Gene Woodard, director of the custodial division of UW Facilities Services, brought custodians together in a meeting Tuesday to announce that 46 custodial positions will be eliminated in order to manage the custodial division’s 16 percent cuts.

While 29 of those positions were already vacant, 17 of the 186 daytime custodians will be laid off.

“Our operating budget is 96 percent labor expense, [such as] the salaries of the staff that perform the cleaning around the campus,” Woodard said. “So that leaves very little operating dollars to try to meet whatever cut we’re going to be handed.”

Woodard said the loss of the 17 custodians will result in a change in the overall level of cleanliness in non-public spaces.

“Public spaces, study spaces and libraries, and bathrooms we will try to maintain at current levels, but there will be deterioration in office spaces and other select spaces that don’t have the same public use,” Woodard said. “We will be able to gain some efficiencies through [various cleaning] advancements, [but] these will not be enough to offset the high number of staff positions we are losing.”

One concern for custodians was that vacant positions created by Gov. Chris Gregoire’s recent hiring freeze would not be eliminated before custodians were laid off.

Vacant positions receive funding that doesn’t get distributed to other departments in the university through the Office of Budgeting and Planning, meaning that by keeping vacant positions open, Facilities Services could recapture the money that would otherwise go toward an employee’s salary and spend it on equipment and supplies.

However, Eric Hausman, director of finance and business services for Facilities Services, said that will not be the case.

“We’re not keeping any vacant positions,” Hausman said. “All vacant positions are eliminated before we consider layoffs.”

Swing-shift custodians, who work from the evening through the night, still have concerns of their own, though they were able to avoid the layoffs because of seniority. The layoffs follow a recent decision to move swing-shift custodians to the day shift, which Woodard has said will save on operational costs and save jobs.

However, many swing-shift custodians have worked the swing shift for more than 15 years and rely on its particular hours in order to work a second job or take care of family during the daytime.

“In the immediate run, this has the potential to preserve four to five positions,” Woodard said. “The shift change is affecting labor, but it [will send less] people out of the door.”

Meetings between the union representing UW custodians, Washington Federation of State Employees Local 1488 and the university have made little headway in addressing the concerns of swing-shift custodians.

The union has, however, been successful in moving the deadline for the transition to the day shift from May 18 to June 1. While this isn’t a cause for swing-shift custodians to celebrate, they still appreciate the extra time.

“It gives us a little more time to work on the issues and try to make a difference,” said custodian Ken Mills, who works the swing shift. “[While] it is prolonging the anxiety and stress, it’s better to have the two [additional] weeks than to not have them.”

Mills said that the next meeting to discuss keeping the swing shift has yet to be scheduled but will most likely take place sometime next week.

Reach reporter Eric Staples at news@dailyuw.com.