Thread: R.I.: State seen paying more for janitors

State seen paying more for janitors

01:00 AM EST on Monday, December 22, 2008

By Katherine Gregg

Journal State House Bureau

PROVIDENCE — The hiring of new janitorial companies may soon close the book on the state’s reliance on an army of likely illegal immigrants to clean state college, government and military buildings, but it has also come at a cost.

A spokesman for Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch said the same number of people are cleaning his offices but the cost has risen from $3,292 to $5,400 monthly since the Carcieri administration fired Falcon Maintenance — whose owner has since pleaded guilty to employing illegal workers — and hired a replacement company to do the job.

The attorney general’s office was one of many across state government that were plagued by no-show janitors in the days after federal immigration sweep last July resulted in the arrest of 31 suspected illegal immigrants employed by Falcon and TriState Enterprises who had been working in state courthouses.

Not one of the janitors assigned to the Department of Administration building at One Capitol Hill or at the University of Rhode Island returned to work after the courthouse arrests. And they were not isolated cases.

Without all the facts, Lynch spokesman Michael Healey said he cannot say definitively that the monthly cost went up because the state insisted, this time around, that each newly hired company verify its employees’ eligibility to work in this county, pay at least the legal minimum wage, obtain workers’ compensation insurance for them and withhold taxes.

But “yes,â€

A spokesman for Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch said the same number of people are cleaning his offices but the cost has risen from $3,292 to $5,400 monthly since the Carcieri administration fired Falcon Maintenance — whose owner has since pleaded guilty to employing illegal workers — and hired a replacement company to do the job.

Let's break it down. That extra $2100 per month is a bargain when we consider we're no longer paying for illegal aliens use of hospital's ER use, labor and delivery of multiple anchor babies, welfare for those anchor babies, educating those anchor babies, section 8 housing for the entire family, food stamps, and so on and so on and so on.

Let's not also forget that the extra $2100 per month STAYS in the USA, it's not sent out of the country.

Let's not also forget that the extra $2100 per month STAYS in the USA, it's not sent out of the country.

This is one of the major factors the money stays in our economy!

But also maybe some American citizens and their family have a little more money to heat their house this winter or feed their family....their kids might even get a Christmas present this year you cheap pieces of crap!!