried said there was no safety issue, he said the district acted without hesitation to have the staffer removed when they felt the worker was not a good fit.

"With internal employees we don't have that sort of leverage," he said.

Varuolo said he didn't mean to be political.

"A very rosy picture has been painted and that's not entirely the case," he said.

Fried suggested Varuolo only raised the issues because they were non-union employees. He said if the districted reported the teachers in general were doing well, Varuolo would not have raised issues about isolated incidents with ineffective teachers.

"There's no denying there were glitches," Fried said. He said there's also no denying positive perspectives of parents and staff members were reported to him, unsolicited, in every building he walked into.

"We will continue of course to monitor the custodians and the work that they do," Fried said.

Clarification: An omitted word