Bringing custodial and groundskeeping services back in house would initially cost Isle of Wight County Schools more than it’s currently spending to outsource those positions.

But after a year of higher startup costs, the price would be roughly equal to what IWCS currently pays its Chesapeake-based maintenance vendor, ABM.

“It’s six in one hand, half a dozen in the other,” Deputy Superintendent Christopher Coleman told the School Board at its March 13 meeting.

Coleman said hiring eight general maintenance workers at $52,000 per year per employee, 44 custodians at $35,000 per person per year and four-and-a-half groundskeeping positions at $18 per hour for an estimated 2,080 hours per school year would total $2.3 million annually.

Non-payroll costs, including the purchase of nine vehicles, workers’ compensation for injured employees and the division’s required payment into the Virginia Retirement System for the nearly 60 new employees, would cost an additional $2.1 million. Coleman gave a total startup cost of $5.5 million, which he said includes other indirect costs such as needing additional personnel in the division’s human resources department.

By comparison, the division’s 2023-24 contract with ABM specified a cost of $3.6 million for that school year. It increased by roughly $500,000 at the start of the 2024-25 school year, and will increase again by just over $120,000, or 3%, at the start of the 2025-26 school year per the School Board’s adopted budget. A potential benefit of bringing those services back in house is more predictable budgeting, Coleman said.

Coleman, however, urged the School Board to delay action until he is able to do a more complete analysis of the cost versus benefits of each option.

Coleman said his analysis began at the request of board member John Collick, who was absent from the March 13 meeting. The board, as Coleman requested, took no action.

“While bringing services in house provides direct oversight and potential long-term benefits, and outsourcing to vendors offers flexibility and may reduce certain administrative liabilities, a more thorough comparison of delivery models including performance metrics will be critical in determining the best path forward for this district,” Coleman said.

Bringing a previously outsourced department back under local control is something IWCS has done before. 

After five years of outsourcing its cafeteria management, IWCS last year approved the hiring of a director of food services, a food services technician and food services administrator – three central office positions that were previously included in the division’s nearly $3 million now-terminated contract with Philadelphia-based Aramark.

In 2019, IWCS began contracting with Charlotte, North Carolina-based Chartwells to manage the cafeterias at its nine schools, and in 2023, switched to Aramark, before restoring the in-house department at the start of the current school year. Ellen Couch, the former principal of Windsor Elementary, has headed the in-house department as director of child nutrition since August. Mark Ruffin, formerly child nutrition unit lead at Windsor Elementary, was hired as the divisionwide child nutrition technician in August.

“There’s still hurdles that we have to jump,” Coleman said of the seven-month transition to in-house food services, noting “the same thing will occur with custodial, grounds and maintenance if we decide to do this.”