Proposal: Taxpayer-funded projects need local workers

(The Center Square) – Publicly funded construction projects often hire workers from other states, who, rather than pay taxes for local schools and services, bring their earnings back home.

It’s a problem state Sen. Devlin Robinson, R-Westmoreland, says the commonwealth must address via legislation he introduced earlier this month to establish local hiring requirements.

He’s got broad support among the building trades and the administration itself, though the finer details leave some uncertain about the administrative costs to taxpayers. While hiring local workers makes sense, processing waivers from employers unable to meet the 50% threshold could stretch the Department of Labor and Industry’s resources thin.

Joe Hughes, director of government relations for the western Pennsylvania chapter of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, said during a Senate committee hearing in Carnegie the economic impact of doing nothing is “vast.”

“You can’t even calculate it,” he said. “All we got out of it as a region ...