SALISBURY — The Rowan-Salisbury School System Board of Education approved a series of contracts on Monday during its business meeting for lawn care services, abatement services and HVAC controls and installation. 

“A lot of these contracts started in the summer and we had to go back and forth with our legal advisement to make sure we had everything in place so that these could be presented,” RSS Chief Operating Officer Jamie Durant said. 

The first contact approved was with Jani-King for lawn services.

“We currently use Jani-King to assist us in our lawn care and mowing at all of our schools and sites,” Durant said. 

Durant indicated that since the pandemic broke out in 2020, the school system has struggled with lawn care vacancies, which has prompted them to contract with Jani-King to fill in the gaps.

“We typically have 10 full-time members on our lawn crews,” Durant said. “The highest I have seen since I have been here is four. We currently are operating with three.”

Durant has been in his position since early 2023. 

 “That means on a daily average we have about seven temporary people that we use through Jani-King to assist us with this process,” Durant said.

At the meeting, Durant suggested that the board seek requests for proposals (RFPs) in the 2025 to outsource lawn care services or to investigate potential summer internships. 

“We’re looking at how we could more efficiently take care of this for our schools in the future,” Durant said, before adding, “We have also considered leaning on our CTE (career, technical education) programs to utilize students for summer internships.”

The contract was approved by the board but not to exceed $350,000 for the school year. 

Durant did mention that with hiring flexibility, if the department can bring on more full-time workers the contract amount would decrease. 

“They interviewed people last week but it’s a role that we don’t really provide a competitive wage,” Durant said. “Once they work for a period of time, they usually find a private vendor that offers these services. We also struggle with candidates who have drivers’ licenses to move equipment from site to site.”

The motion was approved unanimously.

 

Abatement contract

Durant also brought forward a recommendation to approve an abatement services contract with TD Riggs Enterprises for up to $180,000.

TD Riggs Enterprises provides the school system with 24-hour on-call emergency services, indoor air quality testing and monitoring, as well as remediation for water, fire and catastrophic damage. 

“Anytime we have any projects we have to investigate to see if there could potentially be asbestos, or mold related to anything that we have going on,” Durant said. “… Looking at the last several years and how much we have utilized TD Riggs, I am requesting to approve the abatement services.”

Durant said last year, the school system spent $241,000 with TD Riggs. 

“We don’t anticipate any large projects that were a carry over from a previous year,” Durant said. “An example would be in the previous year, we spent $38,000.”

That motion passed unanimously.

 

Electric contract

In order to bring all buildings on campus to one HVAC system, Schneider Electric controls were installed at RSS facilities. Since Schneider Electric’s control equipment is installed throughout district facilities, technical services do not go out for bid.

Durant recommended approving the Schneider Electrical contract in an amount not to exceed $150,000 for the school year. Durant said at the meeting that it’s not for service, but rather parts and installation. 

“We have been continuing to transition all of our buildings over to Schneider Electrical controls in our facilities to help with our HVAC controls and the humidity monitoring that we have in our systems,” Durant said. 

This contract was not put out for bid because Schneider provides Schneider controls. 

“That is a sole source to make sure all these controls work together,” Durant said.

Durant indicated that it would be a contract that the system would need to revisit as they bring more facilities on line. 

“We anticipate the amount of work we conduct this year will be in that $150,000 range as we replace the units in our buildings,” Durant said. “As we continue to replace, we gotta replace the controls. As we do that periodically, I’m assuming I will bring this back next year for about the same amount as we transition these controls over.”

According to Durant, in 2021, the school system spent $196,00 with Schneider. In 22-23, it spent 57,000. Last year that number was $143,000.

This motion was approved unanimously.