2017 Facilities Budget and Staffing Survey Results

2017
FACILITIES BUDGET, STAFFING, &
OPERATIONS SURVEY RESULTS
A research survey and report conducted by

Survey Methodology and Demographics
Facilities Landscape
Custodial Landscape
Facilities Budget and Staffing
Energy
Safety
Perception
Operational Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Conclusion
1
2
5
7
13
14
15
16
20
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Our second annual Budget, Staffing and Operations survey serves as the benchmarking document for
K-12 and Higher Education operations professionals. Each year, we present the most relevant budgeting,
staffing and operations data to our readers collected from the responses of hundreds of participants on
the facilities landscape, budget and staffing, and operational Key Performance Indicators. This year, we
heard from over 500 respondents in both K-12 and Higher Education from 46 states in the United States
and spanning 8 countries.
Similar to last year, we found a variety of challenges that face schools and colleges as they look to operate
and maintain facilities and infrastructure to support the business and educational goals of their institutions.
New this year, we expanded the survey with three new categories: Energy, safety and communication.

SURVEY METHODOLOGY AND DEMOGRAPHICS
SchoolDude conducted a survey of facilities managers and/or decision makers in educational institutions.
Institutions surveyed include Public K-12 districts, charter schools, private and independent schools,
community colleges, four-year public universities, and four-year private universities. Institutions ranged in
student size and type, representing the broader market. Departments represented include:
• Maintenance and Facilities
• Physical Plant
• Buildings and Grounds
• Business Operations
• Finance
• Events/Facility Use
• Superintendent’s Office
We received 514 responses to the survey: 81 percent from K-12
schools, 19 percent from Higher Education organizations. Our
participants spanned eight countries and 46 states with an equal
number of responses across all geographic regions (Northern,
Southern, Eastern, Western and Central United States). The top five
states with the most responses for California, Texas, Washington,
Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Within these participant groups, the type of educational organization varies, but were mostly from
Public K-12. A total of 66 percent were Public K-12, one percent were charter schools, one percent were
vocational schools, 10 percent were private K-12 day schools, and three percent were private boarding
schools. In Higher Education, just over 14 percent were four-year colleges and a little over four percent
were community colleges. The size of organizations and number of respondents from each follow:
K-12 HIGHER EDUCATIONENROLLMENT
1
3
5
9
17
15
19
28
93
119
48
63
45
22
18
9
<1,000
- 2,999
- 4,999
- 9,999
- 19,999
- 39,999
- 59,999
>60,000
1,000
3,000
5,000
10,000
20,000
40,000
1What Schools are Saying about Budget and Staffing Levels: 2017 Facilities Budget, Staffing, and Operations Survey Results
Survey Participants
Public
K-12
68%
Private K-12
13%
Higher
Education
19%

FACILITIES LANDSCAPE
Both K-12 and Higher Ed are facing an aging infrastructure. In both sectors, facilities on average are about
to enter their fifth decade of service:
The chart below details the number of buildings maintained according to size of school or institution. In
K-12, there is a strong correlation between size of school and number of buildings maintained:
In Higher Education, of the total area being maintained, 26 percent is student and faculty housing.
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
K-12
38Years
Higher Ed
42Years
0
35
70
105
140
Mid-sized schools
(5k-20k students)
Small schools
(<5K students)
Large schools
(>20k students)
Buildings Maintained - K-12
121Buildings
52Buildings
12Buildings
12Buildings

