As your Current treasurer, I am writing to tell you about a change that has started as a trial run on June 2nd 2025.
As it stands the Board has decided to bring in a cleaning service to aid in keeping the common areas. This includes only the Entryway, Hallway South and West floor and sinks, all four bathrooms, and the kitchen. This will only happen once a week. All areas will need to maintain cleaning up their areas and equipment. And throughout the week cleanup messes throughout the Maker Space.
Please continue to Be Excellent and Remember you are not the only one to use the Space so Please Clean up after yourself for the safety and enjoyment of others
To provide more detail: the contract will be up for a vote at the next board meeting in a couple weeks. So if you have strong feelings about the cleanliness of the space the last month or so, let the board know before they cancel it or commit to a longer duration.
Popped in to the Makerspace for the first time in a VERY long time and had a lovely time pottering about in the ceramics studio. I was AMAZED at how clean the bathroom was. I donât think it was ever that clean. WORTH EVERY PENNY.
As long as weâre $1000/mo positive finance wise, this is worth it.
I realize someone will look at it and say âwe could buy so many new tools with that!â But honestly, we need to prioritize not burning out volunteers. Nobody wants to clean bathrooms and I know for fact that I wasnât the first or last president to have it fall to me.
I did wonder if there was a smaller business we could support but if this works, letâs keep it going.
The process of selecting a vendor for janitorial service took 3 months.
A scope of work was developed in March that took into account:
Actively Neglected Public Areas
Health and Safety Concerns
Affordability
Fiscal Conservation
The Scope of Work as finalized and sent for bidding:
RESTROOMS:
CLEAN & SANITIZE TOILETS & URINALS
CLEAN & SANITIZE SINKS + FAUCETS
CLEAN & SANITIZE STALL WALLS
CLEAN & SANITIZE DOOR HANDLES
REFILL PAPER & SOAP DISPENSERS
MOP FLOORS
BREAK ROOM:
CLEAN & SANITIZE SINK + COUNTERTOP
WASH COFFEE MAKER
CLEAN & SANITIZE REFRIGERATOR HANDLE & DOOR
CLEAN & SANITIZE ENTRY DOOR
MOP
HALLWAYS WEST & SOUTH
SWEEP + VACUUM ALONG BASEBOARDS, CABINETS, LOCKERS
MOP
VACUUM ENTRY WAY CARPET
WET WIPE CABINETS AND LOCKERS
CLEAN GLASS ON ENTRY DOORS & DISPLAY CASES
QUARTERLY SERVICE:
BURNISH AND WAX HALLWAYS SOUTH AND WEST, SHAMPOO CARPET ROOM 4
This Scope of Work was presented to 5 locally owned janitorial service contractors.
Service Master, a locally owned franchise, presented us with the lowest price and the greatest range of services. Service Master was the only bidder that could provide burnishing and waxing of our hallway floors and shampooing of our carpet in Room 4, this service is included in our monthly payment to be executed quarterly.
The scope of the contract was limited in nature to be as bare bones as possible in the hopes that a lower price tag would help to overcome the entrenched position that âcleaning will take care of itselfâ or worse âwe already have a small group of people that do itâ. The contract with Service Master, as well as, the need for a professional cleaning service on a regular schedule to maintain the common areas of our facilities was discussed and debated at: The Leads and Chairs Meeting, The Facilities Work-group Meeting and finally The May 15th Board Meeting .
In the end, Facilities Contributed $3,000 of its budget to overcome the resistance and make it more palatable to those that felt it was an extravagance.
My push (insistence) to make this happen relies on two basic premises:
I maintain that the MakeICT Facility is a tool like all of our other tools and regular maintenance will help to ensure that it functions appropriately, can be used by all, and has an extended beneficial service life.
An organization that can afford to take work off the backs of volunteers, especially for onerous or complicated tasks, should. It is a disservice to our mission to require voluntary subservience for routine tasks that should be a shared burden. The only acceptable way to share a burden like cleaning toilets evenly amongst the membership is to deduct a small amount from every membership payment and allocate it towards alleviating that tasks burden.
Facilities allocation of $3,000 for this service ends September 1st and it is true that the new board will have to vote to re-allocate funding as Facilities cannot afford to continue to pay the bill out of our budget if we want to accomplish other goals this year. We can stop their contract with no penalty and go back to relying on whoever is available, or have once a month clean-up days, or whatever else you think is better, but I think that this service supports our community by taking something off our volunteers plates and making sure that it gets done.
