County maintenance staff to cover six-week custodian medical leave; department rolls out iPads and digital work orders

Eric, a staff member in the county facilities maintenance department, told the Facility and Maintenance Committee that a custodian will take a medical leave of about six weeks beginning in September and that maintenance technicians will reassign duties to cover the workload. “So our team, our maintenance techs are gonna fall back and take his spot. It'd be in Matt's area. So we're gonna be taking over Old Courts, health department, 9 1 1, LEC, and animal control,” Eric said.

The change is temporary and is meant to keep core services running while the employee is out, Eric said. Committee members asked whether the county would hire a part-time replacement; Eric said the department might seek a part-timer but that the plan for now is to redistribute work among existing technicians.

Why it matters: The reassignment affects daily maintenance coverage for multiple county facilities — including the courthouse, health department, the 911 facility and animal control — and could change how quickly routine and preventive maintenance requests are completed.

Committee members and staff described how coverage will work. Eric said the animal control and health-department assignments are effectively part-time (about two to three days per week), and that technicians will consolidate building tasks so crews can complete rounds in roughly three hours. Jeremy, a county staff member, participated in the discussion on scheduling and budgeting.

The maintenance department is also moving toward a digital maintenance-management system. Eric said crews are using iPads and a program called Limble to track recurring preventative maintenance and work orders. “The guys have iPads now. So we've been, you know, chatting every single day about what is coming through the pipeline and how it's coming through the pipeline and what we need to do and, what we need to tweak in the system in our program that's just reoccurring PM,” Eric said.

The committee emphasized that it wants to see submitted work orders and metrics. Eric said he would like the committee to begin reviewing work-order data and that there were no submitted work orders yet through the new system; he encouraged committee members to expect reporting as the team continues rolling out the program.

Discussion vs. decision: The committee discussed coverage options and the possibility of hiring a part-time custodian, but no formal hiring decision was made at the meeting. The committee did not take a vote on staffing or budget changes during the session.

Looking ahead: Eric and staff said they will continue reassigning duties while exploring a temporary hire and will provide updates to the committee, including work-order reports once the Limble rollout yields data.