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The Southampton County School Board voted 7-1 on Nov. 11 to enter into a service agreement with HES Facilities LLC for the company to provide maintenance and janitorial services for Southampton County Public Schools.

The lone dissenting vote was cast by Board Member Brandon Rodgers. Only eight votes were cast because Board Member Donna Rountree was not present.

SCPS Superintendent Dr. Gwendolyn P. Shannon introduced the HES Services Agreement agenda item by noting that HES is a company that school division administrators desired to work with in reference to the division’s maintenance and janitorial services.

“We put the project out for bid, and all bids were received, and this was the company that we thought was most favorable and would be able to carry out the mission and the vision that we have for our maintenance and janitorial staff,” she said. “This is indeed a partnership. We’re not considering it as outsourcing because of the way that their company is structured and the way in which their company would interact with Southampton County Public Schools personnel.”

ABOUT HES FACILITIES MANAGEMENT

Representing HES Facilities Management at the Nov. 11 School Board meeting was Russell Leboff, HES vice president for business development for the Mid-Atlantic region.

He noted that HES is headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee, but has regional offices throughout Virginia.

“We actually have seven key leaders who live between Suffolk and Lynchburg,” he said. “I actually live in Amelia, so you’re very well-represented here in the state of Virginia.”

He explained that the services HES offers include custodial, facilities maintenance and groundskeeping of school grounds and athletic fields.

Groundskeeping and landscaping were not part of the discussions of what HES could provide for SCPS, though Leboff said that if the division likes HES’ other services and wants to consider expanding to include groundskeeping and landscaping, the company could do that as well at some point in the future.

“Now the facilities maintenance would be things like your HVAC, your electrical, plumbing, things like that,” Leboff said.

HES is several companies that were combined into one, he stated, with the oldest having started in 1972.

“We’re in 28 states,” he said. “We have over 150 education partners. That includes higher ed, so as an example, Averett University is one of our partners.”

Some of HES’ other Virginia education partners include school systems in Suffolk, Dinwiddie, Powhatan, Manassas Park and Chesterfield.

“And then as Dr. Shannon mentioned, we are a different type of company,” Leboff said. “We’re not an outsourcing company. When you outsource some type of service, they basically take control of that service, and there’s not a lot of interaction between you and them except they do the service, and you pay them a fee. That’s not how we do it. 

“We want to work closely with your principals and assistant principals as our liaisons to make sure that you get what you need for our facilities management program,” he said.

He highlighted “the four Cs of a true partnership culture,” and they are caring about the staff, school division and community; connecting with the staff, principals, assistant principals, SCPS Chief Operations Officer Will Melbye and board; communicating regularly with those liaisons; and avoiding complacency.

“First of all, we’ve got to care about the people, because really, if you don’t care about the people and you don’t respect the people, then money becomes a big problem,” he said. “Well, we’re going to care about your people, we’re going to care about our people.”

In reference to connectivity, he said HES managers who would work with SCPS would stay connected with the individuals they oversee.

“They won’t be sitting in an office somewhere; they’ll be out in the schools, your schools, working with their team,” he said.

He noted that HES management leadership maintains communication by meeting with principals and assistant principals on a regular basis. 

“We want them to understand what we’re doing and why we’re doing it, and we want them to be involved,” he said. “The principals and assistant principals, CEO and COO of their schools, they have a lot to do. What we want to do is take this off their plate so they don’t have to do the day-to-day stuff, but they’re still in control. They’re still the CEOs and COOs.”

Addressing complacency avoidance, he said, “It doesn’t matter if you’re a school division or a football team or a company who does what we do — the moment you get complacent you suffer and the quality of what you do goes down, even as a school division. So you can’t have complacency.”

WHAT HES WILL DO FOR SCPS

He then noted that Shannon wanted him to explain in greater depth what HES does.

“So for our proposal to Southampton County Public Schools, we’re going to do everything as it relates to custodial and cleaning your schools,” he said. “There’s not anything we won’t include, there’s not anything we’re not going to do, so everything is included.

“For facilities maintenance, everything is included except for supplies,” he continued. “So as an example, if you have lights out, you would provide the lights, and we would replace those lights. If you have a compressor go out on an HVAC unit, you would provide the compressor, and we would replace that. We would fund the labor to replace that. Everything else is included.”

Then Leboff shared some of the other ways SCPS would benefit from HES.

“Some of the great things you’re going to get out of this program is you’re going to get our management, you’re going to get very competitive wages that’ll keep people,” he said. It’ll get people, and it’ll keep people.

“You’re going to get a work order system, so now your assistant principals and principals will get to see when that work order is initiated and when it’s finally resolved,” he continued. “So they’ll be involved in that quite a bit.”

He said all repair, maintenance and replacement work on SCPS equipment is going to be performed by HES.