Please, if you agree, let your current board members know.
Gathered all these up straight from the minutes over the last year:
June 2025: ($21,200) - but we paid the mortgage down by $26k
May 2025: +$4,540
April 2025: +$4,000
March 2025: $0
February 2025: +$4,570
January 2025: +$7,300
December 2024: ($5,000)
November 2024: +$14,000
October 2024: +$1,000
September 2024: +$4,000
August 2024: +$10,000
July 2024: ($11,800) - AC units replaced for $11k.
⌠and that doesnât account for the rainy day fund being very, very healthy.
Clearly we donât need to raise dues, and if we did, this is costing like $2/mo/pp.
The only âoopsâ Iâve seen with the janitorial service so far is we for some reason decided to have the pest control people spray on a Maker Monday right after the cleaning crew left. So cleaning the floors that week went out the window a few hours later.
A lot of the concern over approving a cleaning service was do we do this or pay down the mortgage. Outstanding mortgage is something like $150k-ish and will sunset in about 112 months at $2k a month.
We already save a good chunk of money half the year by mowing ourselves.
The only thing Iâd add to @jpalschauhanâs comment - do we want our facilities crew to just clean up things or actively work to improve the space?
Thought it is true that financial health of the space is going well. With this and what was originally budget this year may if we are lucky be a bit of a wash. IE income to expense will balance to zero.
This is in part due to what I have seen on areaâs spending staying within or well below what they budgeted for up to this point. If we have any unforeseen issues which can always cause problems, they will cause problems for our finances this year.
Second, for this last month though I have noticed that yes indeed the common areas at least for the first 2 to 3 days after cleaning are cleaner. I have noticed on occasion that the further it gets from Monday thereâs still the issue that messes appear and some people do not clean up. Therefore leaving others to do this as well.
This has been the same issue that did cause us to consider adding a cleaning service. However is somewhat looking like it will continue as we are not getting more people to assist with when they see a mess to help clean up.
As for the pest control, that is not going to cause a cleanliness issue other than the bugs dying which happens regardless and just need to be swept up when seen.
As to the paying down the mortgage this was and is done as a step to help the future space by not having to pay for a Morgan any longer than we have to. Which if it is paid off sooner would mean more funds available for the space.
Also, one additional thing is in looking at the space and the upgrades to the electrical and AC will take longer for this space.
I became a member just before cleaning began so I didnât really experience the space that much beforehand. I will say that it smells a lot better than it did when I was here for game night and Maker Monday before, though it still needs work.
I think cleaning up others messes is an inevitable evil in a shared space, and one that gets really tiresome I know. Unfortunately a once a week cleaning crew canât fix that. But itâs faster and easier to clean up a clean space. And people are more likely to keep a clean space clean.
I would not schedule pest control to spray chemicals the same day as you expect visitors. The chemicals can cause some people problems, and itâs worst when itâs still wet.
The best time to treat for insects is directly after a cleaning, that way the pest control chemicals can sit on the surface for the longest period of time before the next cleaning.
EcoGuard uses liquid spray (not aerosals) so the only way to get a dose into you would be to lick the baseboards. The material is dry to the touch within a minute or two.
Sounds good as long as itâs done before and it isnât causing more bug activity. Sometimes you see more bugs directly after treatment as they flee their fate. Iâve had problems when jobs and apartments have had them spray while I was there, so it causes me some concern.
How often do they come?
I own my own commercial cleaning company and this price seems excessive. Carpets dont need shampooed every quarter unless its high traffic - same with waxing floors. This is more of a once every 6-12 months in a business facility. If this were a busy mall once a quarter would make sense. (Ive got 20+years of experience with this and dealing with Service Master, JaniKing, etc.)
Service Masterâs contract, as stated above, is due for review.
If youâd like your company to be considered as their replacement you are welcome to put in a bid for services. You can email your bid to facilities@makeict.org to have it considered. I am happy to walk the building with you to talk specifics if that is helpful, otherwise the scope of work is also in this thread. The service is weekly and our preference is Monday afternoon.
Im going to send the scope to Shine Bright Cleaning Services. I partner with this other owner when I do not want to cross lines businesswise and vice versa. Crystal is local and does amazing and has the same values and work ethics as my business. Hopefully she can get you a better deal than the other companies. Normally local is better!
