Pike Systems

+ 630 - 896 - 6373

Education Funding is Scarce.

The financial forecast for schools is dubious year over year.

Isn't it time to consider a new approach to cleaning your schools? An approach that will give you the transparency you need to make the necessary cuts, while first and foremost keeping health in mind?

Each year, during the budget-planning period, you select a budget number for the custodial department. In most districts, this is based on past history and any additional foreseeable expenses, such as equipment replacement, new construction, and how comfortable you are with your various funding sources.

You've done a great job procuring products at the lowest possible price. You're at the point where the supply chain isn't going to allow you to go any lower. So, the question becomes, how can you cope with future cuts, if you can't procure products at a lower price than you are right now?

In most districts, the business office spends tens of thousands of dollars on cleaning supplies, and still many aren't satisfied with the cleanliness levels achieved in the schools. For the past few years, you've cut the supply budget and possibly eliminated cleaning personnel, but you still haven't seen noticeable changes in cleanliness. Does this mean there is excess? What costs are essential versus optional? How do you decide where to cut? What do you cut? Do you even know what got cut the last time there was a budget reduction?

Cleaning is complex.

There are many variables that go into determining and controlling your total custodial budget number.

At Pike Systems, we break down the cleaning budget further by looking specifically at demographics, procedures, cleaning frequencies, cleaning standards, supplies, and labor.

Supplies make up less than 10% of the overall budget. Yet, because it is tangible, the supply category tends to get the greatest attention. By applying your cleaning standards, you are able to put a number on the quantities of various supplies for your facility. For example, when refinishing a hallway, if you take the square footage of the west hall, multiply it by the recommended square foot coverage of the floor finish per gallon, the number of coats, you know the number of gallons you need for refinishing the floor one time.

Multiply this by how many times you will refinish it in a year and you have your yearly consumption of floor finish. This can then be relayed into the yearly budget and tracked by your purchasing department if needed.

Labor is your biggest part of the budget, and it's the one that should receive the most attention. This number is calculated by identifying your cleaning standards for each facility. There are additional factors that also impact the budget number such as supply price increases, cost of living increases, mechanization, a trained staff, and risk factors, such as a MRSA outbreak or mold issues.

We start with what you want cleaned.

By identifying the building demographics (ie. the quantity of the items to clean and the square footage of all floor surfaces to be cleaned), we are able to add these into our formula and get the cost projections for your budget.

Procedures are a critical component to arriving at the budget number. Applying modern methods, mechanization, and tools will greatly reduce your labor portion of the budget. Procedures will also drive the quality of the work performed.

Frequency can be determined by your desired cleanliness level. Less frequent cleaning will result in a lower quality standard.

The cleaning standards are the combination of demographics, procedures, and frequency. For example: Clean the west corridor with the battery scrubber each night using red pads and the Super Shine-All Detergent. Any changes in the cleaning standard will impact your budget either up or down.