Privatization debate heats up

Union says it could lose a third of its work under plan to let private sector manage school facilities

STAMFORD — The district’s grand plan to makeover six of Stamford’s public schools by 2024 using a publicprivate partnership model is garnering pushback from the ranks of workers who currently maintain school buildings.

“Nobody’s happy about it. Of course association members are worried about their future,” said Eugene Molgano, vice president of the Stamford Board of Education Employees Association, which includes about 115 custodians and 30 mechanics.

Under the proposed plan, the city would sell about one third of its school land to a private developer for one dollar each. The private developer would in turn demolish the existing school, build a new one to the city’s design and then lease it back to the city for a 45 to 90year lease, after which ownership of the land and buildings would revert back to the city.

The private sector would maintain and manage the capital upkeep for the six schools, meaning SBOEEA workers would potentially lose one third of their current work.

At two community meetings on the plan in the last month, SBOEEA members have contested the idea that maintenance workers should be outsourced.

The city’s Director of Administration Mike Handler, the primary architect of the plan, has repeatedly said the private sector can construct and maintain school buildings for significantly cheaper than the city. According to his estimates, the private sector could do the work for $11 million per year compared to the $19

million it would take the city to build and maintain the six new schools.

The savings, Handler said at the Dec. 5 community meeting, would come in part from more lenient labor conditions in the private sector than the public sector. For example, the private sector allows workers to work at certain hours the public sector does not permit, Handler said.

Union workers, in turn, questioned Handler’s math, saying private sector workers would still be required to receive the same prevailing wage as union workers.

In an email to The Advocate, Handler said the true costs will be known once the city receives responses to a request for proposal.

“We are proceeding with what we hope will be a robust request for proposal process. This will be the most useful indicator as to the cost and service variance between the private sector and the public sector,” Handler said.

The SBOEAA’s concerns, although currently aimed at the publicprivate partnership plan, reach further than the present moment, Molgano said. In 2005, the union signed a contract that allowed the city to bring on 42 parttime private sector workers that took the place of 21 fulltime union jobs and, in return, the union workers received a 20year jobs guarantee with no layoffs.

That guarantee ends in 2025, and Molgano said he and other union members feared the publicprivate partnership plan is the first step toward getting rid of the union completely once the city again has the power to lay off workers in 2025.

“I think the plan is to not use us anymore . ... I’ve been here 21 years but there’s a lot of guys who are only a few years in and took these jobs thinking they had a job for 20 or 30 year,” Molgano said. “What’s going to happen to them if they cut these jobs in five years?”

For his part, when asked via email whether he had any intention of getting rid of the union workforce in 2025, Handler simply responded, “No.”

Workers should have caution before jumping to conclusions, said Board of Education President Andy George.

“I understand their concerns,” George said. “I just think we need to know more about whether this whole idea could possibly go forward. I think people are concluding that we’re definitely doing this and we’re not at that point yet.”