NASHVILLE – Nearly a third of the Tennessee General Assembly is calling on Gov. Bill Haslam’s outsourcing czar, Terry Cowles, not to finalize outsourcing of public higher education’s facilities management until lawmakers have time to fully understand its ramifications.
In a letter last week to Cowles, director of the Office of Customer Focused Government, the 42 lawmakers asked “that the outsourcing process wait until the General Assembly is able to study and understand the effects on our public services, economy, and state workers.”
The bipartisan group, including Rep. JoAnne Favors, D-Chattanooga, and Sen. Janice Bowling, R-Tullahoma, also says in the letter that “our reservations include the potential impact to state employees, the scope of ‘vested outsourcing’ to state services, and allowing enough time to address concerns from the General Assembly.”
Signed by 10 senators and 32 representatives, the letter comes as the administration prepares to strike a final deal, possibly as early as Friday, with Chicago-based real estate giant Jones Lang LaSalle.
Last month, the publicly traded JLL emerged as the winning bidder in a building management contract for the University of Tennessee and Tennessee Board of Regents systems and six independently governed state universities. The contract holder would be responsible for custodial, maintenance and groundskeeping services. Some 3,000 workers could be affected statewide.