SAUGUS — The school custodians will lose their jobs at the end of the month, the School Committee decided Wednesday morning.
In a five-minute public meeting that followed a three-hour executive session, the panel voted 3-2 to outsource custodial duties of the public schools with a private cleaning company. The private session started at 7:15 a.m.
Members Jeannie Meredith, Linda Gaieski and Marc Magliozzi voted in favor of the change. Lisa Morgante and Liz Marchese voted in opposition. None of the members commented on the decision.
The move was met with comments from the audience, some calling the School Committee members cowards.
“See you in November,” yelled out former School Committee member Arthur Grabowski, alluding to an upcoming election.
One of the strongest reactions came from 16-year-old Olivia Tamagna, who pleaded that the board hear a student’s perspective before making a final decision. The School Committee did not hold a public hearing on the matter.
“I feel that it’s vital that you hear the opinion of a student,” said Tamagna. “I know you want what’s best for Saugus students, but outsourcing is not what’s best for us.”
The Saugus High School student was the only resident to speak at the meeting and she was brought to tears when she heard the final vote. It was her elementary school custodian, Bill Moore, who consoled her.
The crowd of people waiting in the hallway outside the closed doors of the executive meeting dwindled to less than two dozen as the hours ticked on.
While they waited, the board also discussed the May 8 executive minutes that had been questioned by Morgante and Marchese earlier this month, and recent Open Meeting Law complaints filed against them.
Marchese and Morgante said they believed they were voting to gather more information about the custodial bids received by the department at the May 8 meeting. Afterwards, however, they became concerned that the vote actually terminated the union contract.
A secretary was not present at the executive session when a vote was taken, said Marchese. Because of that, she said she did not believe anyone took notes for meeting minutes or recorded the wording of the vote taken.
Wednesday morning, Meredith said that the vote was “to reiterate the original motion made on May 8.”
Board members were escorted to their cars by three Saugus police officers. The officers also advised the group attending the meeting, which began heckling the panel, that the meeting was over and they should leave.
The committee has not yet named a private cleaning company to take over the custodial work at the schools.
