21CSF Testified on the Underfunding of Maintenance Operations at DCPS Schools

Oversight Hearing D.C. Department of General Services, February 28, 2023
Testimony: Mary Filardo, Executive Director, 21st Century School Fund

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I am here to bring a research perspective to the
challenges of managing public facilities, but in particular to the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) and D.C. Department of General Services (DGS) maintenance of our city’s public school buildings and grounds.

The 21st Century School Fund, started in 1994, with its focus on building the public will and government
capacity to modernize all of its DCPS schools. We now also work with state facilities officials from across
the nation as primary staff to the National Council on School Facilities, and with a range of civic,
education, labor, and industry groups on federal policy related to public education infrastructure,
through the [Re]Build America’s School Infrastructure Coalition.

From our research into standards for maintenance operations, it is clear that DCPS and DGS has been
chronically underfunding the maintenance operations of its schools. But it is not money alone that will
maintain the schools and I would not recommend increasing the budget until DCPS and DGS have an
operations and maintenance plan for the system and for each school. The DME’s Office has included
maintenance planning in the scope of the master plan process. This, is a bit of a misfit, but not because
it doesn’t need to be done, just because a master planning process, is very different from an operations
and maintenance plan process.

DCPS needs to invest in its facilities staff and provide school custodians with training, adequate supplies,
and tools for cleaning, level 1 maintenance, and whatever groundskeeping duties they may be
responsible for.

DGS and DCPS together should be spending 2% of the current replacement value of its inventory on
maintenance. This would be $144 million every year on the staffing, materials, supplies, planning and
management for custodial services, and the routine, preventive, and reactive maintenance and repairs
of DCPS facilities. Subtracting what DCPS should be paying for its custodial positions, DGS should have
budgeted $99 million for school maintenance and repairs. What did they do over the last years?

According to the FY23 budget book, public education maintenance, by DGS ranged from $29 million to
$63 million. This is chronic under-funding. At this rate, it will not be long before the already
modernized facilities will need major work. Adequate maintenance will ensure we do not accelerate the
natural deterioration of our buildings and grounds.

The first line of defense to ensure a long life to the District’s DCPS assets of $7.2 billion in schools, are
the school custodians. In the current projected budget for DCPS custodians, is $34 million for 587
custodial FTEs. While this is more than the number of custodians actually in the schools, it is still not
enough to meet standards for level 2 cleaning, doing level 1 maintenance, or for groundskeeping.

The DCPS inventory of active facilities is about 14.4 million gross square feet of space. DGS doesn’t
readily report on the acreage of these facilities, but it is well over 300 acres. The cost of new
construction in D.C. is conservatively $500 per GSF, putting the current replacement value (CRV) for all
of this space at about $7.2 billion.

The standards for funding maintenance and for cleaning have been developed by various organizations
and are set based on a percent of the current replacement value of the buildings and on how much space
one custodian can clean in 8 hours.

Learn more! Does Your School Have Enough Custodians? Find out by clicking here.

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