Chicago Schools Pay Building Engineers Overtime to Bring Cleanliness Up to Standard

While many school employees enjoyed a long holiday weekend, workers with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) were offered more than double overtime pay to bring buildings to an expected standard of cleanliness, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

School district officials offered building engineers overtime last Saturday and Sunday, plus a rate two-and-a-half-times normal pay for yesterday’s Columbus Day holiday, if they agreed to open their schools so contract custodians could go in and clean. Although masks, social distancing, and good ventilation have proven most effective to combat the airborne coronavirus, clean schools are still a priority for students, parents, and educators during the pandemic.

CPS has come under fire in recent years for poor conditions in its schools, including lack of cleanliness, rodents, and poor maintenance of the buildings. Although many of the custodians were working hard, there were concerns that they were not being managed properly and that maintenance plans and staffing levels were falling short for the aging facilities.

This summer, CPS announced it would take control of the cleaning and upkeep of its more than 600 buildings. The school district had been relying on building service contractors (BSCs) to manage the cleaning of its building for several years.

CPS still relies on BSCs to provide custodians to service its buildings. It didn’t explain whether the enhanced cleaning plan for the weekend was tied to the facilities management transition back to the district. CPS did reveal it has been experiencing a shortage of custodial staff at select schools, making the weekend overtime work necessary.