LOWER MERION — During its last board meeting, Lower Merion Commissioners approved a $385,000 contract for janitorial services at various township properties.
The contract is with Paul’s Building Maintenance, one of 19 companies that submitted bids.
Adam Szumski, chief financial officer for Lower Merion, said township staff did not select the two lowest bidders due to a combination of reference checks, questionnaire responses, and sufficient experience in the region.
According to township officials, the contract provides janitorial services for several facilities, including daily cleaning and cleaning supplies for the Lower Merion Public Safety Building and Jail, the administration building, County Line Road Public Works Facility, Koegel Public Works Complex, Bala Gym, Bala Cynwyd Library, Ludington Library, Bryn Mawr Community Center, Ardmore Library, and other township-owned buildings. There is also information about a janitor for the new Ardmore Avenue Community Center, which is currently under construction.
“Finally, a dedicated custodian is being assigned to the Ardmore Avenue Community Center (AACC), according to the township staff’s notes to the board of commissioners. “While completion of the AACC is not anticipated in time for services to be required in 2026, vendors were asked to prepare and include bids for the AACC based on the proposed floor plan included in the RFP, with the understanding that it will not be included in the base contract amount in 2026. Should the Township opt to renew the contract for 2027, the AACC pricing provided by the bidder would be incorporated into the contract upon its opening.”
According to Szumski, the agreement is a one-year contract with the option to renew for an additional three years.
Commissioner Scott Zelov mentioned that the new contract will also include the township’s new composting efforts for food waste.
“For the first time, it will include disposal of compost to the compost-specific waste stream from all of our township buildings,” Zelov said.
Additional details on the composition were included in the documents from the staff to the commissioners. “Additions to this RFP include new add-alternates to facilitate composting at selected Township buildings, requiring the biweekly emptying of designated indoor organic waste receptacles at each location into designated outside organic waste bins, which would then be emptied and taken to a permitted off-site composting facility separately, along with the request to indicate utilization of products with Green Seal and/or EcoLogo designations for 17 different use cases,” the staff memo reads.