In report “State House approves $2.3 billion transportation plan”, the article stated:
“Part of the reason the amendment failed twice just 24 hours before getting through was its proposed changes to the state’s prevailing wage laws. The debate centered on increasing the level at which state-funded construction projects would be awarded to the winning bid from $25,000 to $100,000.”
WATCHDOG: Hey what?
We researched the matter at Capital Wire, a state reporting service to which NewsLanc subscribes (which is a factor in our often superior reporting on statewide matters) which cleared up the matter:
“Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry President Gene Barr believes the support is there in the Senate, despite the addition of a prevailing wage component, which wasn’t in the transportation proposal that overwhelmingly passed the Senate earlier this year.
“ ‘It’s minimal,’ Barr said of the prevailing wage change, which would increase the threshold of when a minimum wage rate, usually set to union-level wages, would kick-in on a publicly funded project. Schoch said PennDOT issued only 17 projects last year that were under $100,000, so the wage change would mostly impact rural local government projects.”
The $25K number was set in 1961. It should have been set at $175K and indexed to inflation. If the state is giving out prevailing wage gifts then all workers in the state should get the benefits; not just union members.