A report prepared by the Calgary Board of Education shows that the cost of contracting out the cleaning in several city public schools is higher than in-house work by Board employees.
Consequently, the Board has decided to look at reducing by half the 34 school sites cleaned by private companies.
The chair of the school board told the media it was “quite a shock” to see the cost analysis of the 34 sites contradicting the conventional wisdom that contracting-out is cheaper.
“There’s nothing surprising about this at all.” said Tony Miotti, president of CUPE’s Calgary Catholic school board local which held a nine-week strike against contracting-out earlier this year. “We knew all along that contracting-out is more expensive and doesn’t work.”