Hudson County Executive Craig Guy will soon sign an executive order lowering the threshold for public works projects to require a project labor agreement (PLA).
By Dan Israel/Hudson County View
Hudson County Counsel Alberico De Pierro made the announcement at yesterday’s caucus meeting of the county board of commissioners at the behest of Guy.
“The county executive is going to be signing off on an executive order that will slightly revise County Executive [Tom] DeGise’s two executive orders on PLAs in light of the recent law enacted during the lame duck session of Governor [Phil] Murphy, which will lower the threshold of PLA from $5 million,” he said during Tuesday’s session.
“It will include language related to even under the threshold, that … based on the recommendations of the county engineer to the county administrator on a project by project basis, as the newly enacted legislation states that even those below can be considered for project labor agreements.”
De Pierro confirmed to HCV after the meeting that the threshold to require a PLA for county construction projects would drop from $5 million to somewhere between roughly $2.5 to $3.5 million.
The move follows a recent change to state law this year that enabled municipalities to lower the threshold for PLAs, which previously could only be enacted after projects reached that $5 million mark.
The issue came to light in response to criticisms by Commissioner Bill O’Dea (D-2) that a PLA should have been signed for the contract with Parlin-based S. Batata Construction, Inc. for improvements to 32nd Street from John F. Kennedy Boulevard to Gregory Avenue in Weehawken for $4,889,641.50.
De Pierro noted that this imminent executive order would correct that problem moving forward by allowing projects below the threshold to be considered for PLAs too.
However, O’Dea questioned if the commissioners should have required a PLA for this project as well when they took bids January 22nd, considering that was after the changes to state law were approved on January 20th.
“I’m grateful and appreciative of the pending executive order. But my concern with this is that you can … design something knowing that what you designed is slightly below $5 million and then change orders occur for simple things,” O’Dea expressed.
According to O’Dea, there are many factors that can result in a project ending up over $5 million despite being bid for less initially.
Officials agreed they wouldn’t have been able to award a contract for the Weehawken street improvements if the bid exceeded $5 million because there was no PLA, then forced to include that in the bid specifications and sending it back out.
The county commissioners will convene for a regular session tomorrow at 4:30 p.m. at the Hudson County Administration Annex, located at 567 Pavonia Ave.
