Districts continue to report being satisfied with their private service providers. Of the districts that contract out, 89.3 percent report that they are content with their vendor’s performance. Only 2.6 percent reported that they were dissatisfied. Of the remainder of districts, 5.9 percent said they were uncertain about satisfaction — typically because the contractor is either too new or has been there for a long time and so there is nothing to compare their service to. Finally, 2.2 percent of districts abstained from answering whether the quality of services were satisfactory.
Each of the services posted similarly high satisfaction numbers, with food service reporting the highest at 92.2 percent, transportation at 92.0 percent and custodial services at 85.9 percent.
Likely, districts tend to report that they are satisfied with their services because they can shop around to other vendors if they are dissatisfied. As one district responded bluntly, “We've had them for many years, so if we're unhappy with them, we just yell at them.”
Graphic 9: Reported Satisfaction With Outsourcing