Door Servicing and Repair
9/19/2023
Q: Theresa Palagonia, North Country SU is "looking for a reliable, professional commercial door servicing and repair company for our high school. Can anyone in the facilities group recommend and provide contact information to us?"
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A: Greg Frost, Windham Central SU: I have had luck in the past calling the hardware store. They may know of a local builder that orders commercial doors, hence they install and maintain them. Maybe try Poulin? They are pretty good, and they replaced all the windows at one of my schools this year. They were awesome.
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A: Len Smith, Bellows Free Academy: I have always had good luck with Champlain Door over the last 10yrs not sure if they travel your way can't hurt to ask here are the #'s I have for them: 802-542-7595 802-210-3564 802-347-1242
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A: Joe Houston, Orleans Southwest SU: I've had pretty good luck with Kelly Brothers of New England. They have a couple of locations I work with folks out of the Barre location:
Kelley Bros of New England, LLC
131 S Main St, Barre, VT 05641
(802) 865-5133
We have also used Portland Glass out of Barre/Montpelier before for a number of projects and they did nice work as well.
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Boiler RFP
9/19/2023
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A: Joe Houston, Orleans Southwest SU: Attached is the RFP I used for Hardwick Elementary this past spring. I had had a couple vendors look at the project and then created the specs based on their recommendations along with some help from Efficiency Vermont. Sending in Word format hopefully the format is okay, I can send .pdf as well if you like. Happy to answer any questions you have.
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Elevator Companies
Q: Kristi @ VSA Writes: At our 5/10 meeting, there was a discussion about elevator companies. Please see the information below, provided by Joe Houston at Orleans Southwest (joehouston@ossu.org)
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A: Here is the contact information for the elevator service companies that replied to my RFP last fall. Of the four, Ver-tran and Alpha were pretty close in price with KONE and Schindler being more expensive. If anyone wants the RFP that I sent out I'm happy to share that as well.
Ver-Tran
David Bates
(207) 743-7643
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A: Ray Daigle, Harwood UUSD: Here is a list of elevator and lift companies I received from either the State inspector or VSBIT. (it's been awhile and I don't recall who handed it off to me).
Contractors Using SD Lifts
1/23/2023
Q: Mike Kittredge, Orleans Central SU: Do you allow contractors to use school district lifts and, if so, do you require waivers of liability? If yes, can you please share examples?
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A: Ray Daigle, Harwood UUSD: We do let contractors use the lift at Harwood and typically have a staff member with them. We do not require a waiver.
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Custodial Pay Rates
11/9/2022
Q: Greg Harrington, Bennington-Rutland SU: I am wondering if anyone would be willing to share their pay rates for custodians. We are starting at $15.50 per hour with no experience and the max starting pay is $17.50 with 10 years of experience. We have had a few applicants interested until they hear what the pay is. Trying to figure out if our rates are anywhere near the others, and we are desperate like everyone else.
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A: Dylan LaFlam, Lamoille North SU: Follow this link to the support staff master agreement, And then scroll to the second to last page. Our base pay is $15.00 an hour with a $1.50 shift differential for anyone working second shift (meaning an inexperienced second shift custodian would start at $16.50). Depending on education, qualifications and experience we have steps up to $20.92 for a starting wage.
I am currently short 4 full time night custodians, 1 part time custodian and 1 part time maintenance position SU wide.
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A: Patrick Campbell, St. Johnsbury SD: St Johnsbury School district pays 16.19 to start no experience; 17.49 for 2-4 years exp; and 18.49 for 5 plus years.
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A: Jamie Evans, Barre UUSD: I'm with the Barre School District (BUUSD), we have four schools in our district. Our custodians and maintenance folks belong to the AFSCME union, which helps to negotiate their wages. We start our custodians at $18.64/hr plus shift differential of $.50/hr for working 2nd shift, regardless of experience. They also get a longevity increase of $.15/hr for every year they are with us.
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A: Ray Daigle, Harwood UUSD: We are starting custodians with no experience at $20/hr with a second shift differential of an additional .50/hour.
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A: Brenda Fleming, Rutland Northeast SU: Below is our rates of pay --the lowest pay is beginning pay
Description Hours Per Day Rate
Custodian 8.0000 $16.75
Custodian 8.0000 $16.75
Custodian 8.0000 $16.75
Custodian 4.5000 $16.75
Custodian 4.0000 $16.75
Custodian 8.0000 $17.00
Custodian 8.0000 $17.00
Custodian 8.0000 $17.00
Custodian 4.0000 $17.28
Custodian 4.0000 $17.28
Custodian 8.0000 $17.28
Head Custodian 8.0000 $21.40
Head Custodian 8.0000 $21.40
Head Custodian 8.0000 $22.12
Maintenance Custodian 8.0000 $21.94
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A: Joe Houston, Orleans Southwest SU: Our pay rate for custodians starts at 14.90 for HS degree, 15.52 for with an associates, and 16.14 for a bachelor's. Our support staff contract is in negotiation right now (11/9/2022) but I have no idea where they are going to settle.