“Asset tagging will be accomplished,” he said. “You don’t have asset tagging right now. We don’t really know the assets that you have, so one of our first endeavors will be to go out there, identify all your inventory, all your assets, get it tagged, report what the age is, what condition it’s in. We will keep track of that for you, and those will be your records going forward.”

He then opened the floor to questions from the School Board.

HOW CURRENT SCPS STAFFERS WILL BE AFFECTED

Rodgers said, “How will this impact our current folks that we have on staff?”

Leboff noted first that SCPS had experienced a lot of attrition, both in its custodial staff but especially in its facilities maintenance ranks, so not many are there to be impacted.

“But for those individuals that are impacted, we’re going to take very good care of them,” he said. “All of them are guaranteed a position if they want a position. Nobody’s going to get a pay cut. And then we have a host of benefits.”

Both Board Vice Chair Denise Bunn and Board Member Dr. Jennifer Tindle checked with Leboff to make sure there would be no gap in health insurance coverage for SCPS employees who will be joining HES.

Bunn said, “As long as it goes straight from one to the other, there’s no gap, so there’s no risk of people going….” and Leboff quickly interjected, “That’s correct.”

Bunn later said, “I’m assuming that for the staff that will be transitioning to you, that in the next week or so you would send someone that could meet with the staff to cover all of their HR issues, health issues…”

Leboff said, “Oh, absolutely, so we would bring in HR support, and those employees that come in as HR support will sit down, they will meet with every single employee individually. We’ll talk about that employee, what they’ve done in Southampton, what do they want to do.

“Another thing that’s really good about this opportunity is they now have a promotional track with us that they maybe didn’t have with you, they couldn’t have with you, because we’ve got seven other accounts in the state of Virginia,” he added. “So if they wanted a promotion opportunity and wanted to move into management, they could. They would probably have to move, unless they went to Suffolk, then maybe they wouldn’t have to move, but this does represent promotional opportunities for them, advancement career-wise.”

THE COMPARATIVE COST

Tindle noted that the annual contract price for the service agreement with HES was $1.8 million, and Leboff confirmed this translated into a monthly bill of $150,000.

Tindle asked Shannon, “How does that compare with what we would be paying now with our own people?”

“I think it’s pretty close,” Shannon said, noting that SCPS administrators looked at several contracts and took all of the division’s budget into consideration. “And we found that it’s more advantageous for us to go this route than for us to continue to try to maintain the buildings ourselves.”

TARGET START DATE

Board Member Orris Lane asked when HES services would start, and Leboff said, “As soon as possible. Our target date is Dec. 1, and we think that’s not going to be a problem. We’ve already hired the manager for your program. We’re ready to go. We’ve already got all the equipment. We’re ready. So we think Dec. 1 is a very viable date.”

RESPONSE TIME AND PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE

Rodgers asked Leboff, “What’s your typical response time for service or facilities requests?”

“Well, if it’s an emergency, it’s within two hours,” Leboff said. “If it’s a non-emergency, it’s within 24 hours, or to be determined. Now if it’s a big project, say that you had a flood, we’re not going to be able to get that done in 24 hours, but our response time would be two hours.”

“And does this also cover preventative maintenance?” Rodgers asked.

“Absolutely,” Leboff said. “This program is going to actually save you money in the long run. One of the reasons it’s going to save you money is because we have a very advanced preventative maintenance program so that your equipment’s taken care of so that you don’t have a chiller go out, you don’t have an HVAC system go out. So long term, it’s going to save you money.”

Bunn said, “With all of the assets being tagged, then we’ll be able to do reports that’ll show, ‘This is the preventative maintenance that was done on this.’”

“Yes, ma’am,” Leboff said. “It’ll show everything about that asset, and that will be yours forever. Whether you have us 10 years from now or not, that information will be maintained for you and 

provided to you if we ever leave.”

SHANNON’S RECOMMENDATION

Earlier during the board’s question-and-answer session with Leboff, Board Chair Dr. Deborah Goodwyn asked Shannon for her recommendation, and Shannon made clear that she recommended SCPS enter into an agreement with HES Facilities LLC.

“This contract is for five years, and we’ve gone through the language of the contract,” she said. “They have made some modifications to some information that we asked them to change, and I recommend that we move forward with HES.”

WHY RODGERS CAST A DISSENTING VOTE

In a Monday, Nov. 25, email interview, Rodgers explained why he voted against entering into  the service agreement with HES.

“I had only a few moments to review the contract (it was handed to me during the presentation) prior to a vote being called,” he stated. “Given the cost of services and limited information in front of me at the time, I could not vote in favor of the contract. That said, the services are necessary, and I am hopeful that Dr. Shannon and Mr. Melbye will ensure that HES delivers.”