ANSWER:

The Operating Budget for the Division of School Plant Operations is based on a staff-to-building size ratio (SBSR) for each level. This is the average amount of square footage cleaned per employee, which includes building services workers, managers, assistant managers and plant equipment operators. Currently, the SBSR for elementary is 17,470 square feet, 18,775 square feet for middle schools, and 20,196 square feet for high schools on average. This is consistent with the industry standard and comparative to the other districts.

Benchmarking between districts cannot be exact due to several differences in the scope of work, categories of expenditures, and service and materials that are included. However, when a survey was conducted by the Council of Great City Schools in a 2014 Performance Measurement and Benchmarking Project, several school districts across the country reported that the median square footage responsible for each custodian would be 25,501. MCPS is currently staffed at 29,181 square feet per building services worker. Anne Arundel Public Schools is staffed at 29,600 and data available for other Maryland school districts is below 29,000.

In addition, MCPS currently has 25,098,072 square footage of space amongst its schools and facilities. The cost per square footage for the Division of School Plant Operations and the Division of Maintenance is the following: