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Maintenance staff demonstrate Brightly work-order system as committee presses for overtime and cost details
Summary
Maintenance showed the Brightly work-order system and data on open and completed tickets; committee members raised data‑quality issues, asked for department-level reports, and pressed administration for details about roughly $40,000 in overtime tied to the software conversion and other costs.
The Facilities Operations Subcommittee heard a demonstration of Brightly, the district's work‑order and facilities-management software, on March 9, as staff walked members through filters, reports and open tickets. Josh, a maintenance staff member, and Director of Maintenance Mr. Fado showed how the system lists in‑progress and completed work orders and how preventive‑maintenance items repopulate work queues.
"From the date you gave me, it takes me 15 hours to respond and it's taken an average of 5 days to complete," Josh said, describing response-time improvements since the migration. Mr. Fado said the system shows 61 in‑progress work orders for Jan. 1, 2026 to present and 411 completed orders in that period, and that preventive‑maintenance (PM) items can inflate apparent totals because PM entries repopulate automatically.
Committee members pressed for clearer, department‑level reporting. "Is there reports that get run for each department, each principal?" one member asked; Josh said Brightly can run such reports but crew and department filters still need to be configured. Staff agreed to supply follow‑up reports showing active non‑PM work orders, per‑school counts and who initiated each ticket.
The committee also questioned the rollout and its costs. One member said the conversion from the district's prior tool took much longer than expected and flagged overtime charges used during the migration. "It doesn't sit well with me that we spent $40,000 in overtime for something that we were never told as a committee that was going to be needed," the member said. The superintendent described an internal approval process for project stipends and overtime and said some overtime was charged to specific program budgets; she and finance staff agreed to provide records showing who signed off and which accounts paid the hours.
Members raised a data‑quality example tied to nutrition work orders: a view that showed 555 work orders with 545 "overdue," which Mr. Fado said resulted from PM scheduling behavior rather than 545 unique overdue tickets. Staff recommended filtering by "origin = nonPM" to isolate active, non‑recurring requests.
The subcommittee asked for additional follow‑up materials at the next meeting: (1) a per‑department, per‑principal report of active and completed work orders; (2) a report showing work‑order initiators and assignment workflows; (3) a reconciliation of outside‑vendor invoices that can be cross‑referenced to Brightly entries; and (4) documentation of overtime approvals and the accounts charged.
The superintendent said Brightly's rollout and customization were complicated by staff turnover during migration, the district's size and the software's need for configuration. She said Brightly does not yet support the district's inventory needs and that the vendor has indicated an inventory module is forthcoming.
