Hamilton County Schools staff told the facilities committee that ABM, the district's new custodial contractor, has not yet met performance standards and still must fill dozens of jobs as the school year begins.

Ben Coulter, a staff member who led the custodial onboarding work, said ABM “was awarded a custodial contract on June 1” and has been working to staff 340 positions. “They're in process of fully staffing their team of 340 positions,” Coulter said, and he showed a staffing chart the contractor provided that moved to about 305 positions filled at the time of the presentation.

Coulter said Core America performed a baseline photographic audit of about 20% of rooms across 14 schools and “identified 5,185 items” and produced 1,467 photos. The contractor's independent quality score percentage (QSP) for that sample was 71.6%, short of the 85% average required by the district contract. “85% is what we have set up in our new contract,” Coulter said. Under the contract, a school that fails two inspections triggers a 3% penalty for that building.

District staff described next steps that are meant to tighten oversight: quarterly third‑party audits (Core America will audit roughly 20% of schools each cycle), weekly staffing reports to zone managers, “QR code” complaint reporting that allows staff to photograph and log deficiencies by room, and continuous access to the district's inspection software. Coulter said ABM would provide copies of inspection results to district staff and that principals receive emailed inspection reports when a building is scored.

Staff also described operational gaps. Coulter said that, at the time of the update, ABM had 43 schools at 100% staffing and had used overtime to cover understaffed sites, accumulating about 4,300 hours of overtime since June 1. He listed zones where staffing remained a challenge (East Hamilton, Red Bank, Signal Mountain and Soddy Daisy) and said contractors were experimenting with localized pay increases and shuttle service to reach remote sites.

District staff said some of the summer work required deeper floor waxing and stripping tasks that could not be fully completed in a short window; they described building‑by‑building “project work” lists to finish incomplete items on school breaks and a multi‑year floor wax schedule. Coulter said ABM currently operates under a 90‑day grace period before contract penalties fully apply; the district planned quality‑improvement meetings and continuous monitoring of complaints, inspections and staffing.

Why it matters: Custodial performance affects sanitation, classroom readiness and indoor environments at dozens of schools. The district has built inspection and penalty language into the contract and is reporting a sequence of monitoring steps intended to raise quality without immediately invoking financial penalties.

The committee did not take a formal new vote on the contract during the presentation; staff sought committee questions and said they would continue to report progress to the board.