Bill to expand the definition of public work not ready for “prime time”

The meaning of “public work” will remain unchanged, for now, after a proposal to significantly amend the definition died in committee last week.

Earlier this session, Sen. Steve Conway (D–Tacoma) introduced SB 5418, which expands “public work” to include work supported by grants or loans of public dollars, or by tax deferral or reimbursement. AWC wrote briefly about the bill here.

With the help of feedback provided by cities, AWC staff testified against SB 5418, identifying several adverse impacts of the bill. Specifically, cities cited concerns that the bill would have impacted efforts to deliver affordable housing projects within their communities. For example, jurisdictions attempting to use historic preservation incentives, tax deferrals, or other tax credits to incentivize affordable housing would be subject to prevailing wage and other public works requirements. In many cases, it would be difficult to meet those requirements and still deliver a substantive project. Similarly, the bill would have impacted “ordinary maintenance,” requiring cities to take lowest bid over best value, resulting in an unintended consequence of disproportionately impacting small, minority, rural, and women owned contracting businesses.

SB 5418 was scheduled for executive session last week in the Senate State Government & Elections Committee but was not considered. It therefore did not pass the policy cutoff deadline required to continue its path through this year’s session.