Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Anything to Save a Buck

Last spring the local school board voted to "privatize" custodial services at the elementary and middle schools in order to save $185,000. This meant that staff that had been employed in the schools for years and sometimes decades were let go. The new company, UGL UNICCO, which is based out of state, took over the janitorial duties about one month ago. Yesterday two of their employees were arrested for smoking pot in the middle school parking lot last Thursday night. It turns out one of those employees had been arrested for drug possession previously, but it didn't show up during his pre-employment screening.
Now the school superintendent is outraged and calling for drug screening of all UGL UNICCO employees. I'm really not surprised. I think they would have been better off keeping the staff they had. I know some of those people had nieces, nephews, kids and grandkids in these schools and they would not pull that kind of crap. But God forbid we employ people with a vested interest in the community when we could save a few bucks by hiring some outside corporation willing to make a low ball offer.
Man. The world really sucks lately.

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