Discussion for Professional Development, Retention and Training of District Maintenance Personnel.

At the recent Maintenance Advisory Group (MAG) meeting, a significant number of districts expressed concerns about attracting and retaining qualified/skilled maintenance personnel.  The MAG has been asked to research the extent of the issue statewide and obtain feedback and ideas on what should be done to address the district concerns.  If your district maintenance department has similar concerns please take a few minutes to list your concerns and ideas for improvement as comments on this webpage.  The information and ideas will be used to understand the challenges and needs faced by districts statewide and will be shared with districts/ leadership for their consideration and action.

What ideas do you have for Professional Development/Training of your Maintenance staff at the school districts?

What barriers are in place or do we foresee for a personal/professional development program?

What ideas do you have for Retention/Hiring of Qualified Employees at the School Districts?

What are the drivers for increasing Maintenance Salaries at NM School districts?

What are the positive aspects of working for a NM Public School Maintenance organization?

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Comments

[Jeff Sargent]

Professional Development is limited due to the funds in the line item of the budget. Depending on the location and the cost you may end up being able to send about three persons to different sessions and everyone else is out of luck.What we usually do is send a tech to the certification class that needs to be updated annually and go from there.
If we create a program it needs to be able to be at regional parts of the state where personnel can be close so the district can afford to pay for the instruction.
One thing we can do as districts to help retain personnel in our districts is try to create an environment that appeals to that person and the benefits, but that is getting worse with each year.
I guess one of the main drivers for salary increase for the staff in the school districts would be to help maintain equipment and the structures and retain staff.
The positive aspect of working for a NM Public school organzation is that the retirement is good.

[Dave flood]

Professional Development is always hard, due to the fact that most classes are out of Albuquerque. Most maintenance departments have limited travel and training, as well as having to make do without essential personnel while they are away. The Army used to use Mobile Training Teams, highly qualified folks that made the circuit. Failing that, Las Cruces seems the logical place for training in the southern part of the State.
The major barrier to overcome is the notion, usually unspoken, in the education field that maintenance dudes really don't "do" anything of value to the students. The same view prevails toward administrators, by the way.
Hiring and retention usually finds low pay as a dissatisfy-er to join the organization, but higher pay is not always a satisfy-er for staying in the outfit. The recent discussions about allowing SB9 to be used for maintenance salaries is disturbing; all the business managers will do is move the salaries to SB9 and free up operational dollars for "more important" things, reducing the amount of SB9 monies available for parts or replacement equipment. The legislature should stipulate "floors" for maintenance salaries out of operational dollars, just like they did with teachers.
The best positive aspect of any government job is the benefits and retirement.

[Les Martinez]

This input was received via e-mail from Bob Cuperus.

Thank you for asking me to have some input in regard to Maintenance personnel issues. First I believe that the pay for qualified people is the major problem. When the pay is not much higher than minimum wage it is very difficult to attract tradesman willing to work in school district, and the benefit packages are not what they used to be. Second, we at rural districts don`t have many qualified people to draw from.
Other than those things Ive mentioned not much else to offer.

[Charles Lee]

Question 1.What ideas do you have for Professional Development/Training of your Maintenance staff at the school districts?
A.) Many NM Schools can not afford to hire and /or do not have certified or professional craftsmen. This may result in individuals being hired who do not have adequate experience in facility maintenance skills and safety. An approved curriculum should be available to districts for maintenance employee training or testing so that they can either take classes or test-out of courses and become certified in basic, intermediate, and advanced maintenance and safety proficiencies. Because school maintenance is so diverse, the training path needs to be set up to cover different trade areas or fields. If this process could be mapped out and provided by NM PSFA Maintenance (and even possibly at some level, be recognized by CID) it would do two things; 1.) Assure that different levels of knowledge of skill and job safety have been met, and 2.) Serve as an avenue for districts to measure and pay Maintenance staff. Training services could be provided by existing trade schools, local community colleges or training sessions once an approved curriculum is developed. This training curriculum should be offered as opportunity and not a requirement as each district has different circumstances to deal with.