EVENING AND NIGHT SHIFTS
Over 70 percent of both K-12 and Higher Ed facilities operations run both evening and night shifts in
addition to daytime hours. This has increased significantly from last year, which was just 66 percent.
Educational institutions are increasing their after-hours shifts because work done outside of regular hours
reduces disruptions to the learning environment. They are also able to get more work done in a timely
manner because they don’t have to work around classroom schedules or interruptions from faculty or staff.
MAINTENANCE WORKLOAD
The vast majority of maintenance (over 75 percent) is done in-house exclusively in both sectors, but
this number has decreased 10 percentage points since 2016. The decrease in in-house maintenance is
specifically in K-12, indicating a shift toward outsourcing maintenance, whether it is fully outsourced or a
combination in-house and outsourced. A little more than 18 percent cite a combination of in-house and
outsourced maintenance, and a very small percentage of Higher Ed schools show maintenance being
outsourced exclusively:
No
14%
Yes
86%
K-12 Evening and Night Shifts
In-house
77%
Combination
20%
Outsourced 3%
K-12 In-House vs. Outsourced
Maintenance Teams
No
28%
Yes
72%
Higher Education Evening
and Night Shifts
In-house
89%
Combination 8%Outsourced 3%
Higher Education In-House vs.
Outsourced Maintenance Teams

MAINTENANCE UNIONIZATION
K-12 maintenance employees are nearly four times as likely to be unionized as those working in Higher Ed.
Although the number of K-12 union members is only a slight increase from last year, from 45 percent, the
number of Higher Ed union workers has decreased significantly by half:
K-12 maintenance employees
Unionized
50%
Higher Education
maintenance employees
Unionized
12.5%

CUSTODIAL LANDSCAPE
For custodial work, Higher Ed is nearly twice as likely as K-12 to outsource the work to a for-profit vendor. K-12 is almost
five times as likely to use a distributed structure for custodial work (i.e., the work is managed at every location by the
local administration). The average total cost for custodial supplies was $210,407 in K-12 and $397,156 in Higher Ed.
The custodial function is structured significantly differently in K-12 and Higher Ed:
CUSTODIAL MAINTENANCE WORK
Requesting custodians to perform light maintenance work (i.e. changing light bulbs) is vastly different in K-12 versus
Higher Ed. In K-12, the amount of light maintenance is almost double that of their Higher Ed counterparts, perhaps due to
the higher amount of custodial work being outsourced and, therefore, not permitted to perform maintenance work.
K-12
Centralized and outsourced
to a for-proﬁt vendor 15%
Distributed (managed at
every location by the local
administration) 24%
Centralized within physical
plant, maintenance,
and operations 61%
Higher Ed
Centralized and outsourced
to a for-proﬁt vendor 29%
Distributed (managed at
every location by the local
administration) 5%
Centralized within physical
plant, maintenance,
and operations 66%
62% in
K-12 allow
custodians to
perform light
maintenance
34% in Higher Ed
allow custodians
to perform light
maintenance
N/A 4%
Custodial Maintenance Work

UNIONIZATION
As with facilities professionals, custodial workers in K-12 are much more likely to be unionized than those
in Higher Education. Year over year, the number of K-12 custodians in unions increases, and this year they
are over four times as likely as Higher Ed to have custodians unionized. Only a tenth of Higher Ed schools
have unionized custodians, decreasing year over year.
K-12 Custodial Unionization
Yes
51%
No
49%
Higher Education
Custodial Unionization
Yes
11%
No
89%

FACILITIES BUDGET AND STAFFING
For both K-12 and Higher Ed, the maintenance and operations budget comprises about 11.65 percent of
the total school budget:
BUDGETS AND BREAKDOWN
It’s fair to say that budgets have remained fairly static during the last five years, when increases, decreases,
and status quo are considered:
90
68
45
23
0
Stayed
the same
39%
Decreased
22%
Increased
37%
K-12 Budget Levels
Unsure 1%
Decreased
41%
Increased
15%
Stayed
the same
44%
Higher Education Budget Levels
K-12 Budget Levels
During the last year, a higher number of K-12 institutions reported their
maintenance and operations budgets increased (38 percent) rather
than decreased (22 percent). Over 39 percent of K-12 M&O budgets
stayed the same over the last five years, with the average K-12 M&O
budget being $61,504,858. This year, we saw a stabilization in budgets
in comparison to last year as more budgets stayed the same (nine more
points than last year) and fewer budgets decreased (a decrease of a
little over nine points).
Higher Education Budget Levels
In Higher Education, budgets have stayed the same and decreased
almost equally, while 15% percent of Higher Ed M&O increased.
Budgets in Higher Ed have been more likely to be cut than those in K-12
with an average M&O budget of $17,147,318, much higher than in K-12.
We see this trend reflected in the percentage of increasing budgets,
which has fallen from 37.5 percent last year – a change of more than 50
percent. As a result, the number of budgets that stayed the same and
decreased has grown 18 and four percent, respectively.

