To the Editor:
Before the Board of Trustees and Governor Mead settle on the biannual budget for the University of Wyoming, I hope they’ll take a serious look at appropriate funding and staffing of maintenance services. For example, inside UW’s newly renovated Half Acre facility with three floors of exercise equipment custodial duties remain the responsibility of two individuals – though recently a custodian from the history department has been partly reassigned there without anyone taking up his former duties.
A custodial manager stated: “With the on-going changes in staffing, staffing levels and new responsibilities (more square footage to clean with new and expanded buildings) our supervisors have to make decisions to best balance our resources and needs for custodial services…. Over the past 6 years the campus has grown by approximately 770,000 s.f. or an increase of 12 percent. During this same time our custodial staff has been reduced from 102 to 87, or a reduction of 15 percent. We just brought the addition to Half Acre Recreation center on line, about 27,000 s.f. and before the beginning of the fall semester the additional space (around 48,000 s.f.) in the Buchannan Center for Performing Arts (Fine Art building) and the Enzi S.T.E.M. building (approx. 102,000 s.f.) will open. This is going to put even more demands on limited manpower.”
Further, pay scale and benefits for UW’s custodians (no benefits if assigned fewer than six hours daily) are inferior to the public-school district and our local Wal-Mart, resulting in unnecessary turnover. Some have to supplement income with food stamps. Meanwhile, restrooms across campus with three-roll toilet-paper dispensers are being replaced (why?) with dual dispensers at a cost of $135,000.
All too often the university administration, the Board of Trustees, and Wyoming’s legislature make a big public show of adding new buildings or renovating existing ones without providing adequate funding and staffing for maintenance as the above numbers clearly indicate.
Respectfully,
Patrick Ivers
Laramie Resident
