State College Borough Council on Monday approved an ordinance establishing new requirements for contractors to be eligible to bid on borough government construction projects of $250,000 or more.
Council voted 6-1 to adopt a Responsible Contractor Ordinance (RCO) nearly identical to one enacted by Centre County government in 2023. Councilman Kevin Kassab, who said at a previous meeting that he worried an otherwise qualified bidder who could do a project at a lower price would be ineligible, voted no. After discussions at three previous meetings, council members offered no comment before voting on Monday night.
State law and the borough purchasing code require contracts to be awarded to the lowest responsible bidder but do not define “responsible.” RCOs, proponents say, aim to ensure worker safety and timely, cost-effective work on public projects.
The State College ordinance includes requirements related to issues such as safety training and prevailing wage payments. Like the county’s, it also includes a requirement that 70% of the craft labor workforce on projects over $250,000 be journeypersons who have completed a state- or federally-approved apprenticeship training program or registered apprentices currently enrolled in such a program.
Opponents contend that favors union shops that offer apprenticeship programs and could freeze out otherwise qualified non-union contractors who have years of experience and training.
Both the Centre County Association of Realtors and the Associated Builders & Contractors Keystone Chapter, which represents typically nonunion merit shops, opposed the RCO as written, as they did with the county’s, in particular the apprenticeship provision. They argued that it should be removed or also allow for contractors to provide a resume of successful projects and documentation of their safety track record.
Jim Willshier, director of government affairs for ABC Keystone, wrote in a letter to the borough that the requirement was “very discriminatory” to workers with other educational accomplishments and years of experience. He also wrote that the borough has no way of monitoring compliance beyond the point of bidding.
Willshier has raised similar concerns with the county. In a recent letter to the Board of Commissioners and Administrator John Franek, Willshier alleged that a subcontractor on the county’s Centre Crest building renovation project in Bellefonte “does not participate in registered apprenticeship at all let alone meet the 70 percent threshold.” He also provided, as an example of his claim that the RCO did not ensure worker safety, a video he said shows a contractor on a roofing project at the county correctional facility in Benner Township failed to implement fall protection
Franek told StateCollege.com that all contractors and subcontractors on the Centre Crest project completed the required apprenticeship documentation, but that the county would “gladly receive and review any evidence that suggests noncompliance of any contractor…” He added that the correctional facility roof project was not subject to the RCO, that OSHA has frequented the project and that “the contractor performing the roof repair is in compliance with all safety regulations.”
For the State College ordinance, supporters, including multiple union representatives, have said the RCO is a matter of providing high quality and safe work, regardless of whether the labor is union or nonunion.
“Over the course of many meetings, the Borough heard from the public about the importance of real worker protections and of setting a higher standard for public construction in State College,” Connor Lewis, president of Seven Mountains AFL-CIO, said in a statement following the passage of the ordinance. “Our community knows that high quality, environmentally resilient construction completed by skilled tradespeople is better for our Borough and better for workers.
“We believe that the passage of real, practical legislation protecting workers and taxpayers is a critical step forward for State College Borough, and look forward to continuing the conversation throughout the Centre Region.”
The ordinance includes a requirement that contractors must certify that they will pay craft workers prevailing wage by the appropriate job classification. That extends to subcontractors and off-site custom fabrication for non-standard goods and materials for a project, the latter another requirement that received some pushback. Willshier cited a federal appeals court ruling that the state of New Jersey cannot enforce wages outside of its borders.
“We don’t believe that State College has a different legal authority,” Willshier wrote.
It also prohibits bids from being awarded to contractors who in the past 10 years have been convicted of a crime related to the contracting business or in the past three years had a contracting license or certificate revoked, been debarred or suspended by a government agency, defaulted on any project or been found in violation of any law applicable to their contracting businesses.
The ordinance requires all craft labor working on a borough project to have completed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s 10-hour safety training course for safety and at least one person with OSHA 30 training.
Council members said at previous meetings that they viewed the ordinance as a way to help ensure safety on borough-owned construction projects.
“We’ve seen serious injuries, even deaths from contractors working in the borough in recent years,” Councilman Matt Herndon said in September. “There’s no way to 100% ensure that these tragedies never happen again, but we should do our best to avoid them in the future. And this ordinance is a step in the right direction.”
The ordinance will go into effect beginning March 1, 2025 to allow time to “modify all of our contract documents, bid documents,” Borough Manager Tom Fountaine said.