B.) Schools not having trades people should have a way of certifying Maintenance personnel in some basic trade skills and have it recognized by CID so that basic daily school maintenance tasks can be performed safely by a trained or certified Maintenance staff member.

Question 2. What barriers are in place or do we foresee for a personal/professional development program?
• Staff Time – Being able to let staff off of work for training. Timing when it is offered is also important.
• Location of Training in relation to Districts
• District Administration recognizing needs for training
• Cost

Question 3. What ideas do you have for Retention/Hiring of Qualified Employees at the School districts?
• Districts need a way to be competitive with industry wages so that skilled individuals can be hired.
• Ability to offer incentives
• Greater funding for adequate staff to perform needed Maintenance & PM activities.

Question 4. What are the drivers for increasing Maintenance Salaries at NM School districts?
• Legislative change in funding for school maintenance programs is a key driver. School maintenance is a hybrid activity, touching both the construction/service industry and academia. The maintenance function is controlled by the academic platform which has an altogether different focus and occasionally has difficulty in recognizing blue collar skills, education and experience that are required. School maintenance will always be required to blend and harmonize in this setting but some separation should be built into today’s school funding system so that maintenance staff and maintenance activities are not a byproduct of the system.
Maintenance salary scales come in different forms, they may be related or spun off of a base academic salary number or maybe even shaped to be comparative to the going rate of a neighboring district’s pay scale. These processes do not connect to today’s world of service in which we are expected to perform. Academic oversight most often does reflect good and similar benefits to maintenance staff but this is rarely seen in salaries or in adequate numbers of staff.
The present system of maintenance staff funding and organization is a partial reflection of today’s deferred maintenance of school facilities. The past five years, New Mexico has made and is making very positive steps in teacher wages, facility improvements and facility management, but it will be difficult to make true impact on deferred maintenance issues without competitively paid, qualified and adequate maintenance staff. Along with the recent NM School improvements - the concept of funding for school maintenance staffing also needs to be addressed to meet today’s school maintenance challenges in the arena we are called to perform. This will require some form of legislative change.

Question 5. What are the positive aspects of working for a NM?
Public School Maintenance organization?
• Generally good benefits
• Required participation in retirement (however, it is based on lower wages)
• It is community based
• Good people to work with
• Good customers

[George McFall]

Does any one have a set rule of thumb or other criteria to seperate Maintenance Work vs. New Construction? I am also looking for a "use of building" guideline for Principals and Teachers if anyone has one.
The comments from the state leaders in maintenance, in the "Discussion for Professional Development", is really good. I especially liked Mr. Lee's comments, of course Mr. Flood's was good too.

[Calvin]

See below summary comments that were presented at Nov. MAG mtg. from to date survey results.

What ideas do you have for Professional Development/Training for maintenance staff at your school district?
Summary:
• Safety procedures, cleaning procedures, HVAC and Electrical, Locksmithing, Plumbing training, asbestos, boiler, safety, hazardous, chemical, MSDS, fire safety.
• Training in summer , Would like to see on site trainings made possible for staff.
• Outside training offered by companies that can help obtain licensure for them.
• Give employees opportunity to study, mentor, OJT, Develop training program and curricula for skilled trade positions that can be implemented on a statewide basis.
• “We can not afford to send personnel for training.”
• Offer more 1/2 day training sessions locally.

What barriers are in place or do you foresee for a personal/professional development program?
Summary:
• Budget, Time, and availability of substitutes
• Barriers to professional development are the location and availability.
• No formalized standard at state level, Collective bargaining agreements
• Distance to trainings, It would be beneficial to have regional trainings.

What ideas do you have for Retention/Hiring of qualified employees at your school district?
Summary:
• Professional development plans
• good career progression plan
• Ability to pay better than prevailing local salaries, team-building programs
• Change in the Funding Formula to help rural districts.
• Promote benefits
• Give incentives

What are the drivers for increasing Maintenance Salaries at NM School Districts?
Summary:
• Mandated Salaries from the Legislature
• Currently, if you're not a teacher, you don't seem to be of any value to PED
• Technology requirements, district budgets, legislative mandates
• Training, experience, job performance
• Increased funding to operational funding so districts can develop salary schedules that can entice quality.