Controversial school construction bill clears Assembly, heads to governor

CARSON CITY — A bill that would exempt school and university construction projects from Nevada’s prevailing wage law passed the Assembly on Thursday on a narrow 23-19 vote.

Senate Bill 119 will now go to Gov. Brian Sandoval for his signature.

Passage of the bill is the second major legislative victory for Sandoval in two days. He quickly signed a school bond rollover bill into law on Wednesday after it won final approval in a bipartisan vote in the Assembly.

SB119 still includes the identical provisions authorizing the bond rollover program for Nevada’s school districts but the provisions are moot with Senate Bill 207 being signed into law. With SB119 now dealing only with the prevailing wage exemption issue, it mustered enough Republican votes to pass. All 17 Democrats opposed the bill. Two Republicans, Ira Hansen of Sparks and Glenn Trowbridge of Las Vegas, also voted no.

Removing public works projects from prevailing wage requirements has long been a priority for Republicans, who argue the law inflates costs to taxpayers and is not reflective of private-sector market rates. Supporters argue that more schools will be built with the exemption from the law.

Democrats and union supporters countered that prevailing wages ensure quality construction and argue that there is no evidence they add substantially to project costs. They also said it would hurt the middle class and Nevada’s building trades, which lost tens of thousands of jobs during the Great Recession.

Nevada’s prevailing wage law requires contractors who win publicly financed construction projects to pay workers according to a wage schedule established by the state’s labor commissioner. The original purpose of the law was to require local wage rates to be paid on public projects so that out-of-state competitors could not come in and undercut the local labor pool.

There is debate about how much will be saved on the school projects without requiring the prevailing wage.

But Sen. Ben Kieckhefer, R-Reno, said in previous testimony that even if it is only 5 percent, the exemption would mean $175 million more in construction projects in Clark County alone over the 10-year life of the rollover based on nearly $3.6 billion in bonding capacity. This savings would equal about six new elementary schools.

Democrats argued against passage.

Assembly Minority Leader Marilyn Kirkpatrick, D-North Las Vegas, said the bill will cut wages for the middle class. There is nothing in the bill that protects Nevada workers, she said.

“It will cut wages on people who have been out of work for over five years in our state,” Kirkpatrick said. “So middle-class workers will take it on the chin.”

But Assemblyman Brent Jones, R-Las Vegas, said the bill will stretch precious tax dollars.

“Now we can apply free-market principles to the building of our schools,” he said.

Assemblyman Jim Wheeler, R-Minden, said the hard hit construction industry does need assistance. Building more schools will help those construction workers, he said. But there will also be further efforts by lawmakers to help Nevadans win the construction projects, Wheeler said.

“And we’re going to protect Nevada taxpayers,” he said.

Contact Sean Whaley at swhaley@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3900. Find him on Twitter: @seanw801.