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A: Deb Lord, Burlington SD: In response to your request the following are the BSD Custodial starting pay rates:
Head Custodian: Hours are 6:00 am - 2:30 pm - $17.00 - $18.50 based on experience
2nd Shift Evening Custodian: Hours are 2:30 pm - 11:00 pm - $16.50 - $18.50 based on experience plus a shift differential of $1.30 per hour is paid to those employees whose regular work shift begins between 12 noon and ends at 11:29 pm (2nd shift). The differential is paid only for time worked; not applicable to sick, personal, vacation or any other non-work day.
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A: David Hannigan, Washington Central UUSD: U32 starting pay with no experience is $18.00 and goes up to 21.71 an hour. We do not have a shift differential.
A: Joel Fitzgerald, Mount Abraham USD: We start @ 17.82.. We bumped it up 8% July one. The 8% was across the board for Facilities staff.
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Grants (Doors, Intercoms, Playgrounds)
11/21/2022
Q: Theresa Palagonia, North Country SU: One of our schools needs to replace their very large entrance door, $26,940.00 was the quote; Install a new intercom system, $88,762.41 was the quote; And replace their playground equipment, $40,000 – $90,000 - Are there funds available in the form of grants or reimbursements, other than the VSBIT safety grant, that could be used towards the door and/or intercom system?
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A: Todd Parah, Two Rivers SU: ESSER funds can be utilized for playground equipment.
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A: Shawn McNamara, Caledonia Central SU: There are several "safety grants" that can be utilized for the intercom system and doors. You can find them by googling safety grants in VT. The playground grants get a little different. If your playground is open to the public it changes quite a bit.
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A: Robert Clark and Frank Rucker, Windham Southeast SU: I asked our Business Manager for help on your questions. Frank Rucker is very knowledgeable on the ESSER funding. "Yes Dummerston playground equipment was eligible for playground equipment and I would guess the other projects referred to would be eligible, as always the district needs to make the case of how the improvement responds to covid and moves the district toward the pandemic recovery plan goals".
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Roof System/Building Envelope Resources
11/30/2022
Q: Jonathan Garthwaite, Hartford SD: I am looking for referrals or recommendations for resources to help with design and product specifications for some large roofing and building envelope repair projects. I'd like to engage a local/regional commercial architecture or engineering firm that has experience with academic facilities.
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A: Ray Daigle, Harwood UUSD: We have been using Truex Cullens from Burlington for projects in our district for many years and have been happy with their work.
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A: Chris O'Brien, Washington Central UUSD: We have used Black River Design for many of our Capital Projects at WCUUSD. After speaking to John Hemmelgarn yesterday he stated that they have done work in your district in the past. They are located in Montpelier and the number to the office is 802-223-2044.
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Job Description - Facilities Manager
11/20/2022
Q: Rich Holcombe, Greater Rutland County SU: What is everyone's job description for facility manager position?
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A: Greg Frost, Windham Central SU: I have my job description which is Director of Operations and I have our Facility Managers job descriptions.
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A: Tod DeLaricheliere, Orleans Southwest SU: Here is a description of a position we filled at our Elementary Schools. This might be a help to build one for yourself.
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Gender Inclusive Restrooms
12/9/2022
Q: Jonathan Garthwaite, Hartford SD: We are in the planning stages of the renovation of a number of restroom facilities. Those renovations will include the conversion to Gender Diverse use. I'm looking for information related to strictly facilities issues (i.e. impact on construction costs, HVAC considerations) as well as use/operational concerns (i.e. increased custodial effort, signage, public use). Has anyone engaged in a design exercise or identified design resources specific to this type of renovation? Any lessons learned through development, project execution, or operations that would be informative?
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A: Dylan Laflam, Lamoille North SU: Lamoille North is in the process of designing gender neutral restrooms for a possible upcoming renovation. Today I was lucky enough to see the bathrooms designed for the new Burlington high school, which is what we plan to try to model our renovation around. They are an open common handwashing station with single, floor to ceiling bathrooms stalls. I see these renovations as nothing but a win as we are constantly dealing with vandalism in multi-stall bathrooms.
New construction is always cleaner and easier for this type of construction and I am finding that we will have a significant amount of the cost tied up in cutting slabs out to rework plumbing, rework of exhaust air and heating. We will have a net loss of fixtures so custodial should remain about the same (possibly even saving time for the day crew if vandalism drops as much as we are hoping).
Colin Lindberg Architects are doing our design work. Brenda Barnum from Colin Lindberg Architects just sent this to me. I have only skimmed over it but there seems to be a mountain of great information for gender inclusive bathroom design.
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