The Bismarck School Board awarded a new contract for custodial services after the original contractor bowed out, citing a conflict of interest.

The Bismarck School Board awarded the contract to Indoor Services Inc. at its board meeting Monday evening in the Tom Baker Room of the City, County Building.

Progressive Maintenance was awarded a contract in February to provide evening janitorial services at Rita Murphy Elementary School and BECEP at Richholt. The firm was to begin work in March.

Management with Progressive said they had a conflict of interest because they also own a custodial supply company and didn't want to jeopardize their relationship with that company and the district, according to a memo from Darin Scherr, facilities and grounds director.

"The reason they chose is somewhat ambiguous," Superintendent Paul Johnson said.

The company and the district have come under fire since the board made the original decision because of the mistaken belief that the move to outsource some custodial services was a move to replace all district custodians, and some people in the community questioned the quality of service that would be received from Progressive Maintenance.

A recent employee newsletter addressed some of the more common concerns, and the North Dakota Education Association addressed concerns of Bismarck Education Association members and nonmembers through phone calls and some meetings.

"Concerns are about the safety and quality of outsourcing," NDEA Executive Director Nick Whitman said.

He cited concerns with current outsourcing for custodial substitutes, including theft, personality conflicts, aggression, poor cleaning of science labs and science projects being thrown away.

The scope of the outsourcing for Murphy and BECEP includes "housekeeping" type work, such as vacuuming, cleaning bathrooms and other work performed after school hours. It was proposed to look to an outside agency to provide this work because the district was short custodial staff after it finished the additions at Murphy and Miller Elementary Schools and at Richholt.

If it did not outsource the work, it would need to hire two additional custodians, and it does not free up its custodians to do more maintenance and upkeep activities during the school day.

"We need to move forward and then examine if it has merit, rather than kill it before we get started," board member Dan Kuntz said.

The board decided to award the contract to the second bidder, Indoor Services Inc., for $38,600.

This is $7,700 more than the Progressive Maintenance bid and is about the same as the district hiring its own staff.

The custodial company's employees who work in the school would have to go through background checks, and they could not be in the building until after school and must be done before 6 a.m. the next day.

(Reach reporter Sara Kincaid at 250-8251 or sara.kincaid@;bismarcktribune.com.)