Lawrence City Hall, Sixth and Massachusetts streets.

City Commissioners are considering ending Lawrence’s contract with its custodial service and establishing its own in-house janitorial staff after a discussion Tuesday about the current contractor paying its workers low wages.

The issue was brought up Tuesday during talks about whether to renew the city’s contract with Topeka-based ISS Facility Services. The contract expires at the end of March. One of the City Commission’s options — and the most costly — was to terminate the agreement and perform janitorial services with internal staff. That option would cost the city about $450,000 more in its first year than what it currently pays annually for contracted employees.

Commissioners did not take a vote but asked city staff to gather a more accurate estimate of what it would cost to perform the service internally.

It was reiterated Tuesday that ISS did not pay its employees at the city’s wage floor of $12.56, which was established as a requirement for companies receiving tax abatements. ISS does not receive tax abatements.

“What we could do is give people full-time, meaningful, living-wage employment, as opposed to farming out services where we have people working 22 hours per week for $8 an hour,” Commissioner Matthew Herbert said. “Private businesses can pay what they want, but as a city government I think we have an obligation to take the lead and say that workers who work inside of city government buildings earn a living wage.”

Commissioners first heard about concerns with ISS’s wages in October. Mike Pryor, a Lawrence resident and volunteer at Just Food, told the City Commission during a public comment period that ISS employees were using Just Food’s services to get by and that they were working sporadic, part-time hours.

“This town has the money to support hiring your own cleaners full time,” Pryor had said.

Derrick Mazurkewycz, with ISS, said Tuesday that his company hired one full-time employee to clean Lawrence’s public buildings and the remaining employees were part time. Employees earn anywhere from $8 to $12 per hour.

Mazurkewycz explained that the job is usually a second occupation for employees.

“It’s typically a part-time gig, a way to get some extra money,” Mazurkewycz said. “That’s what we’re geared toward.”

According to city documents, the annual cost to the city for custodial services through ISS, which its contracted with since 2012, is $129,470.

Mark Thiel, the city’s assistant public works director, presented Tuesday four options to commissioners. If commissioners didn’t want to continue with the current contract, the city could terminate the contract with ISS; edit it to include wage requirements and other stipulations; and rebid it.

Another option was to pay more to ISS so the company could increase the wages it paid its employees. ISS said it would cost the city about $57,000 more annually if it required ISS to pay its employees a minimum wage of $13 per hour.

The last option, and the one commissioners most considered Tuesday, was terminating the contract and performing the janitorial duties with internal staff. According to estimates, the total first-year cost of that option would be $578,281. The estimate includes wages for five full-time employees plus a supervisor, as well as equipment, supplies and training.

City Manager Diane Stoddard told commissioners that the city currently employs “many, many” part-time employees — especially through the Parks and Recreation Department — at comparable wages to what ISS paid its employees. She warned against setting a precedent for wage level that the city couldn’t afford for all of its employees.

“We want you to be aware that if you look at increasing all the wages to a certain threshold, there’s going to be a lot of cost for that,” Stoddard said. “We do want to point out this is not a budgeted item for 2016 or beyond, and it is a large cost, based on our estimates. I just want to make sure the commission realizes that’s going to be quite an additional cost for us to take on.”

Vice Mayor Leslie Soden said she appreciated the cost savings of contracting custodial services but that “it’s time to bring this back.”

“We have the responsibility to lead the way in this kind of thing,” she said.

In other business:

• At Commissioner Stuart Boley’s request, the City Commission decided to schedule a study session about how the city uses its sales tax reserves fund. A date for the study session was not announced Tuesday.

• Members of Justice Matters, a group of 22 faith organizations, showed up to advocate during the meeting’s public comment period for dedicated revenue streams for the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund. The Rev. Mary Newberg Gale, of First Presbyterian Church, said “now is the time” to talk about it, with 2017 budget discussions starting this spring.

• Mayor Mike Amyx was not able to attend Tuesday’s meeting due to illness. A decision to fund a plan to combat the anticipated infestation of the emerald ash borer was deferred, as was as a vote on new guidelines for reimbursing city employees for travel and other expenses. Dates to take up those issues have not yet been set.