Senator offers prevailing-wage plan

Senator offers prevailing-wage plan

COLUMBUS (AP) — Republicans will offer developers clear rules for when to use union-scale prevailing wages on state construction projects, clearing up confusion created by the governor, a state lawmaker said Tuesday.

The proposal by Republican state Sen. John Carey of Wellston, which has the support of Senate President Bill Harris, is scheduled to be presented to lawmakers during a committee meeting today.

It would require developers to pay prevailing wage for an entire project if state dollars fund 35 percent or more of the project. If state dollars represent less than 35 percent of the cost — 5 percent, for example — prevailing wage would be paid only on that portion of it, in this case 5 percent.

Carey described his plan as being neither pro- nor anti-prevailing wage, but an attempt to give developers clear rules for following prevailing-wage law.

The prevailing wage, essentially the standard rate on local union projects, varies from place to place but tends to be higher than the market rate. Ohio has had a prevailing wage law on public projects since 1931.

Republicans have assailed Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland’s guidelines issued last summer, saying they amount to an expansion in the use of prevailing wage that will depress economic development in Ohio in a time that the state can least afford it.

Strickland has said his guidelines only clarify a law that has increasingly been ignored by developers during Republican administrations since the early 1990s.

“What has happened is it’s just confused the issue,” Carey said about the governor’s guidelines. “This [the GOP plan] captures what they’re trying to do and puts it in terms that people understand.”