Riga City Council to replace kindergarten building attendants with technical security service

Riga City Council has decided to move municipal pre-school education institutions, or kindergartens, from employing building attendants to an outsourced technical security service. The municipality says the new model will keep the facilities secure while cutting administrative and operating costs, with forecast savings of 6.2 million euros a year from 2027.

How the new system will work

Security will rely on technical safeguards, an alarm link to a security control centre and mobile response teams from the service provider. Each kindergarten will name a responsible person to coordinate with the security company and, if necessary, come to the site.

Before the model is introduced, each institution will update its internal procedures, job descriptions, access rights and rules of action for break-ins, fire alarm activations, false alarms and technical faults. An escalation procedure and backup solutions are also planned.

Costs and savings

The current pay fund for building attendants is 7.3 million euros a year. Technical security is expected to cost about 300,000 euros a year, and 800,000 euros a year is earmarked for raising the pay of facility managers, who will take on extra duties. This produces the forecast saving of 6.2 million euros.

No savings are expected in 2026, because of the transition period and the costs of ending employment. A provisional 1.9 million euros is set aside for this, including severance pay and compensation for unused leave. The actual amount will depend on each termination process.

Timeline

The building attendant posts are planned to be removed from the institutions' staff lists as of 22 December 2026, but in each kindergarten only after the technical security service is actually running. Employment will be ended individually in line with legal requirements. Three months after launch, the city intends to review service quality, alarm handling, response times and the financial effect.

The municipality stresses that this is a restructuring of operations, not an assessment of employees' performance. It says the changes were discussed with kindergarten heads, who expressed support and readiness to maintain high child safety standards.