The specific breakdown of the Facilities Budget (i.e., by payroll, energy, supplies, contract services, and
other) can be seen in the pie charts below:
In both sectors, payroll consumed the largest percentage of budget, followed by energy. Payroll was
higher as a percentage in K-12 than in Higher Ed (39 percent to 35 percent), while energy was higher
as a percentage in Higher Ed than in K-12 (25 percent to 21 percent). The other categories were roughly
comparable across the sectors with a slight year over year increase in contract services, supporting the
data that indicates an increase in outsourced work.
STAFFING BY THE NUMBERS
Three methodologies were used to define staffing levels results from the survey: Number of Employees
per 1,000 Students, job function, and area maintained. We grouped employees into three categories:
Maintenance, Grounds and Custodial staff. Although many custodians perform light maintenance, and thus
affect staffing and service levels, but for this study, we asked respondents to qualify staff based on their
main role in the organization.
Per 1,000 Students
These numbers have gone down slightly year over year in both K-12 and Higher Ed. There is a significant
difference in staffing for K-12 and Higher Ed when looking at maintenance and custodial employees per
1,000 students.
K-12 M&O Budget Breakdown
Payroll
39%
Supplies
14%
Energy
21%
Other
12%
Contract
Services
14%
Higher Education M&O
Budget Breakdown
Payroll
35%
Supplies
13%
Energy
25%
Contract
Services
12%
Other
15%
K-12
Higher Ed
2
4
7
5
1
1
Edu
Segment
(Median) Maintenance
Employees per 1,000 Students
(Median) Grounds
Employees
per 1,000 Students
(Median) Custodial
Employees
per 1,000 Students

Schools, districts, and colleges can use employees per 1,000 students to easily calculate what their
average number of employees by function should be and better project staffing needs. For example,
if your school district has 8,000 students, you can use this benchmark to assume you will need 16
maintenance employees, 8 grounds employees, and 64 custodians. This data can help schools justify
budget and staffing projections to Supervisors.
JOB FUNCTION
The chart below details the median number of maintenance, grounds, and custodial employees for the
K-12 and Higher Ed schools surveyed:
K-12 Median # of Employees by Function
Higher Education Median # of Employees by Function
In terms of staffing for K-12, Custodial staff ranks highest, followed by Maintenance staff, then Grounds
staff. Mid-size (5,000 to 20,000) Higher Ed and K-12 institutions have by far the highest ratio of custodians
to maintenance personnel at nearly 4:1. For small K-12 schools, the ratio is 3:1. However, for small Higher Ed
schools, this ratio is reversed, with the number of maintenance personnel to custodians being 1:3.
<5,000
5K -20K
>20,000
Student Size Maintenance Employees Grounds Employees Custodial Employees
312.5
57.5
9
14.5
88
3
16
5
2
<5,000
5K -20K
>20,000
School Size
7:10
4:1
1:3
4:1
10:3
3:1
School Size Custodial to MaintenanceCustodial to Maintenance
K-12 Higher Ed
<5,000
5K -20K
>20,000
Maintenance Employees
19.3
Grounds Employees
22 4.3
Custodial Employees

