Prevailing Wage Repeal Could Save Raceland Hundreds Of Thousands
The Ashland Independent reports on plans to improve Campbell Elementary School in Raceland, Kentucky.
The renovation project will add four classrooms and a flexible room that can be used for special needs children in a wing attached by a corridor to the main body of the school.
The rest of the school will receive major upgrades, including new roof, heating and air conditioning, windows, lights and sprinkler system.
The added classrooms will enlarge the school, just enough that it can include four classes per grade level, which at Campbell include kindergarten through third grade, according to Superintendent Frank Melvin. The Raceland Independent School District, in keeping with its small-school character, doesn't want to grow any more than that, he said.
The renovation will bring the school, built in 1962, up to modern standards of energy efficiency, Melvin said. The heating and air conditioning system will be highly efficient, comparable to a heat pump system, and designers hope the school's energy bill will remain about the same even with the additional classrooms.
The project won't go out to contractors for bids until the state education department approves the design, but preliminary estimates come to around $2.7 million, project manager Don Nicholls said.
As noted in Senator Thayer's piece below, "According to a report by the Legislative Research Commission, Kentucky's prevailing wage laws artificially inflate school construction labor costs by 21 percent."
We'll reasonably estimate labor costs of 40% of the cost of these school construction projects. If prevailing wage requirements were suspended for this project at Campbell Elementary, over $200,000 could be saved and dedicated to other construction projects.
Later, the article notes that "The state is expected to kick in around $600,000," which would be 22% of the project. If prevailing wage was suspended, the state could save about $50,000 and dedicate that to other school construction. That's enough savings to build a additional thirteenth school for every twelve we have budgeted!
If the Governor and General Assembly are truly inspired to make good use of the tax dollars we provide them, a suspension of prevailing wage requirements for state construction should be one of the first things considered!
