State College is pausing its Responsible Contractor Ordinance after struggling to get bidders who met its requirements on multiple projects since it went into effect in March.
Borough Council voted unanimously on Monday night to suspend the responsible contractor provisions through Dec. 31 while staff and the borough solicitor work on amendments to the ordinance.
The suspension will allow the borough to award contracts in a timely manner to the low bidder for at least two upcoming projects over the next two months without requiring council to approve a waiver if no RCO-qualified bids are received. One is for phase 2 of the Calder Way project, which would risk losing grant funding if it does not move forward on time, and the other is for the borough’s annual street repaving contract, Borough Manager Tom Fountaine said.
The Responsible Contractor Ordinance, which was approved by council last fall, includes requirements related to safety training and prevailing wage payments, as well as 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.
State law requires contracts to be awarded to the lowest responsible bidder but does not define “responsible.” Ordinances like State College’s and a similar measure adopted by Centre County Government in 2023 define it in a way that proponents, like labor unions, say helps to ensure worker safety and timely, cost-effective work on public projects. The measure was generally opposed by groups like the Associated Builders & Contractors Keystone, which said it favors union shops and freezes out otherwise qualified contractors who meet safety and quality standards through different means.
The borough has advertised three projects that met the RCO threshold since it went into effect and none received bids from contractors who met the provisions. (Fountaine said in July it was five projects.)
Council authorized rebidding two of them — a West Foster Avenue street reconstruction project and construction of the High Point skatepark — with the responsible contractor provisions waived, and the other was not re-advertised. The skatepark contract was bid once before a waiver was approved and it was bid again, though Fountaine noted at the time that few contractors specialize in that kind of work. The Foster Avenue project was bid twice before the waiver, and a $1.4 million contract was awarded to HRI Inc. on Monday night after the third round of bidding.
Council discussed the issue at a July 7 meeting and generally agreed with council President Evan Myers that the RCO is “the right thing to do,” and that council should continue “standing by our principles,” but that the borough needs to be able to move forward with construction projects on time.
Members expressed similar sentiments on Monday.
“If it wasn’t [a temporary suspension], I would be voting against this,” Myers said. “Some people have expressed the idea that this is a nice thing to have, but I think it’s more than that. It’s more than a nice thing. It’s an imperative thing for us to protect the rights of workers and their health and their safety. And that’s the idea behind this. And just because up to now we haven’t figured out a way to do that doesn’t mean it should go away.”
The suspension, Fountaine said “allows time for reviewing the provisions and working with others to improve the bidding procedure for State College Public Works contracts. At the July meeting, he said staff and solicitor Terry Williams were exploring amendments that would keep the provisions in place, but allow for them to be waived more expeditiously if no RCO-qualified contractors bid to avoid repeatedly having to return for council approval.
“Because that process has gone forward for several months now, I think it’s a very reasonable request to ask that this be suspended for these months,” council member Gopal Balachandran said. “And I like the idea that it’s only suspended for a short period of time to allow different options and ways in which the spirit and the important policy objectives of the Responsible Contractor Ordinance are met, while at the same time not delaying really essential projects for the borough.”
The borough will continue to work with outside groups to identify contractors who can meet the requirements and ensure they are aware when a project is advertised, Fountaine said. In response to a question from council member Nalini Krishnankutty, he added that the borough has been in communication with the Central Pennsylvania Trades Council, ABC Keystone, Seven Mountains AFL-CIO and local contractors “to discuss this in various issues over the past year, particularly over the past few months as we have struggled to get contractors to bid on the work.”
Council member Josh Portney said the RCO provisions “should be standard” for construction contractors, and council member Matt Herndon said he believes the ordinance is an important step for worker safety.
“When we created this we discussed the need to improve safety for workers in the borough and the idea was that this ordinance was a good step to do so,” Herndon said. “The recent bids have made it clear that you know those who bid on our contracts aren’t yet ready to meet this ordinance and so i think a temporary pause is reasonable given this lack of bids.
“But i strongly hope that during this pause staff is able to work with contractors to find a way to truly improve safety here in the future, because workers lives, they matter and we need to do everything we can to make sure that for borough projects we are protecting the workers who are actually out there doing the work.”
