Ward 4 Council member Janeese Lewis George and several other members of the D.C. Council are taking action to make sure maintenance issues are resolved before a repair order is closed.
A new bill, called The School Work Order Integrity Amendment Act, requires the D.C. Department of General Services to get approval from a school principal, foreman or other school employee before a work order ticket can be closed.
The legislation is the result of repairs not getting finished because of miscommunication, or because city agencies aren’t clear on who’s responsible for certain jobs, prompting work orders to be closed prematurely, Lewis George said.
Lewis George said she hopes the new procedure is in place before the start of the 2023-24 school year.
During tours of school buildings before the last two school years have started, Lewis George said, “the most common issues that principals and foremen would raise is that they put work orders in that were being closed out without a permanent fix, or even any work being done at all.”
“For several years in a row, some of our schools in D.C. have been welcoming students back while having these serious maintenance issues,” Lewis George said. “We’ve listened to our communities, and we’re trying something different here.”
If passed, someone in the schools where a work order has been opened will be able to “approve” the repair before a work order is closed. Lewis George is hoping the changes help notable issues get addressed.
In one school, Lewis George said, a large trash can was placed in the middle of a recently-renovated library last year because of a roof leak. When she asked who was responsible for fixing the issue, she learned a contractor and the D.C. Department of General Services said different things about the needed repair.
When Lewis George returned to the school at the start of this year, she said, the trash can was still there.
“Why fight for a beautiful modernization, library space and all of these things where kids can come and do the work, and it just looks terrible,” Lewis George said. “Trash cans sitting there, water falling when it rains, water overflowing.”
At another school, Lewis George said, a repair request for a door lock was closed because it wasn’t coded properly.
The inconsistencies, she said, are due in part to the fact that there aren’t clear guidelines on how work orders need to be submitted. There are also missing parts and supply chain issues, she said, and in some cases, temporary fixes are in place but work orders are marked as complete anyway.
“There’s no system in place to go back and make sure that whatever was reported is happening is actually getting completed,” Lewis George said.
The bill isn’t expected to have a cost, she said, and parents and teachers have said the proposal is “an important step.”
“It’ll go a long way in helping DGS be more efficient and more effective,” Lewis George said.
