The custodian usually knows the building better than anyone else in the church, including the trustees. Written here at three sizes — full-time, half-time, and quarter-time — because this is the role most often defined by “whatever needs doing,” which is not a job description and cannot be evaluated, defended at a budget meeting, or handed to a successor.

This is nearly always a non-exempt position: hourly, with overtime owed. That is not a judgment call — the Department of Labor states that the white-collar exemptions “do not apply to manual laborers or other ‘blue-collar’ workers who perform work involving repetitive operations with their hands, physical skill and energy,” and that such employees are owed minimum wage and overtime “no matter how highly paid they might be” (Fact Sheet #17A). Do not put a custodian on salary to avoid tracking hours. Pair with the personnel policy skeleton.

The template

Job Description: Custodian

[Church Name] · Approved by SPRC [date] · Reviewed [date]

Reports to: [the pastor / the church administrator] — one named person, not “the trustees” Works with: the board of trustees on building projects and repairs (¶2533) Classification: [full-time / part-time] · non-exempt (hourly) Hours: [ ] per week · [schedule, including which Sundays] Compensation: $[ ]/hour, reviewed annually with the budget

Purpose

To keep the church’s buildings and grounds clean, safe, secure, and ready for worship and ministry.

Core responsibilities — FULL TIME (30–40 hrs)

Daily / weekly cleaning

• Sanctuary, restrooms, classrooms, fellowship hall, kitchen, offices, entryways.
• Trash and recycling; restock supplies.
• Floors on a stated rotation [specify: vacuum weekly, mop weekly, wax annually].

Worship and event readiness

• Set up and reset rooms for worship, funerals, weddings, and church events.
• Unlock and lock the building; arm and disarm the alarm.
• Snow, ice, and leaf clearing at entrances and walkways before use.

Building systems and grounds

• Change filters, bulbs, and batteries on a schedule; report anything beyond routine to the supervisor and the trustees chair.
• Monitor heating and cooling; adjust for scheduled use.
• Basic grounds upkeep [or: grounds are contracted — say which].
• Maintain a written maintenance schedule — see the maintenance schedule template.

Safety and security

• Keep exits clear and emergency lighting working.
• Maintain fire extinguisher inspection records.
• Hold and account for keys per the key log; report any lost key immediately.
• Maintain safety data sheets for cleaning chemicals kept on site.

At HALF TIME (15–20 hrs) — what changes

Keep: worship readiness, restrooms and high-traffic areas, trash, lock-up, safety checks, and the maintenance schedule.

Reduce or move: classrooms and fellowship hall cleaned after use rather than on a fixed rotation, with user groups responsible for their own reset — write that into the facility-use agreement, or it will not happen; deep cleaning becomes seasonal; grounds contracted out.

Name explicitly which events are in scope. “Funerals and weddings as scheduled” means overtime — plan for it and budget it rather than discovering it.

At QUARTER TIME (8–10 hrs) — what changes

Keep only: Sunday readiness and reset, restrooms, trash, and lock-up. In practice that is one weekday visit and Sunday morning.

Everything else must be assigned somewhere else in writing: renters and user groups clean up after themselves as a condition of use; grounds and deep cleaning are contracted; a trustee handles filters and bulbs; repairs go straight to vendors.

At this size the church should expect to pay for what it used to absorb — the savings on hours reappear as contracts. If nobody has priced that, the quarter-time decision hasn’t actually been made yet.

Qualifications

• Able to work independently and keep a schedule without supervision.
• Physical requirements: [be concrete and accurate — e.g., able to lift 40 lbs, climb a ladder, stand for extended periods. State them honestly; they matter for hiring decisions and for accommodation requests.]
• Trustworthy with keys and alarm codes, and comfortable being alone in the building.
• [CHOOSE: experience with commercial cleaning equipment / basic repairs.]

Screening

Background check required before the first day of work — this role has keys and is in the building alone, often when children’s or youth activities are also present. [Add Safe Gatherings-type training if the custodian's hours overlap with children's programming or a weekday preschool.]

Working conditions

Regular exposure to cleaning chemicals; occasional evening and weekend work; occasional emergency call-in [state whether call-in is expected and how it is paid].

Adaptation notes

Non-exempt means timesheets. Every hour is recorded, including the Saturday funeral and the Tuesday night that ran long. Overtime is owed whether or not it was pre-approved; approval governs discipline, not pay. This is the most common wage mistake churches make.

“Other duties as assigned” is doing a lot of work in most church custodian descriptions. Keep the phrase if you like, but keep it after a real list, not instead of one.

Decide who the custodian reports to, and it should not be a committee. Trustees own the building; a person owns the supervision. A custodian answering to nine people answers to none, and hears about problems from whoever is angriest.

Write down what user groups owe. Half the friction in this role comes from outside groups and church committees leaving rooms in a state nobody agreed to. That belongs in the facility-use agreement, not in the custodian’s patience.

If you contract instead of hiring, you need a scope of work, proof of insurance, and a named contact — and the trustees still own the outcome (¶2533). Add the vendor to the account register so the next person knows who to call.

Say what happens when they’re on vacation. Every version above assumes someone opens the building on Sunday. Name the backup by role and make sure they have a key that is logged.

Elsewhere

• Fact Sheet #17A: Exemption for Executive, Administrative, Professional, Computer & Outside Sales Employees — DOL — why a custodian is essentially never exempt, whatever the pay arrangement.
• Hazard Communication Standard — OSHA — safety data sheets for cleaning chemicals; applies more often than churches assume.
• UMC Minimum Insurance Requirements — GCFA — the coverage side of building risk, which the trustees report on annually (¶2533.2).
• Key log and maintenance schedule — the two records this role keeps.
• Board of Trustees — the committee this role works alongside, and what the Discipline asks of them.