AREA MAINTAINED
K-12 Maintenance personnel maintain approximately three times as much area as custodial personnel
across institution size, but custodians have a significantly greater responsibility at Higher Ed schools
in comparison to Public K-12. Compared to last year, the median square feet for both maintenance and
custodians in Higher Ed have increased (previously 72,881 and 44,445 square feet, respectively).
The chart below details the average amount of space maintenance, grounds, and custodial employees are
responsible for covering:
K-12 Area Maintained per Employee
Higher Education Area Maintained per Employee
Maintenance personnel at K-12 and Higher Ed institutions have a similar scope of responsibility, yet Higher Ed
grounds personnel maintain significantly less acres per employees than K-12 grounds personnel. This could
be indicative of the importance of grounds maintenance in colleges and universities due to the importance
of grounds appearance in recruiting efforts. As a result, it is possible that Higher Ed administration gives each
grounds employee less to maintain in order to emphasize specific areas of attention.
When put into perspective, it’s important to note the grand scale of maintenance and custodial work in both
Higher Ed and K-12 schools and the amount of work that is expected. The average home is 2,500 square feet
– meaning that the average maintenance employee is in charge of maintaining about 35 homes, custodians
in K-12 clean about 10, and Higher Ed custodians are responsible for about 20 homes.
<5,000
5K -20K
>20,000 24,242
23,073
28,257
93,487
95,381
84,000
64
38.1
27.5
Median Square Feet per
Median Acres per
Grounds Employees
Enrollment
Range
Custodian
88,000
Median Acres per
Grounds Employees
26 51,599
Custodian

SALARIES
The chart below details average salaries for facilities personnel in K-12 and Higher Ed:
Median salaries are higher for K-12 facilities workers than for those in Higher Education; however, all
salaries are largely comparable. Both K-12 and Higher Ed have seen an increase in salaries across job
function. K-12 grounds personnel have seen the biggest increase in median salary (increasing from
$27,500 to $35,000). Maintenance continues to remain the highest salaried position in both K-12 and
Higher Ed.
EMPLOYEE DEMOGRAPHICS
Age and tenure of facilities staff is remarkably consistent across both sectors: the average age is 45 in
each; tenure is 12 years in K-12, 14 years in Higher Ed.
K-12
Higher Ed
$44,300
$42,000
$30,000
$29,544
$35,000
$33,000
Median Salary
for Maintenance
Median Salary
for Grounds
Median Salary
for Custodial
K-12
Higher Ed
45 years
45 years
Median Age of Employee
12 years
14 years
Median Tenure of Employee

SERVICE & SATISFACTION
The chart below uses APPA Service Levels to describe average service in the district, Level 1 being
“orderly spotlessness” and Level 5 being “unkempt neglect.” Survey participants were asked to describe
the average service level of their institution.
In both K-12 and Higher Ed, the large majority of respondents rated themselves at an APPA Level 2 or 3 (80
percent for K-12; 83 percent for Higher Ed), indicating both K-12 and Higher Ed sectors are fairly satisfied in
terms of staff performance.
Individuals were asked to rate the conditions of their facilities and grounds using the scale Not Good at All,
Somewhat Good, Good, Excellent:
• 74 percent rated their facilities as “Good” for both K-12 and Higher Ed
Using the same scale (Not Good at All, Somewhat Good, Good or Excellent), respondents were asked to
rate how they thought outside departments and stakeholders would rate their department:
• 72 percent of respondents, in both K-12 and Higher Ed, think outside departments and
stakeholders would rate their department as “Good”
APPA Level
1
Orderly Spotlessness
K-12
9% 3%
5
Unkempt Neglect 1% 0%
Higher Ed
2 46% 33%
3 34% 50%
4 6% 14%
Unsure 4% 0%

ENERGY MANAGEMENT
New this year, we explored how energy impacts facilities and operations departments. A large majority
of respondents said energy management falls under Facilities and Maintenance. We consistently see
energy listed as the second largest item of the M&O budget and this data supports that finding. A very
small percentage stated that they have a dedicated Energy Department in their institution.
UTILITY TRACKING AND MONITORING
Tracking and benchmarking is the key to successful energy management, we found that the majority of
respondents are managing or tracking their utility bills – however, most do not actively perform real-time
utility metering.
No
16%
Yes
84%
Manage or track utility bills
No
62%
Yes
38%
Perform real-time utility metering
0.0%
22.5%
45.0%
67.5%
90.0%
Facilities/
Maintenance
Energy
Department
Other
(please specify)
Administration/
Business
What department does energy management fall into?
16%
85%
2.5% 3.7%

