After years of Marquette University managing its custodial staff, the responsibilities have now been outsourced to Aramark, a food service and facilities services provider. The multi-year agreement will give Aramark the responsibility to oversee staff employment and management on campus.

Aramark took over managing Marquette’s custodial staff after the expiration of the university’s previous contract. The Marquette Wire reached out to the university seeking contract details — including start and end dates — and has yet to receive the information.

As part of the transition, over half of the university’s custodial staff accepted offers from Aramark.

“Partnering with Aramark allows Marquette to focus on our core educational mission and provides increased leadership opportunities, better training and comparable pay and benefits for our custodians who accepted job offers from Aramark,” university spokesperson Kevin Conway told the Wire in a statement.

Under the previous contract run through Marquette, custodial staff members had the opportunity to utilize a benefit for tuition remission. Conway said the benefit will be honored for staff members who were using it at the time of the transition.

Additionally, union jobs have been retained under the new deal due to Aramark’s recognition of Wisconsin’s chapter of the Service Employees International Union as custodial staff representatives.

In transitioning to Aramark, the university likened the contract to a “successful” decision to outsource its food service to Sodexo, a global management company.

“Staffing and managing a custodial workforce is not Marquette’s core area of expertise, but it is Aramark’s core expertise,” Conway told the Wire in a statement.

This is a developing story that may be updated with new information.

This story was written by Lance Schulteis. He can be reached at [email protected].