College terminates campus-wide
janitorial contract
By Brittany Williams
Staff Writer
EL DORADO — At its board meeting last week, South Arkansas Community College trustees approved the president’s resolution to not allow full-time faculty and staff with concealed carry permits to carry handguns on campus.
Governor Asa Hutchinson signed Act 526 of 2017 that allows any permit holder to bear arms at publicly funded institutions, like SouthArk, Southern Arkansas University and University of Arkansas at Monticello. Act 526 will officially go into effect after September 15, SouthArk president Dr. Barbara Jones said.
“As you’re probably aware, the state legislature passed a law that requires publicly funded colleges to allow concealed carry by anybody on campus that has a permit. That also takes another eight hours of active shooter trainings that yet doesn’t exist,” board chair Steve Cousins said. “Between now and (September 15), we have our yearly process … We’re at our annual update time.”
While Act 226 of 2013 made a provision in the state’s concealed carry law for college faculty and staff, trustees at SouthArk and other community college boards have voted to not allow that in the past, Cousins said.
“In that we have this new state law coming up, I’ll move that we make that the status quo,” trustee Dr. Kermit Parks.
Cousins said, “Which is prohibiting concealed carry by faculty and staff.”
The board unanimously voted to adopt a resolution that read, “BE IT RESOLVED: That the Board of Trustees hereby ratifies and affirms the provisions of the following policy which will be included in the Administrative Procedures Manual under 2.05 Weapons … pursuant to the provision of ACT 226 of 2013 and commencing on the effective date of 226, hereby disallows the carrying of a concealed handgun by faculty/staff in the buildings or on the grounds South Arkansas Community College for a period of one year … and directs and authorizes the administration to take any and all steps necessary to ensure the compliance with such ‘opt out’ of the provision of Act 226.”
During his administrative report, finance and administration vice president Carey Tucker revealed that the college ended its campus-wide janitorial contract early.
“We just weren’t happy with the quality that we were getting and of course as Dr. Parks brought up a couple months ago, that we were hearing as well that the employees weren’t getting paid on time when they did get paid,” Tucker said. “The employees under that contract quit working for him last week which means we didn’t have people to clean. That’s a contract violation so I had the phone with the owner this morning, told him we’re terminating the contract.”
Physical plant manager Justin Small and human resources director Bill Fowler “worked quickly to hire extra help,” that will be paid with money left from the contract and fund supplies to clean SouthArk facilities, Tucker said.
“I put an email out earlier this afternoon to faculty and staff, let them know what was going on and let them know because we’re going to need their assistance on this,” Tucker said. “If you want your trash taken out, set it outside the door and we’ll grab on the way out. That’s what we’re going to do. It’s going to save all that time of locking and unlocking all of the offices we have on campus.”
SouthArk was planning to hire janitorial workers in the physical plant department rather than outsourcing the work after July 1, he said.
The SouthArk Board of Trustees is scheduled to meet at 3:45 p.m. Tuesday, May 16 in the administration building board room, located on the west campus.
Brittany Williams may be contacted by email at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter and like her on Facebook @BWilliamsEDNT for updates on Union County school news.