Senate Substitute No. 1 for Senate Bill No. 48 of the 150th General Assembly enacted a requirement that contractors bidding for large public works contracts provide craft training of apprentices and journeymen. This new Act clarifies the craft training requirement and increases options for how contractors can satisfy this requirement.
This Act clarifies when craft training is required as follows: 1. Moves the requirement that the Department of Labor maintain a list of crafts for which there are approved and registered training programs to Chapter 2 of Title 19. 2. Revises the definition of "craft training" in § 6902 of Title 29 to mean a program on the list of approved and registered training programs required under Chapter 2 of Title 19. 3. Clarifies the craft training requirement by creating a new statute for the craft training requirement that establishes when craft training must be included in a large public works contract, that the requirement applies to each craft included in the contract, and when the list of approved crafts for which there are approved programs in Delaware must be updated each year.
This Act provides that contractors can satisfy this craft training requirement by doing any one of the following: 1. Providing the craft training themselves or through agreement with other organizations. 2. Having at least 1 active apprentice in a craft training program approved by and registered with any state apprenticeship agency or the United States Department of Labor for the duration of the project. 3. Paying a fee equal to $0.87 for each hour worked on the contract by all employees. The monies collected from this fee will be used to support, promote, and expand apprenticeship opportunities.
This Act requires a greater than majority vote for passage because § 11(a) of Article VIII of the Delaware Constitution requires the affirmative vote of three-fifths of the members elected to each house of the General Assembly to impose a fee. For a full copy of the new act, please click here.
ABC Delaware, in partnership with Pettinaro Construction, held a job site tour this month at the new Barley Mill Site on Route 141 in Wilmington. Local and state officials were on hand to view the project, which includes the first ever Wegmans in Delaware. Thirty-six ABC Delaware members are working on the site during construction. Barley Mill is a 566,944 SF mixed-use development.
ABC Delaware President Ed Capodanno (left to right) with Pettinaro Construction President Greg Pettinaro and New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer.
When complete, Barley Mill will offer its visitors, tenants, and residents a dynamic live/work/play environment within one of northern Delaware's most sought-after addresses, Greenville, DE. The 56-acre development will be home to Wegmans Food Market (slated to open in mid-2022). Designed for a mix of office, lifestyle, residential, and retail uses, Barley Mill is sure to be Delaware's most exciting new community.
The Delaware Financial Advisory Council (DEFAC) met this month to discuss the fiscal forecasts for FY21 and FY22. This was the second to last meeting of the fiscal year (one more will take place June 18). DE's economic outlook is expected to remain positive in the medium term (largely due to stimulus plans, vaccination rates, and re-opening). DE employment is expected to grow 5.9% in FY22 and 1.3% in FY23.
DEFAC increased the revenue forecast by $199.6 million for FY21 and $238.4 million for FY22 since the last meeting in March (largely due to increases in Personal Income Tax, Franchise Tax and Corporate Income Tax). Coupled with expenditure adjustments, this is an increase of $429.3 M for FY22 since the March DEFAC meeting. As a result of these changes, the FY22 appropriation limit is an increase of $1,359.6 million compared to the FY21 (current) budget.
FY21 anticipated revenues are projected to be $5,259.5 million and expenditures to be $4,546.8 million.
The Appropriation Limit for FY22 is projected to be $5,906.6 million (a 29.9% increase over FY21).
The FY21 surplus is expected to be $875.2 million.
When compared to FY21 projections made in June 2020, FY 21 increased to $709.1 million (15.6%) and $598.5 million (13.1%) for FY22.
The Budget Benchmark Index (EO21) is calculated at 4.4% for FY22 (the recommended appropriation limit intended to keep growth of the budget in line with growth of the economy). The "extraordinary revenue" is projected to be $1,057.1 M in FY22. The balance in the FY22 Budget Stabilization fund is projected to be $843.7 million.
DEFAC voted to maintain the HealthCare Spending Benchmark (EO 25) at 3.0% for CY2022. For the full presentation, click here.
ABC Delaware and the Delaware Department of Labor will be hosting a presentation for contractor members regarding their Contractor Registration/Workplace Fraud website. It will take place on June 2 from 10:00 a.m. - noon in the ABC Classroom. DOL will have completed its work on the website that contractors will use to register and it will be open for use on July 1, 2021.
This seminar will show contractors how to access the website and information needed to complete registration. This is part of the new law that passed a year ago that will allow all contractors to sub work to another sub in the same core business as their own if they register on this website.
You may attend in person or virtually. The seminar is FREE but you must register to participate. To register, please click here.
The Department of Transportation, in cooperation with the General Assembly, has introduced SB 142, a bill that removes the exclusion of Community Transportation Funds from the performance-based rating system. This exclusion has been in place since the original legislation was passed 4 years ago. A contractor must meet or exceed the minimum contractor's performance rating at the time of bid, as determined by the Department's performance-based contractor evaluation system, to be eligible to bid. A contractor who does not meet or exceed the minimum contractor's performance rating at the time of bid is eligible to bid if the contractor agrees to allow the Department to retain 5% of the payments to be made to the contractor for work performed under the contract. The bill has been assigend to the Senate Labor Committee. For a full copy of SB 142, please click here.
SB 23, a bill that would allow all surviving spouses of persons killed in the course and scope of employment to receive the same level of death benefits as the surviving spouses of those persons defined as "covered persons" in Section 6601(2), Title 18 of the Delaware Code, in the event that the surviving spouse remarries was introduced into the General Assembly this month. This expansion of the death benefit beyond the surviving spouses of those persons specified in Section 6601(2) will result in all surviving spouses who decide to remarry, being treated equally under Delaware's Workers' Compensation laws. For a copy of SB 23, please click here.
ABC's letter highlights our support for fair and open competition in federal contracts for construction jobs and requests that Treasury further provide guidance that clarifies that state and local governments are in no way required to mandate PLAs on eligible construction projects and that the federal government's encouragement of PLAs will not become a mandate or requirement at a later date.
While the guidance does not mandate tying PLAs to federal assistance, it is a sign of the efforts this administration is taking to support PLAs and other costly labor provisions that would have damaging effects on the construction industry.
Associated Builders and Contractors and more than 900 member companies and chapters from 47 states sent a letter to the White House highlighting concerns with President Joe Biden's American Jobs Plan and recommendations to improve it, streamlining the permitting process and supporting bipartisan workforce development efforts. The letter also voiced strong opposition to the Protect the Right to Organize Act.
"We urge you to work with Congress and other stakeholders to pursue a bipartisan agreement on the federal investment needed to effectively and efficiently replace and repair the nation's critical infrastructure," the letter said. "Importantly, we believe that any federal investment in our nation's infrastructure must ensure opportunity to all Americans, regardless of labor affiliation. While the American Jobs Plan seeks to inject more than $2 trillion of federal spending into the economy and our nation's crumbling infrastructure, ABC is concerned that the proposed spending on what is traditionally considered infrastructure will not meet the needs of the nation. Specifically, only a portion of this funding is dedicated to roads and bridges-$115 billion-which is a fraction of what is needed to truly modernize America's most critical transportation infrastructure.
"We are also concerned that the American Jobs Plan calls for passage of the PRO Act, supports inaccurate prevailing wage rates for construction projects and urges Congress to tie infrastructure investments to government-mandated project labor agreements and community workforce agreements that often discriminate against our nation's small, women-, veteran- and minority owned businesses. More than 87% of the construction industry does not belong to a union, and placing stringent requirements that allow only union jobs and union employers to participate in rebuilding America's infrastructure is an ineffective strategy that is likely to increase costs, reduce job creation, decrease the number of infrastructure projects."
