5 Ways to Maximize Your School's Facilities Budget Without Sacrificing Cleanliness
Tight school budgets make it difficult to meet the needs of students and manage the expectations of parents and teachers. As a result, facility managers should constantly look for ways to maximize their budget. Answering some basic questions can help you discover shortfalls in your current budget, including:
- Are there examples of over and under-spending?
- Where do you spend most of your cleaning budget, and is it consistent from year to year?
- What factors will impact the year’s budget, such as rising cleaning product prices or equipment replacements?
The answers to these questions help you target the best areas to improve cost efficiency. To make your job easier, you can also use these five tips. They’ll help you maximize your school’s facilities budget without sacrificing cleanliness. Get more information here.
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1. Focus on Creating Sustainable Classrooms
Although you might worry that creating sustainable classrooms costs more, it is one of the best ways to save money. Green classrooms are a community effort, with everyone working together to reduce expenses. This includes your Norristown school cleaning services. You can use the following sustainable classroom best practices to help reduce costs:
- Use a paperless system for school records, payroll, registration, etc., to reduce time spent emptying paper recycle bins
- Use sensor lighting to shut lights off automatically when the cleaners leave a room to avoid lights being left on at night.
- Have a lights-out policy, posting signs at light switches throughout the school to remind your cleaning team.
- Ensure all school cleaning equipment, such as floor polishers and vacuums, are maintained with annual service calls, so they operate at maximum efficiency.
- Have cleaners do a nightly check to ensure all electronics are off, especially before weekends and holidays.
- Invest in energy-efficient cleaning equipment for single-pass cleaning to reduce energy waste.
The beauty of creating sustainable classrooms is that most of these tips can be adopted immediately without an upfront investment. You can then decide when you can afford to include energy-efficient upgrades in your budget, such as sensor lighting, to see further savings.
2. Evaluate Your Contracts
When evaluating contracts for outsourced cleaning services in Norristown schools, look for opportunities to save money. One option to consider is sharing cleaning contracts with other schools in the district, which can make cleaning costs more manageable. Using a single cleaning company to manage all cleaning aspects, from rug cleaning to window cleaning, you can reduce overall costs and streamline your cleaning services.
3. Invest in Day Porter Services and Rent Facility Space During Off Hours
Your facility sits empty and unused for long periods, including weekends, nights, and holiday breaks. Renting your space out to the community offers an affordable option for local businesses and associations to hold meetings, training, classes, events, etc., to generate income for the school. You can develop a fixed cost measured against the resources required to keep the school open for the events.
Consider how each space can be used, such as your gym for sporting events and competitions, your auditorium for seminars or locally produced shows, or your classrooms for training and classes. Use parents as a resource to find potential renters. Ask your school janitorial services if they offer a day porter to help with the events. The porter can open the building, ensure everything is ready to go, address the basic needs of attendees, and then clean and lock up after the event.
4. Schedule Regular Facility Audits and Preventive Maintenance
Facility management best practices call for regular audits. Inspect areas of the school where costly damage is more likely, such as the roof and bathrooms, where leaks can occur. Facility cleaning audits ensure you remain on top of the building’s condition and avoid major issues that call for specialty school janitorial services. Audits also allow you to address safety issues and avoid significant replacements for building elements before their time.
5. Maintenance Schedules
Regular facility audits ensure critical building components, such as plumbing and electrical systems, function properly. These audits can also help you identify potential issues before they become major problems, such as leaks or equipment breakdowns. By following recommended maintenance schedules and conducting preventive maintenance, you can prolong the life of your building's components and avoid emergency cleanups. This proactive approach to facility management can save you money in the long run and help you avoid unexpected expenses.
Audits also allow you to accurately estimate when major replacements are required for elements such as carpeting, so you can add the cost to your budget and plan accordingly. Other facility maintenance schedules, such as burnishing to keep floors shiny, should be assessed to ensure over-burnishing does not wear down the floors and reduce the expected useful life.
Don't Forget Cleaning Equipment
Maintenance also applies to cleaning equipment. With a proper maintenance program, machines last longer. You can also create a product replacement plan based on the expected life span of cleaning equipment, so you know when to expect to replace these items and budget accordingly.
6. Automate Your Administrative Processes
Outdated manual processes cost money. Your administrative team should be equipped with the latest office management software to automate processes, including putting in maintenance requests. Workflow automation frees time, so your administrative team and faculty focus on more important things. It also ensures that the requests are filed promptly before further damage can occur. As a result, you add to your proactive maintenance methods reducing costs by helping to prolong the life of classroom and facility components.
For example, a spill on carpeting should be addressed as soon as possible to avoid stains from setting in. You keep stains and wear to a minimum to avoid costly carpet replacement. With automated maintenance requests, the staff is more likely to take action. As a result, you save money and create a better work and teaching environment.
Looking to maximize your school's facilities budget in Norristown or surrounding areas?
It's not just about making cuts - it's about discovering opportunities for sustainable savings and revenue generation. Following the tips outlined in this article can save money without sacrificing cleanliness. If you need a partner to help you achieve your goals, visit our school cleaning web page to learn more.
About Us
We are a Norristown-based commercial cleaning company specializing in school and daycare cleaning services, as well as office, warehouse, restaurant, and construction cleaning. Using state-of-the-art equipment and techniques, we deliver meticulous cleaning services, competitive pricing, excellent customer service, and a satisfaction guarantee to help schools and businesses maintain a clean and safe environment for students, faculty, and parents.
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