In a major shift, the management of Calvin’s facilities will return in-house as of Oct. 1, 2024.
The decision, announced on Sept. 13 by Dirk Pruis, the vice president for Finance, marks a return to in-house management of facilities for the first time since June 2021. The in-house management will replace a two-year partnership with Keystone Facilities Management LLC, which has been responsible for overseeing Calvin’s facilities.
In 2021, Calvin replaced its in-house facilities management team with a contract with National Management Resources Company (NMRC) The change, which was aimed at saving money, was criticized by many faculty and staff at the time. In Aug. 2022, Calvin ended its contract with NMRC early due to frustrations with their work and brought on Keystone, a local contractor, instead, according to campus recycling coordinator, Nicholas Koppenol and previous Chimes reporting.
The University sees this move back to in-house management partly as a cost saving measure, as the “transition will provide further opportunities for cost savings as we reduce our reliance on outside vendors,” Pruis said in the statement.
As Calvin transitions back to an in-house facilities team, it expects to retain almost all of the facilities workers previously employed by Keystone. Koppenol, who has been on the facilities team for three years, confirmed that staff are being taken care of, saying “I think it’s going to be a seamless transition.”
“Keystone stepped up and built a great team,” Koppenol said. According to Koppenol, he expects most of this team to stay on and to continue under the same roles and the same projects.
Contracts offered to Keystone’s staff by Calvin are “just as good if not better” for many staff, according to Koppenol, and their seniority will be dated to whenever they started at Calvin, regardless of what employer they started with. “So it’s not like they’re starting over as a fresh employee,” which is expected to add to the seamless transition of roles.
“Keystone seemed to be doing a good job. I think Calvin was just ready to take facilities back under their wing,” said Koppenol.
Koppenol is focused on campus sustainability and expanding the accessibility of recycling, commenting that he expects much of that work “will be able to continue, if not get easier,” as facilities will be managed in-house.
For the student workers employed through facilities, many can expect to retain those jobs through the transfer, as Calvin continues Keystone’s commitment to involving students. “We are going to continue to use student workers,” said Koppenol, as “there is always work to be done.”
“We didn’t really see this coming, but I’m looking forward to continuing to work for facilities,” says student cleaning crew member Sebastian Umran. “Over the summer I had a great time as a part of the summer crew, and I’m glad those opportunities will still be available in the future,” Umran said.
