Prevailing wage bill splits vote but passes Nevada Senate

By Sandra Chereb Review-Journal Capital Bureau

8 years ago

Nevada Senate Majority Leader Michael Roberson, R-Henderson, listens to debate on Gov. Brian Sandoval’s tax proposal to overhaul the state’s business license fees at the Legislative Building in Carson City, on Tuesday, April 21, 2015. (Cathleen Allison/Las Vegas Review-Journal)

CARSON CITY — The Senate on a party-line vote passed a bill Thursday requiring schools and higher education campuses to pay full prevailing wages on construction projects.

Assembly Bill 154 was approved 12-9, with all Republicans voting no. It now goes back to the Assembly to consider a senate amendment that removed a proposal to lower the threshold of when prevailing wages must be paid to $100,000 from $250,000.

AB154 rolls back a provision of a law enacted in 2015 that allowed schools and the Nevada System of Higher Education to pay 90 percent of prevailing wages on capital improvement projects.

Senate Minority Leader Michael Roberson, R-Henderson, called the AB154 “another futile attempt to repeal common sense bipartisan reforms” approved during the last session when Republicans controlled both chambers of the Legislature.

Contact Sandra Chereb at schereb@reviewjournal.com or 775-461-3821. Follow @SandraChereb on Twitter.