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<DIV>Hi, John,</DIV>
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<DIV>I'll pipe in here, too. I'm Bill Shull, a CAUT committee member who has been involved just like you in contract work (for 22 years), and who was pulled into the committee several years ago specifically because I was concerned about the very point you've made: that most college techs are part time, contract techs, and we need to address their needs in the CAUT Committee. I felt the first edition of the Guidelines needed to be revised to accommodate this reality (it was mostly designed for the employed tech), and that is exactly what the second edition of the Guidelines has done (among other, very important improvements), under the leadership of Don McKechnie, Fred Sturm, and to an extent, myself. (Thanks to Tom McNiel and Lou Tasciotti for providing a sound foundation on which we could work.)</DIV>
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<DIV>You have well articulated the issues. I wrote a piece in the journal a few years ago on the school contract technician (which I called the CAUCT - College and University Contract Tech). It treated general issues which I thought needed to be raised. But we need to directly address many of the various challenges of the contract tech.</DIV>
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<DIV>Chris Solliday (new CAUT committee member this year, and former PTG marketing committee chair) and I teach a class on contracting with schools which tries to do this. It was part of this year's CAUT day at the PTG Technical Institute in Rochester. Chris addresses the bidding issue with the same approach his response to your posts treated it (I think, without reviewing.... ): first, by attempting to avoid the bidding process, since it is generally detrimental to good piano service, or if necessary, by working with the process a manner that achieves what is best for the university (any combination of examples such as sole-sourcing, narrowly defining bidding terms, limiting the low bid compensation to 10 day payment receipt, and/or to appointments scheduled more than a month away, etc.). </DIV>
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<DIV>I strongly encourage you to become intimately familiar with the Guidelines and to share a copy with your department chairman. </DIV>
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<DIV>I encourage you to persuade him/her to budget for two reports from you, a piano service staffing recommendation, and a budget recommendation based on a percentage of the replacement value of the inventory. Sell this to your chair as a necessary tool in your service for the school both for you (you can't otherwise give them good service) and, of course, for the school. </DIV>
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<DIV>Take your inventory database for the school (you probably already have a spreadsheet with the piano data that you use to track your work and make reports). If you don't have this already, build it into your estimate you're pitching to the chair or amortize it in your tuning fee (and tell them you're doing so). You need this database anyway as an administrative tool for your regular maintenance (better if they will pay for your time), so now you can use it to make these two reports:</DIV>
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<DIV>First, a staffing recommendation. Obtain data from the workload formula and establish a staffing recommendation for the school. This is significant work. You'll need to get some of the information from your chair or another knowledgeable department source. If some rebuilding work needs to be done (or partial work on some pianos: do you have any string breakage on the 243s which indicate the need for at least treble restringing, for example?) this might require a greater staffing load early on. </DIV>
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<DIV>Another valuable tool is to determine the total budget needed as a percentage of the inventory replacement value. Take 5 to 10 percent of the value of the replacement inventory and divide it into three areas, annual maintenance, rebuilding, and replacement, 1/3 each. Use either Ancott or Fine to establish the replacement value. Use the Guidelines approach with this as with making staffing recommendations: a performance-oriented program or conservatory should be spending 10%, and a nonperformance, or basic liberal arts program should be spending 5%. </DIV>
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<DIV>Update this combined report annually and include it in your recommendations. If nothing is done, it will track the neglect and build a case for a better budget. Priorities usually prevent funding for rebuilding or replacement, and even adequate maintenance, but your combined report will be your chair's best friend at some point.</DIV>
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<DIV>I thank Chris for the excellent inventory value percentage approach, which is a standard way of determining a maintenance budget and uses language which is familiar to administrators.</DIV>
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<DIV>Bill Shull, RPT, M.Mus.</DIV>
<DIV>Member, CAUT Committee</DIV>
<DIV>Contract Technician, La Sierra University</DIV>
<DIV>Riverside, CA</DIV>
<DIV><A href="mailto:bdshull@aol.com">bdshull@aol.com</A></DIV>
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<DIV>In a message dated 7/5/2006 10:26:34 AM Pacific Daylight Time, granholmjohnpian@qwest.net writes:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><FONT face=Arial>On Jul 5, 2006, at 7:27 AM, Fred Sturm wrote<BR><BR>> Whether or not this discussion leads to a Journal article, the <BR>> caut committee would welcome a wide ranging discussion of these <BR>> issues as we work toward development of a "CAUT Credential."<BR><BR>Is the CAUT committee going to consider only full-time university <BR>techs, or are you going to include people like me, who are part-timers?<BR><BR>I maintain pianos for a local community college. The work involves <BR>the usual Baldwin 243s in practice rooms, two 7-footers in classrooms <BR>(one Baldwin, one Steinway), and two 9-footers (D and old M&H CC) in <BR>a concert hall. It's a strictly part-time arrangement, and compared <BR>to what I've read in this thread so far, it's very simple.<BR><BR>I don't deal with bids or parts budgets, which I think must be an <BR>unusual situation. I deal directly with the department chairman, who <BR>wants me to send him a quote once a year that covers the next year's <BR>projected work. His basic directive to me is that he doesn't want to <BR>have to worry about pianos--he wants them in tune and working. I <BR>don't do any rebuilding, just tuning, regulation, voicing, and any <BR>necessary repairs. My feeling about this work is that as long as the <BR>money holds out, and as long as my work keeps the chairman happy, <BR>I've got the job. It's all pretty informal.<BR><BR>The M&H in the concert hall does mostly accompaniment duty, but needs <BR>rebuilding to get back to fulfilling its potential as a concert <BR>instrument. It would take grant money to get that done--nothing in <BR>the budget for work like that. I mention this need occasionally, but <BR>I don't push it.<BR><BR>I suspect there are many techs out there doing CAUT work at this <BR>lower level, as contractors rather than employees.<BR><BR>John R. Granholm, RPT<BR>Registered Member, Piano Technicians Guild<BR>Assistant Editor, Piano Technicians Journal<BR>jtuner@qwest.net</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV>
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