Local Hiring Ordinance Closer to Reality

After almost two years of working to create local hiring ordinance, the policy is finally much closer to reality. 

Council voted unanimously Thursday to move forward with the proposal but with a few caveats. 

When the local hiring policy comes back for first reading, council wants there to be more incentives for apprenticeships, to lower the baseline for projects to receive incentives to $500,000 and lower the expected average salary of employees in the local hiring equation. 

The new proposal moves away from the originally proposed mandate-based program where projects would be legally required to hire local, disadvantaged workers and toward an incentive based program.

Should companies participate in the program they could improve their cash flow by getting money from the city more quickly. 

On all city construction projects, 10 percent of the money owed to the company is held in retainage to ensure contractors complete the contract.

If a contractor meets the requirements of the new policy the city would hold less retainage throughout the project, which means companies would get their money faster. 

To get the incentive, a company's project would have to have 30 percent local hires. A third of that 30 percent would have to include disadvantaged workers. 

For example, according to the city, a $2 million project with the average salary and benefits of $50,000 for an employee would have to hire four local workers. One of those four workers would have to be defined as disadvantaged. 

A $40 million project would have to hire 79 local residents with 24 of those 79 being disadvantaged. 

The ordinance would also create a database of unemployed and underemployed workers in Pinellas County. The database would be monitored by WorkNet Pinellas and would be accessible to prospective employers and the construction industry. 

Building a Career Not Just Getting a Job

To the chagrin of council, administration's proposal did not mention or include apprenticeships in the policy requirements.

Council member Charlie Gerdes said getting St. Pete residents jobs is great, but the ways to have the most long-term impact would be to include apprenticeships. 

"This is going to get jobs," Gerdes said of the currently proposed ordinance, "but apprenticeships are going to get careers."     

"My recollection was the consensus of the council was to move it forward with longer-term careers and that isn’t in here," Danner said. "What we asked for didn’t happen."

Mike Connors, public works administrator, said combating unemployment in the city and an apprenticeship requirement would compete against one another because an apprentice is already on a contractor's payroll. 

There would be no incentive, he said, for a contractor to hire more people because apprentices would meet the local hiring ordinance requirements. 

"So we didn’t feel comfortable (with a policy) that allows you to be incentivized by virtue of doing nothing," Connors said. "An apprentice is on the payroll."

Council member Steve Kornell said the proposed ordinance would be amended so that more incentives could be given to local employers that include apprenticeships. 

"I want people to get a job where they can make a living wage," Kornell said. 

Apprenticeships, Kornell said, is that bridge to earn a living wage.