Hello,
We have a church and elementary school. The church building was built in 1899, with a remodel and expansion in 1993. The current school building was built in the late 1940's with expansions in the mid-50's and early-60's. The maintenance of the properties has been under the direction of a three person board. Since the 1990's we have had a part time staff person who was in charge of most of the day to day duties of making sure the properties were maintained – not necessarily doing the work, but arranging for contractors, or volunteers to get the work done, scheduling inspections, and overseeing custodial workers.
We no longer have the part time staff person and the we are down to one person on the property board with no real candidates available to fill the property board positions, or the part-time staff position. We are beginning to investigate hiring a staff person from outside the congregation to perform the duties of the part-time staff person, as well as take on the responsibilities of the board, including some of the actual maintenance work.
As an alternative, I would like the congregation to investigate contracting with an outside company to provide these services. I would like to know if any churches have used such a company and if so, what challenges you've faced, or what benefits have you experienced by outsourcing these services. Any recommendations would be a blessing.
Thanks,
Keith