SAFETY
Safety is an increasing concern for many education institutions, and it’s an issue that spans both Higher
Education as well as K-12. As a result, this is making a major impact on budgets.
Safety concerns have
impacted the budget
No
21%
Yes
79%

PERCEPTION GAPS, COMMUNICATION & MARKETING
Addressing perception gaps is crucial to any work environment, and for facilities and operations,
they face a particular challenge when it comes to reconciling their work with the expectations of key
stakeholders and supervisors. However, through our research, we found a positive trend when it comes
to communicating.
The large majority of respondents discuss facilities and operations updates with their Board at least once
a year. However, some respondents indicated they discuss needs with the Board as needed, although it
is not on a regularly scheduled cadence. These results are positive, indicating facilities and operations
needs are being heard and they are able to share important information with their Board frequently and
are able to get their voices heard as often as they feel is necessary.
We recommend a frequency of once per quarter or more to ensure Board and other Supervisory roles
understand ongoing needs.
We are also seeing a trend toward creating a departmental website to "market" the department.
56 percent of respondents have a departmental website.
How often do you discuss facilities/operations
updates with your School Board?
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Weekly
Monthly
Quarterly
Annually
Never
Other (please
specify)
4%
33%
24%
23%
8%
8%
8%
8%

OPERATIONAL KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS (KPIs)
Our Operational Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) aims to take the temperature of all of our respondents’
operations to offer data that can allow readers to ensure they’re on the right track, set goals for their
department, and identify opportunities for improvement.
One of the biggest takeaways lies in preventive maintenance (PM) work. The majority of respondents
allocate fewer than 10 percent of their resources to this work – a worrying trend for an aging infrastructure
that will need more PM work to ensure that all assets are up and running efficiently.
PERCENTAGE OF PLANNED/PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE (PM)
What percentage of your resources is dedicated to preventive/planned maintenance (PM)?
Higher Education: K-12:
WORK REQUESTS COMPLETED
How much of your routine (non PM or emergency) work requests are completed in 7 business days or less?
Higher Education: K-12:
<10%
Between 11% and 20%
36%
25%
Between 21% and 30% 19%
> 50% 11%
% RespondentsResources Allocated
Less than 30% 0%
More than 80%                      30%
% RespondentsCompleted Requests
*50% complete 61-80% of PM WO in 7 days or less
<10%
Between 11% and 20%
44%
16%
> 50% 8%
Unsure/NA 3%
% RespondentsResources Allocated
Less than 30% 6%
More than 80%                      18%
% RespondentsCompleted Requests
*46% complete 61-80% of PM WO in 7 days or less

STAFFING AND TIME MANAGEMENT
How many productive hours do your employees average per week?
How many work orders are your employees assigned on average, per year?
TOTAL ANNUAL WORK
How many total work orders did your institution create in the last fiscal year?
How many PM work orders did your institution create in the last fiscal year?
26.5 (average)
K-12
27.1 (average)
Higher Education
6,214 (average)
K-12
11,213 (average)
Higher Education
978 (average)
K-12
4,400 (average)
Higher Education
384 (average)
K-12
500 (average)
Higher Education

