The Brownwood ISD Board of Trustees unanimously approved two action items during Monday night’s monthly meeting – the Custodian Recruitment and Retention Pay Plan as well as granting Superintendent Dr. Joe Young the authority to negotiate a Professional Services Agreement with Claycomb Associates, Inc.

Young said in his presentation to the Board regarding the Custodian Recruitment and Retention Pay Plan, “Right now we have almost a quarter of our custodial positions in the district vacant. It’s hard to get our buildings clean and get everything sanitized the way it’s supposed to be done and not work people to death doing this. The ladies and men that are part of this crew are doing fantastic work and they’re staying until it gets done. But we need to get people in there to help them do that.”

Young stated BISD was facing two issues when it came to custodian retention and pay.

“We are losing people to other jobs in the community which may be paying more right now,” Young said. “We also have a low salary compared to other positions in the community that some of these people are leaving us to go to – the consistent salary over time is lower.”

In regard to addressing those issues, Young said, “We’re going to try and stop the bleeding and keep people from leaving the district and recruit a few to make it to the end of this year. Then for the next budget cycle in 2022-23 we will look at the actual hourly pay moving forward and getting that to a better level and more consistent level.”

Under the approved plan, the stipend that would be paid to current custodians based on years of experience with BISD would range from $1,500 to $4,000 and that would be paid over their next 10 paychecks, which would conclude at the current school year.

Due to money not being spent on custodians at the moment, the stipend would not effect the current school budget, Young added.

Regarding the Professional Services Agreement, Young said, “Brownwood ISD has been approached by several citizens talking about some facility needs that we have. Part of our goal as a district is to provide good facilities, sufficient facilities, and also work with our community partners. That is not my area of expertise, and really no one within the school district is a facilities expert. We do have Mr. (Jerry) O’Neal who is director of facilities and he does a great job of repairing them and doing preventative maintenance, but he also is not a facilities engineer.

“What we’re asking is we contract with Claycomb Associates to provide us a master plan, site analysis, facilities and business study, and then cost estimates for any repairs and builds that may be needed to address our issues. These services are provided at no cost to the community. They are architects so they have a vested interest in getting it right and being sure communities have what they need.”