ANSWER:

The approved maintenance supply budget for Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 is approximately $3.7 million, which is utilized for necessary repairs and maintenance work at all schools, as well as non-school facilities. Montgomery County Public Schools facility assets include approximately 25.8 million square feet of building for schools and approximately 3,677 acres of real property requiring proper maintenance to ensure conducive learning environments in schools. As the Capital Improvements Program continues to build new schools and expand the existing schools to address the student enrollment growth, the maintenance supply budget needs to reflect the increasing facility assets and the supply material costs in order to properly maintain our schools.

The Division of Maintenance in the Department of Facilities Maintenance annually performs approximately 70,000 work orders. In any given time, approximately 8,000 to 9,500 work orders are in progress. These work orders are prioritized based on urgency and potential impact to school operations. While the goal is to address the work orders within 14 days, the response time varies based on the type of work orders. For example, urgent emergency-related work orders are responded to within one hour of reporting time compared to large scale repair work which may have to be postponed to either winter, spring, or summer breaks in order to minimize impact to school operations. Availability of necessary materials and parts, weather conditions, and school schedules also can impact the response time. In all cases, Division of Maintenance staff continue to strive for providing close communication on the work order status to school administration and also providing the maintenance repair services in a most expeditious manner with minimal impact to school operation.