THE EFFECTS OF STAFFING ON THE WORKFORCE
By combining staffing data with operational KPIs (like Completion Rates and PM Resource Allocation)
we can start to quantify the impact staffing has on service levels. Although anecdotal evidence and
conventional wisdom says more staff and budget equates to better service, the correlation is not always as
direct as one might think; in other words, schools with more staff and budget don’t always have the best
service levels. In fact, there’s a large number of schools with comparatively low staffing and budgets that
have very high service.
The national average for work orders completed in one week or less is 67 percent and the average
number of employees per 1000 students is 3 (HE and K-12 combined). Using these benchmarks we
created a matrix below that with quadrants: Low Staffing/High Service, Low Staffing/Low Service, High
Staffing/High Service, High Staffing/Low Service.
The number of institutions with low staffing and high service is virtually identical to the number of
institutions with low staffing and low service. This finding suggests that leadership has as much an impact
on outcome as staffing and operations team performing at a high level are relying on people, systems, and
processes to achieve success.
*service level defined by PM resource allocation
**staffing defined by maintenance employees per 1000 students
% Completed per Week
Maint. Employee/1000 students
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE (PM) AND PRODUCTIVITY
The national average for PM resource allocation (PM/WO ratio) is 18 percent and as stated above, the
percent of the overall budget dedicated to M&O is 11.7 percent. Using these benchmarks we created a
matrix below that with quadrants: Low Budget/High PM, Low Budget/Low PM, High Budget/High PM, High
Budget/Low PM.
Setting up a sustainable Preventive Maintenance program is a challenge for nearly all institutions.
However, as with the previous matrix, this view suggests that with innovative leadership, strong people,
processes, and systems in place, institutions with budget constraints can achieve implementing a
successful PM program.
% of overall budget?
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
PM WO Ratio
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%

CONCLUSION
Our second annual Budget and Staffing Survey came with some
new insights thanks to two new sections, Energy and Safety, and
some new data that sheds light on new trends from last year’s
survey. In general, it appears that in both Higher Education and
K-12 that employees are largely satisfied with their facilities and
their work. They feel that they can speak with board members and
key stakeholders as often as is needed even if meetings aren’t routinely scheduled at a high frequency,
indicating a positive perception of their department within their education organization.
For budgets, Higher Ed maintenance and operations seems to have taken the biggest hit with more
budgets either plateauing or decreasing year over year. In addition, grounds work appears to be largely
outsourced for larger (over 20,000 students) institutions, which may reflect upon the increasingly
competitive market to attract student enrollments.
With two new categories, Energy and Safety, we created a new Trending Topics section, and the results
were somewhat expected across both Higher Ed and K-12. It should come as no surprise that school
employees are feeling more pressure than ever to create a safe and secure learning environment, and
their budget allocations are reflecting these new initiatives. For energy management, the majority of
schools are performing some sort of utility tracking, although few are actively metering their energy usage,
and the responsibility of energy monitoring and tracking is left to maintenance and facilities.
The average age of buildings has, not surprisingly, increased from last year. However, custodians and
maintenance personnel alike are taking on more square footage than ever. Custodians outnumber
maintenance personnel in both Higher Ed and K-12, with the exception being large Higher Ed institutions
with over 20,000 students. As with any industry, custodial and facilities managers will soon be faced with
an aging workforce with a median age of 45 years.
Finally, one of the more surprising KPIs that have come from the survey is the low number of preventive
maintenance (PM) work that has resources allocated. Most respondents in K-12 and Higher Ed allocate
less than 10 percent of their resources to these programs, although Higher Ed institutions still lead the way
with over four times more PM work orders scheduled annually.
Our annual Budget and Staffing Survey is a powerful benchmarking tool that provides insight into
the challenges that facilities and operations professionals face every day. By using these results, we
can glean invaluable insights into the state of facilities in education for both Higher Education and
K-12 and discover new opportunities to increase efficiency, productivity and communication with the
world’s largest database of education institutions: Our own.

877.868.3833 | info@dudesolutions.com | dudesolutions.com
About Dude Solutions
Dude Solutions, parent company of SchoolDude, FacilityDude and TheWorxHub, is a leading software-
as-a-service (SaaS) provider of operations management solutions to education, government, healthcare,
manufacturing and membership-based organizations. The company combines innovative technology with
operational insight to transform the places people learn, live, heal, work, and play. Today, more than 9,000
organizations are using Dude Solutions’ award-winning software for facilities, energy, safety, IT and a growing
suite of related enterprise applications to increase efficiencies, improve service and save money. For more
information, please visit our website.

2017 Facilities Budget and Staffing Survey Results

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2017 Facilities Budget and Staffing Survey Results