Haslam, Trustees bash outsourcing decision

Under the proposal, landscaping would have been one of several services outsourced.

Last week's stunning decision by the four University of Tennessee campuses to almost entirely opt out of the state's new, highly touted outsourcing contract with Jones Lang LaSalle has drawn pushback from the people above the people who oversee the schools — Gov. Bill Haslam and the UT Board of Trustees, which Haslam himself chairs.

The Board met last Friday, and they did not seem to buy UT-Knoxville Chancellor Beverly Davenport's math, which estimated that the campus would only save $906,654 in the first year of the contract, as opposed to JLL's estimate of $5.2 million. UTK had previously outsourced half of its custodial work, and the service under that contract was such a disaster, according to faculty and staff at the time, the school opted to bring all custodial employees back in house as state employees.

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