Just one more thing, I know, but this hits close to home for me from my past Justice United work and the great cooperation we received from governments in OC.
PROHIBIT CERTAIN CONTRACT REQUIREMENTS BY LOCAL GOVERNMENTS
SECTION 5.(a) G.S. 153A‑449 reads as rewritten: "§ 153A‑449. Contracts with private entities. A county may contract with and appropriate money to any person, association, or corporation, in order to carry out any public purpose that the county is authorized by law to engage in. A county may not require a private contractor under this section to abide by any restriction that the county could not impose on all employers in the county, such as paying minimum wage or providing paid sick leave to its employees, as a condition of bidding on a contract."
SECTION 5.(b) G.S. 160A‑20.1 reads as rewritten: "§ 160A‑20.1. Contracts with private entities. A city may contract with and appropriate money to any person, association, or corporation, in order to carry out any public purpose that the city is authorized by law to engage in. A city may not require a private contractor under this section to abide by any restriction that the city could not impose on all employers in the city, such as paying minimum wage or providing paid sick leave to its employees, as a condition of bidding on a contract."
Issues:
Comments
I think this also would stop
I think this also would stop us from being able to have contractors honor our anti-discrimination regulations including protections for the lBGTQ community. Pure meaness in this one.
Current practice/
Do our local governments currently include such requirements in procurement contracts/RFPs?
How does this apply?
How would this work? Certainly in a competitive bidding process, a municipality or county could favor (not "require") a vendor with a living wage policy. Or decide not to award a bid at all if they dont like the vendor's compensation policies. To me, this reads like any company has the right to "bid"- but the jursidiction retains the right to "award" the contract to whoever they please - including a vendor that has progressive employment policies. Am I missing something? Bonnie Hauser
Re: How does this apply?
The state's bidding rules apply mainly to construction/repair contracts of $500,000 or more and to purchase contracts for personal property of $90,000 or more. In general, the NC General Statutes require that such awards be made to the lowest bidder. So, local governments do not have a right to award these contracts to whomever they please.HB 74 deals with a different issue. Today, local governments may enter into service contracts and other agreements that fall outside the bidding rules described above. HB 74 would prohibit local governments from imposing conditions on the businesses with which they contract that they couldn't normally impose on businesses in the jurisdiction.
Threat of lawsuits
Local governments are pretty sensitive to that.