Opening Statement by John Dufay, Director
Includes the Cluster Report for Fiscal Years 2007-2010
This, the second Year-End Report, summarizes the successes of the Maintenance and Operations Division (M&O) of Albuquerque Public Schools (APS) during the 2009-10 fiscal year. In addition, it outlines the challenges and goals for the current 2010-11 fiscal year. As with the previous Year-End Report, decreasing funds that conflict with increasing demands dominate the challenges.
It’s Tradition!
Growing demands placed on the APS School District continue to stretch thin available dollars, and the M&O budget continues to be reduced. Traditionally, school districts nationwide initially look at their M&O division when forced to reduce costs, to avoid adversely affecting the classrooms. This tradition has resulted in a deferred maintenance backlog dating back five years or more in some school facilities, and deficiencies that are growing exponentially into the millions of dollars.
Thankfully, at APS the Capital Master Plan funding has helped APS M&O keep up with top priority maintenance and most long-term deficiencies and planning. Nonetheless, budget shortfalls have adversely affected M&O considerably and there remains a great need for facility upgrades and repairs.
Maintenance work often goes unnoticed by school administrators and board members, who are more attuned to what’s happening in the classroom, and this is good. While teachers have many opportunities to receive praise, school maintenance workers often toil in anonymity, and that is how it should be. School is all about the kids and learning. And M&O is here to support the learning process by providing a clean, safe, and highly functional educational environment conducive to the learning process!
M&O is In the Business of Protecting the Instructional Day
Having recognized the obvious focus on learning, the best maintenance — the kind that prevents problems from ever happening — can save school districts money and actually minimize disruptions in the education process. However, many districts, in coping with overall fiscal shortfalls, have cut back on maintenance budgets. As a result, M&O divisions nationwide are scrambling to do the job with under-manned crews, outdated equipment, and inadequate materials and supplies.
And schools that wait until something is broken are invariably faced with problems at the least desirable time – during class, testing, or major events. As the school building itself has an effect on the learning process, school leadership needs to appreciate that maintenance is an integral part of enabling the education focus of schools to run smoothly.
Preventative Maintenance is Efficient and Economical
In addition to preventing major repairs, good, regular planned maintenance also helps systems run more efficiently and economically. Preventive maintenance (PM) is the key to having efficient and economical facilities District wide. However, preventive maintenance work has to be scheduled, which collides with the “repair when broken” mentality and outdated status quo. PM work is especially important in the HVAC Shop, as few maintenance problems can disrupt a school as much as a heating or air conditioning breakdown. Therefore, maintenance crews must constantly monitor and test all HVAC equipment and perform other PM work which includes keeping equipment and systems clean and regularly changing filters. Systems need to operate at peak efficiencies.
Maintenance and Operations divisions in school districts across the country have gained a higher status and momentum as schools and their systems become more high tech. M&O has moved to the center of many districts’ functions, second only to curriculum, due to its vital role in the areas of learning environment, safety, productivity, quality, system reliability, regulatory compliance, environmental preservation, and liability. With this new paradigm, new awareness, realities, challenges, and opportunities are being presented to M&O divisions everywhere, including at APS.
In the center-stage spotlight of maintenance for schools, there must be a strategy of preventive maintenance in place, otherwise schools will deteriorate and create long-term expensive deficiencies that the school districts will need to address in the future. APS M&O will continue to increase its PM programs and request capital funding for this and other programs to stay ahead of the curve.
APS’ M&O Succeeds by Pushing the Envelope
Because we’re working hard and thinking outside the box — being innovative in keeping up with the growing demands of the District’s maintenance needs — APS schools are in fairly good shape and have few major deficiencies. Current levels of maintenance services are mostly sustainable and are in the long-term interests of the District. However, if the national trend continues and we cut the M&O Operational budget without identifying Capital funds to replace the needed monies, facilities will deteriorate in condition, appearance, performance, and efficiency. This must be avoided to enable M&O to continue to meet suitable learning environment standards in all of our APS schools.
As illustrated by the figures following the Cluster Report graph below, M&O is doing more work every year (working smarter), with consistently decreasing budgetary funds. While the District’s square footage is expanding, funding and people resources are diminishing. Excluding funding for utilities, funding to support M&O’s growing responsibilities in fiscal year 2009-2010 decreased by 22% since 2007. More dramatically, M&O has realized a 51.8% decrease in operational 101funding between the 2006-2007 and 2010-2011(current) fiscal years.
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